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Legal Briefs
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Business New Haven
9/7/1998
By: BNH
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Partying as a Part of the Job?
The Workers' Compensation Commission (WCC) has ruled that, under certain circumstances, attendance at an off-site social function can be 1) involuntary and 2) not recreational or social in purpose, thus subjecting the employer to liability. In O'Day v. New Britain General Hospital, the employee claimant was injured on her way home from a luncheon for a co-worker. The factors relied on by the WCC were that such events were planned during regular weekly work meetings; attendance at the events were considered by claimant's supervisor to be part of the “teamwork core value” in relation to claimant's performance review; the employer arranged for coverage necessitated by attendance at the events; and primarily work-related discussions prevailed at the events.
HIA Strikes Again
The Home Improvement Act (HIA), enacted to protect homeowners from unscrupulous contractors, has again been used to deny payment for services rendered. In Ferri v. Smith, Stamford superior court Judge Rodriguez decided that the plaintiff, doing business as Marc Woodworks, failed to comply with the HIA by 1) not registering as a home-improvement contractor, and 2) failing to include the terms required under the HIA in the contract. Ferri's main arguments - that the work was not subject to the HIA because of the nature of the work and the fact that the work was done in connection with a new home, which is exempt from the act - were dismissed by the judge in favor of the reasoning used by the Connecticut Supreme Court in the 1995 case of Rizzo Pool Co. v. DelGrosso. Rodriguez ruled that the relationship of Ferri's work to the construction of the new home in terms of three factors - timing specifications, performance contingencies and identity of contractors - was what controlled this case. As a result, Ferri could not collect neither under the contract nor seek relied under the theory that the homeowners would be unjustly enriched if they were not required to pay for the work.
CHRO Remains Newsworthy in Lawland
If a worker wants to sue in court for damages not available in a CHRO claim, does the worker still have to exhaust administrative remedies before filing in court? According to Judge Melville in the Fairfield judicial district at Bridgeport, the answer is yes - and no. In Denning v. Admarket International, the plaintiff brought a discrimination claim before the CHRO, which was dismissed. She then brought a lawsuit without seeking a release to sue from the CHRO or requesting that the CHRO reconsider its dismissal decision. The fact of the claim and its dismissal sufficed, in the judge's view, to exhaust her administrative remedies.
But suppose a CHRO decision dismisses an age discrimination claim for lack of sufficient evidence. Can the employer then introduce that finding, and/or the investigative file upon which it was based, in a subsequently filed federal action?
Not necessarily, according to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in Paolitto v. John Brown E.&C. Inc. In upholding the federal trial judge's exclusion of such evidence, the 2nd Circuit ruled that because the employer was permitted a full opportunity to present anew to the jury all evidence it had submitted to the CHRO, the defendant/employer was not prejudiced by the exclusion.
Welcome Back
After a two-decade absence from public service, Thayer Baldwin Jr. has been tapped by New Haven Mayor John DeStefano Jr. to fill the corporation counsel's post vacated by Patricia A. Cofrancesco in the aftermath of a loan scandal in June. Baldwin, who remembers the days when the corporation counsel's staffing levels were minimal (and part-time, to boot), believes that while the loan program problems clearly reveal a system in need of more effective checks and balances, the office as a whole operates satisfactorily. “There's no need for wholesale reform” in the corp counsel's office, Baldwin said. Let's hope he's right.
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