Desmond v. Yale-New Haven Hosp., Inc.

• Decision Date: 17 April 2018
• Docket Number: AC 39157
• Citation: 185 A.3d 665,181 Conn.App. 201
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: Sandhya DESMOND v. YALE–NEW HAVEN HOSPITAL, INC., et al.

181 Conn.App. 201

185 A.3d 665

Sandhya DESMOND

v.YALE–NEW HAVEN HOSPITAL, INC., et al.

AC 39157

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued January 30, 2018

Officially released April 17, 2018

Eric M. Desmond, New Haven, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Phyllis M. Pari, New Haven, with whom was Angelica L. Mack, for the appellees (defendants).

Sheldon, Keller and Bright, Js.

SHELDON, J.

The plaintiff, Sandhya Desmond, appeals from the judgment of the trial court dismissing her complaint against the defendants, Yale–New Haven Hospital, Inc. (hospital), and Yale–New Haven Health Services, Inc., alleging statutory theft, common-law fraud, violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA), General Statutes § 42–110a et seq., breach of contract, and statutory negligence. The plaintiff claims that the court improperly (1) determined that it lacked jurisdiction over her claim for statutory theft because the exclusivity provision of the Workers' Compensation Act (act), General Statutes § 31–275 et seq., barred her from bringing such a claim in the Superior Court, and (2) denied her request for leave to amend her complaint to add a claim for retaliatory discrimination pursuant to General Statutes § 31–290a. We affirm in part and reverse in part the judgment of the trial court.¹

This court set forth the following undisputed factual and procedural history in an earlier appeal brought by this plaintiff, Desmond v.Yale–New Haven Hospital, Inc. , 138 Conn. App. 93, 50 A.3d 910 ( Desmond I ), cert. denied, 307 Conn. 942, 58 A.3d 258 (2012). "At all times relevant to this appeal, the plaintiff was an employee of the hospital. On December 30, 2004, she was injured in the course of her employment. According to the plaintiff, she suffered a spill-related fall while at work and subsequently was diagnosed with bilateral, acute post-traumatic carpal tunnel injuries. Her physicians have advised her that, absent medical treatment, she permanently will be unable to use her hands.

"Subsequently, she filed a workers' compensation claim with regard to her injury, and the defendants accepted the claim. On March 6, 2008, she filed a federal action in United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, in which she alleged various claims under state law and the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. On March 23, 2009, the District Court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss as to the plaintiff's state law claims, allowing the action to proceed only on her claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

"On May 20, 2010, the plaintiff filed in the Superior Court the operative complaint in th[is] ... case. The complaint contained ten counts, alleging against each of the defendants workers' compensation fraud, statutory negligence, breach of contract, unfair and deceptive acts and practices in violation of CUTPA and delay in the delivery of benefits under the act in violation of the plaintiff's state constitutional right to due process. The complaint alleged that the defendants had made various filings with the [W]orkers' [C]ompensation [C]ommission (commission) in a bad faith and fraudulent attempt to delay treatment. The complaint alleged that these bad faith attempts to delay treatment caused the plaintiff's condition to worsen, as she did not receive necessary treatment.

"On June 7, 2010, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss, alleging that the exclusivity provision of the act barred the action and that the plaintiff had failed to exhaust her administrative remedies under the act. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss on December 16, 2010. Relying on our Supreme Court's decision in DeOliveira v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. , 273 Conn. 487, 870 A.2d 1066 (2005), the court held that the plaintiff's claims did not allege conduct that was sufficiently egregious to remove the claims from the exclusive jurisdiction of the commission. The plaintiff filed ... [an] appeal on January 20, 2011." Desmond I , supra, 138 Conn. App. at 95–96, 50 A.3d 910.

On appeal in Desmond I , "the plaintiff claim[ed] that the court improperly held that it lacked jurisdiction over her claims because the exclusivity provision of the act barred her from bringing an action in the Superior Court. The plaintiff argue[d] that the court erroneously determined that its analysis was controlled by DeOliveira ... and, instead, maintain[ed] that General Statutes § 31–290c establishes a civil cause of action over which the commission lacks jurisdiction. In the alternative, the plaintiff argue[d] that, if DeOliveira d[id] apply and actions under § 31–290c ordinarily must be brought before the commission, the [trial] court improperly held that the present case did not involve egregious conduct that warranted an exception from the general rule of exclusivity." Id., at 96–97, 50 A.3d 910.

This court rejected both of the plaintiff's arguments, holding that it was "clear that the plaintiff's claimed injuries allegedly caused by the defendants' bad faith delays in medical treatment, arose out of and in the course of the workers' compensation claims process" and thus that those injuries "fall within the jurisdiction of the commission." Id., at 102, 50 A.3d 910. This court further held that even if the plaintiff's allegations were afforded "their most damaging interpretation, the defendants' conduct was not on the level of egregious behavior that ... could provide an exception to the exclusivity provision." Id., at 103, 50 A.3d 910. Accordingly, this court affirmed the judgment of the trial court dismissing the plaintiff's action in Desmond I .

On October 3, 2013, the plaintiff filed her amended complaint in the present action, wherein she again set forth ten counts against the defendants, claiming statutory theft, common-law fraud, violation of CUTPA, breach of contract and statutory negligence. The defendants moved to strike all of the plaintiff's claims on the ground, inter alia, that they are barred by the exclusivity provision of the act, and thus that the trial court had no jurisdiction over them. The plaintiff filed an objection, arguing, inter alia, that her claims were not barred by the exclusivity of the act.²

On August 25, 2014, the court, Nazzaro, J. , heard oral argument on the defendants' motion and the plaintiff's objection thereto. By way of memorandum of decision filed on November 26, 2014, the court granted the defendants' motion to strike the plaintiff's entire complaint on the ground that all of the plaintiff's claims fell within the exclusive jurisdiction of the commission. The court reasoned that the alleged misconduct of the defendants, which the court found to be "identical to that alleged in Desmond [I ]... but for the addition of some conduct by the defendants postdating the prior suit," was not so egregious to invoke the exception to exclusivity.

The plaintiff did not appeal from the trial court's ruling striking her complaint.

Rather, on December 11, 2014, pursuant to Practice Book § 10–44, the plaintiff, in her view, as advanced before this court, filed a substitute complaint "in an effort to plead additional facts and to amplify the allegations such that viability of the ... [General Statutes] § 52–564 [statutory theft] claim (and associated claims) would be sufficient to allow the claim to proceed to the merits."

On February 5, 2015, the plaintiff filed a request for leave to amend her substitute complaint, pursuant to Practice Book § 10–60, to incorporate a claim for retaliatory discrimination pursuant to General Statutes § 31–290a. The defendants filed an objection to the plaintiff's request for leave to amend on two grounds. First, the defendants argued that the proposed addition of a § 31–290a claim was untimely and prejudicial. Second, the defendants argued that the proposed addition of a § 31–290a claim was futile because she already had asserted such a claim to the commission, and thus she was barred from bringing it again in an action before the court. On April 23, 2015, the court, Nazzaro, J. , denied the plaintiff's request for leave to amend, and sustained the defendants' objection thereto, stating: "The amendment is improper. See court's previous ruling on [the defendants'] motion to strike."

On May 4, 2015, the plaintiff filed a motion for reargument and reconsideration.³ The court heard reargument on June 22, 2015, and issued a memorandum of decision on October 7, 2015, denying reconsideration of its denial of the plaintiff's request for leave to amend.

On May 7, 2015, the defendants filed a request to revise the plaintiff's substitute complaint, which she had filed on December 11, 2014. The defendants sought to have the plaintiff's entire substitute complaint deleted because the allegations of the substitute complaint were substantially similar to those contained in the plaintiff's previously stricken complaint and the allegations added to the substitute complaint failed to cure the deficiencies of the earlier complaint.

On June 8, 2015, the plaintiff filed two separate objections to the defendants' request to revise. In one of her objections, she argued that the court "simply lacked the authority" to strike her § 52–564 claim on the basis of exclusivity because the allegations set forth in her December 11, 2014 complaint were sufficiently egregious that the defendant's alleged conduct that "bears no rational relation to a legitimate challenge to the plaintiff's workers' compensation claim; is not activity intrinsic to the workers' compensation claims process; and is conduct that is separate and apart from nonpayment of benefits." The plaintiff further argued: "[B]y the factual allegations pled, it should be understood, to the extent exclusivity might apply to certain conduct, that the defendants either (a) intended both the acts alleged and the injurious consequences of those acts or (b) intended the acts alleged and knew that the injury/injuries sustained was/were substantially certain to occur. The...