CONNECTICUT CHILD CUSTODY ATTORNEY

The trial court properly held in a motor vehicle accident personal injury case that an insurer is entitled to a reduction of its limits of liability for uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage by an amount equal to the sum of punitive damages paid to the insured.

Connecticut law requires that judges, including divorce court judges, issue their decisions within 120 days. As the 120 day period begins to run from the time that the parties file post-trial briefs or other material that the judge finds necessary to make a well reasoned decision, the judge’s decision in this divorce case was timely because the judge heard additional evidence, after the trial, based on an incident that occurred before the decision was issued.

In a personal injury motor vehicle accident case, an injured person who was awarded $20,000 in an arbitration involving the driver at fault could not make a claim against the underinsured motorist provision of his own automobile insurance policy, which had a limit of $20,000, because the amount of money he was entitled to had been determined by the arbitrator, resulting in collateral estoppel.

The trial court properly denied a request by the defendant’s criminal attorney to have the defendant, who had a bad knee due to an accident, perform the heel to toe and one leg stand DUI field sobriety tests in front of the jury as an in court demonstration would not have reliably recreated how the defendant performed the tests on the night in question.

The workers’ compensation commissioner properly held that a nurse who fell on ice in a patient’s driveway was totally disabled from work, even though her treating doctors said she was limited to sedentary work. The commissioner reasonably and logically could have concluded that the nurse's testimony that she was unable to sit for long periods, stand for long periods, repeatedly get up from a chair, twist, lift or drive, combined with the pain associated with her condition, rendered her temporarily totally incapacitated from work.

It was error for a divorce court, during a hearing on a motion for contempt regarding alimony and child support, to rule on a motion for modification of alimony and support that had been filed, even though the judge stated that the evidence for both motions would essentially be the same, as the judge had told the attorneys that he would only hear the motion for contempt.

The workers’ compensation commissioner properly held that a nurse who fell on ice in a patient’s driveway was totally disabled from work, even though her treating doctors said she was limited to sedentary work. The commissioner reasonably and logically could have concluded that the nurse's testimony that she was unable to sit for long periods, stand for long periods, repeatedly get up from a chair, twist, lift or drive, combined with the pain associated with her condition, rendered her temporarily totally incapacitated from work.

O’Connor v. Med-Center Home Health Care, Inc.

In a personal injury case involving a car that hit a town’s fire truck blocking an interstate highway at an accident scene, the town could be held liable in nuisance for the injuries suffered by the driver of the car even though the state and not the town was responsible for maintaining the highway in good condition.

A homeowner’s liability insurance company was not required to cover a personal injury claim arising from a car accident caused by a drunk driver who had been drinking while working at the homeowner’s residence.

A divorced mother of six children could pursue a motion for contempt for back child support and alimony, even though she waited four years after the child support order ended and two years after the alimony order entered. The divorce court properly held that her delay was not unreasonable as she testified that she was busy raising the children and putting them through high school and college, with no or little help from the father, to have accurately calculated how much child support and alimony had been paid to her.

A jury can reasonably find a defendant guilty of sexual assault on the basis of the victim’s testimony alone.

Where a divorce agreement required one party to provide proof that he had notified his lawyer to withdraw a lawsuit in another country, the divorce court could not require the party to take additional measures to have the lawsuit withdrawn. The divorce court was limited to enforcing what the divorce agreement called for.

In a criminal case in which the defendant’s lawyer told the judge before the trial began that the defendant had previously stated he no longer wanted the lawyer to represent him and the defendant then told the judge he was ready to go forward with the lawyer representing him, the judge did not violate the defendant’s state and federal right to an attorney of his choice by not questioning the defendant further about the issue of representation.

In a personal injury case involving a car accident, the court correctly ruled that because the owner of the vehicle had provided the vehicle for his son’s use and the son had given a friend permission to drive the vehicle while the son rode as a passenger, the vehicle’s owner was liable for injuries caused by the friend’s negligence in going through a stop sign.

In a combined personal injury and workers’ compensation case, the workers’ compensation commissioner has no jurisdiction to consider what part of a personal injury settlement has been paid to a spouse for a loss of consortium claim when determining how much reimbursement should be paid to the workers’ compensation insurance company from the personal injury settlement.

When a divorce court enters an unallocated order of child support and alimony, the court must first calculate how much child support should be according to the guidelines, then find that an order pursuant to the guidelines would not be appropriate, and then state that the unallocated order is a justified deviation for one of the reasons specified in the child support guidelines.

An individual who was injured in an accident when he slipped and fell on ice on a driveway during a nature walk held in a state park was limited to bringing a personal injury lawsuit based on liability for defective premises. The individual could not bring a law suit claiming negligence on the part of a volunteer group that assisted with the nature walk.

In a personal injury case involving a fatal electrocution, a company hired to provide emergency communication services was found to have negligently caused the death by failing to relay a message to the power company about a downed power line. However, the communication company had the right to be reimbursed by the power company because the power company failed to deenergize the line after receiving another message that the line was down.

A criminal conviction for unlawful restraint was reversed because the victim’s running away demonstrated that there was no restraint.

Although a landlord who is not the keeper or owner of a dog would not be liable under the dog bite statute for personal injury caused by a tenant’s dog, the landlord may be liable in negligence if the landlord knew or should have known that the dog was vicious.

Giacalone v. Housing Authority of Wallingford

The workers’ compensation commissioner properly allowed a case to go forward regarding an employee who had a fatal heart attack on the job even though the case was filed almost two years after the death. The commissioner properly rejected an argument by the employer’s lawyer that Connecticut workers compensation law allowed only one year to file a claim if the employee died on the day of the accident or injury.

In a drunk driving (DUI / DWI) criminal case, no Miranda warnings, such as the right to remain silent, are required when a police officer asks a driver suspected of driving drunk whether he or she will take a breathalyzer or other blood alcohol test. At a trial for drunk driving, the driver’s refusal to take an alcohol test is admissible into evidence.

A “sunset” clause in the parties’ prenuptial agreement that the agreement automatically ended at a certain date was still enforceable, even though the divorce case was filed before that date, because the case was still pending in divorce court on that date. A prenuptial agreement with a sunset clause is not against public policy on the theory that it encourages parties to file for divorce.