The mission of the Connecticut Judicial Branch is to serve the interests of justice and the public by resolving matters brought before it in a fair, timely, efficient and open manner.
AC42082 - RCN Capital, LLC v. Chicago Title Ins. Co. ("In this breach of contract action, the plaintiff, RCN Capital, LLC, appeals from the judgment of the trial court awarding it $108,000 in damages. On appeal, the plaintiff claims that the court improperly determined the amount of damages. We affirm the judgment of the trial court.")
AC42240 - Krausman v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. (Underinsured motorist coverage; "The plaintiff . . . filed this interlocutory appeal from the trial court's denial of her motion for an order compelling the defendant, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, to respond to interrogatories that she served pursuant to General Statutes § 52-351b. The plaintiff claims on appeal that the defendant was required by statute to answer the interrogatories and that the court improperly failed, as a matter of law, to grant her motion to compel. The defendant, in addition to disputing the merits of the plaintiff's claim, argues that the appeal should be dismissed for lack of a final judgment. We agree with the defendant that the court's ruling was an interlocutory discovery order in an ongoing civil action that is not immediately appealable because it neither terminated a separate and distinct proceeding nor deprived the plaintiff of a presently held statutory or constitutional right that would be irretrievably lost in the absence of immediate appellate review. See State v. Curcio, 191 Conn. 27, 31, 463 A.2d 566 (1983); see also Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. v. Ace American Reinsurance Co., 279 Conn. 220, 226–27, 901 A.2d 1164 (2006). Accordingly, we dismiss the appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.")
SC20000, SC20001, SC20003 - R.T. Vanderbilt Co., Inc. v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co. ("These certified appeals, which present us with several significant questions of insurance law, arise from coverage disputes between the plaintiff, R.T. Vanderbilt Company, Inc. (Vanderbilt), and the defendants, who are numerous insurance companies (insurer defendants) that issued primary and secondary comprehensive general liability insurance policies to Vanderbilt between 1948 and 2008, stemming from thousands of underlying lawsuits alleging injuries from exposure to industrial talc containing asbestos that Vanderbilt mined and sold. Vanderbilt and the insurer defendants appeal, upon our granting of their petitions for certification, from the judgment of the Appellate Court affirming in part and reversing in part numerous interlocutory decisions made by the trial court in connection with the first and second phases of a complex trial between the parties. R.T. Vanderbilt Co. v. Hartford Accident & Indemnity Co., 171 Conn. App. 61, 75–76, 156 A.3d 539 (2017). On appeal, the insurer defendants claim that the Appellate Court improperly (1) upheld the trial court's adoption of a 'continuous trigger' theory of coverage for asbestos related disease claims as a matter of law and the trial court's related preclusion of expert testimony on current medical science regarding the actual timing of bodily injury from such disease, (2) upheld the trial court's adoption of an 'unavailability of insurance' exception to the 'time on the risk' rule of contract law, which provides for pro rata allocation of defense costs and indemnity for asbestos related disease claims, and (3) interpreted pollution exclusion clauses in certain insurance policies as applicable only to claims arising from 'traditional' environmental pollution, rather than to those arising from asbestos exposure in indoor working environments. In its appeal, Vanderbilt claims that the Appellate Court improperly construed occupational disease exclusions present in certain policies as not limited to claims brought by Vanderbilt's own employees. Because we conclude that the Appellate Court's comprehensive opinion properly resolved these significant issues, we affirm the judgment of the Appellate Court.")
AC40864 - R & P Realty Co. v. Peerless Indemnity Ins. Co. ("The plaintiffs, R & P Realty Company and Unger's Floor Covering, Inc., appeal from the judgment of the trial court, following a court trial, rendered in favor of the defendant, Peerless Indemnity Insurance Company, on count one of their operative complaint sounding in breach of contract. On appeal, the plaintiffs claim that the trial court erred in concluding that the defendant did not breach the parties' casualty insurance policy by declining to pay for the increased costs of demolition resulting from the presence of asbestos and lead within the insured property, which the plaintiffs discovered after the defendant had remitted an initial insurance payout to which the parties agreed. We conclude that the record is inadequate for our review, and, accordingly, we decline to review the plaintiffs' claim and, thus, affirm the judgment of the trial court.")
AC40999 - Amica Mutual Ins. Co. v. Levine ("This declaratory
judgment action arises from an automobile crash that occurred in 2010 involving
the defendant, Michelle Levine. The defendant appeals from the trial court's rendering
of summary judgment in favor of the plaintiff, the Amica Mutual Insurance
Company. On appeal, the defendant claims that the trial court erred when it
concluded that (1) the provision in the plaintiff's automobile insurance policy
requiring the defendant to undergo an independent medical examination (IME) at
the plaintiff's request was not void as against public policy, (2) the
provision requiring the defendant to undergo an IME was reasonable and the
defendant's refusal to attend was unreasonable, (3) the defendant had breached
the policy's cooperation clause for failing to attend the IME because that
determination was predicated on an improper allocation of the burden of proof,
and (4) there was no issue of material fact as to whether the plaintiff properly
had reserved its rights to bring the present action. We disagree and, therefore,
affirm the judgment of the trial court.")