Matos v. Ortiz
| Citation | 144 A.3d 425,166 Conn.App. 775 |
| Decision Date | 12 July 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. 36895.,36895. |
| Court | Appellate Court of Connecticut |
| Parties | Samuel Da Silva MATOS v. Ana ORTIZ et al. |
Samuel da Silva Matos, self-represented, the appellant (plaintiff).
Johanna G. Zelman, with whom, on the brief, was Michael J. Rose, Hartford, for the appellee (named defendant).
DiPENTIMA, C.J., and GRUENDEL and SHELDON, Js.*
It is well established that a court may summarily enforce—within the framework of existing litigation—a clear and unambiguous settlement agreement reached during that litigation. Audubon Parking Associates Ltd. Partnership v. Barclay & Stubbs, Inc., 225 Conn. 804, 812, 626 A.2d 729 (1993) (Audubon ). We are now called upon to decide whether that power extends to the summary enforcement of agreements reached both outside the framework of and before the start of the litigation in which enforcement is sought.
The self-represented plaintiff, former teacher Samuel da Silva Matos, appeals from the judgment of the trial court summarily enforcing the Release and Separation Agreement he signed in 2012,1 upon resigning his position with the defendant Board of Education of the Town of Windham (board). As part of the Release and Separation Agreement, the plaintiff waived his right to sue the defendant board and its superintendent, defendant Ana Ortiz.2 When the plaintiff sued the defendants two years later, the court treated that contract, for Audubon purposes, as an agreement to settle pending litigation. The court therefore held a hearing, found that the contract was unambiguous and enforceable, and rendered judgment against the plaintiff, ending the litigation while it was still at the pleading stage. We conclude that Audubon does not countenance such a result. Rather, a settlement agreement is summarily enforceable under Audubon as an agreement to settle litigation only if the parties reached the agreement after commencing the relevant litigation.
Because the Release and Separation Agreement here fails that test, we reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand the case for further proceedings according to law.
The following facts, as found by the court or otherwise undisputed, are relevant here. The defendants hired the plaintiff in September, 2001, and assigned him teaching duties at the Windham Middle School. During the plaintiff's time at the middle school, he was a member of the local teachers union, the Windham Federation of Teachers.
On November 11, 2011, the defendants received a report from the assistant principal of the middle school that the plaintiff had touched a student on the face, making her uncomfortable. The matter was referred to the Department of Children and Families (department) for investigation, and the defendants simultaneously conducted an internal investigation.
On January 10, 2012, a department worker filed a report substantiating the allegations against the plaintiff for emotional neglect and recommending that he be placed on the department's child abuse and neglect central registry. Ultimately, more than one year later on March 12, 2013, a department hearing officer rejected that finding and recommendation. The hearing officer determined that the student had not been credible, that the evidence had not supported a finding that the plaintiff had touched her inappropriately, and that any possible violation by the plaintiff of the principal's directive not to touch students at all was a matter for the plaintiff's employer, not the department.
On February 28, 2012, on the basis of the initial, January, 2012 report substantiating the allegations against the plaintiff and on the defendants' internal investigation into the plaintiff's alleged violation of the principal's directive that he not touch students at all, the defendants notified the plaintiff that they were commencing termination proceedings against him under General Statutes § 10–151(d), the Teacher Tenure Act. On March 2, the plaintiff's union appointed attorney, Brian A. Doyle, asked the defendants for a statement of reasons why they had commenced termination proceedings against the plaintiff. The defendants sent such a statement to Doyle on March 12, 2012. In response to the statement of reasons, on March 15, 2012, the plaintiff requested a formal hearing before an impartial hearing officer, pursuant to § 10–151(d).
Ten days later, on March 25, 2012, the defendants' attorney sent Doyle a document entitled “RELEASE AND SEPARATION AGREEMENT.” The Release and Separation Agreement proposed a settlement of the defendants' termination proceeding against the plaintiff on the following terms: the plaintiff would resign immediately from his teaching position, effective June 30, 2012; he would have no teaching duties for the remainder of the school year; and he would never seek to work for the defendants again. The Release and Separation Agreement also included a lengthy release, providing that the plaintiff would “voluntarily [release] and forever [discharge] the Board, all of the Board's past, present and future members, employees, agents, attorneys, insurers, representatives, and any person acting on behalf of or in concert with any of them (collectively, Releasees), from any and all claims, demands, obligations, liabilities, causes of action, known or unknown, asserted and unasserted, and any claim for costs, attorney's fees, expenses or any form of damages whatsoever (including but not limited to liquidated and/or punitive damages, compensatory damages and/or damages for emotional distress) which [the plaintiff] has or may have against the Releasees arising out of or in any way connected with [the plaintiff's] employment or separation from employment....” The preface similarly stated that the plaintiff and the defendants “wish[ed] to resolve, compromise and finally settle ... any and all claims and potential claims [the plaintiff] may have related to his employment with the Board or separation from that employment....” A separate clause provided that the plaintiff would retain his right to file a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, but he would waive “the right to recover any damages or other relief in any claim or suit brought by or through” those agencies. Nowhere did the document specify any pending lawsuit that the plaintiff was withdrawing.3
In exchange, the Release and Separation Agreement provided that the defendants would put the plaintiff on a paid leave of absence for the last three months of the 2011–2012 school year, until June 30, 2012; would remove all documents referencing the plaintiff's proposed termination from his personnel file; and would not discuss the circumstances of the plaintiff's departure with prospective employers, if the plaintiff sought work elsewhere. On March 30, 2012, during a one-on-one meeting with Doyle at his law firm office, and after being advised to do so, the plaintiff signed the Release and Separation Agreement. It is unclear from the record if the plaintiff ever personally met with the defendants to discuss the Release and Separation Agreement before signing it.
It is undisputed that the plaintiff had no claims pending against the defendants in any court when he signed the Release and Separation Agreement. Nor is there any evidence that he had commenced any administrative actions against the defendants. The evidence before the court contained no indication that, when the plaintiff signed the Release and Separation Agreement, he was considering filing such claims, had investigated the facts underlying such claims, or had consulted with an attorney as to the legal merit of such claims.
Two years later, on January 22, 2014, the plaintiff filed the present action4 against the defendants, alleging that the defendants had forced him to resign from his job as a teacher through a four year campaign of harassment. The defendants filed two motions in response: (1) a motion to dismiss three of the five counts of the complaint for failure to exhaust administrative remedies;5 and (2) the “Motion to Enforce the Settlement Agreement” that is the subject of this appeal.
The second motion asked the court to enforce summarily the provision of the Release and Separation Agreement in which the plaintiff had agreed to release the defendants from any liability for the events surrounding his resignation. As authority for their motion, the defendants relied on Audubon Parking Associates Ltd. Partnership v. Barclay & Stubbs, Inc., supra, 225 Conn. at 812, 626 A.2d 729, in which our Supreme Court held that, where a party conceded that it had entered into an unambiguous, enforceable agreement to settle a pending case, but then reneged on that settlement agreement, the court could summarily enforce the agreement by rendering judgment upon it in the settled case in accordance with the settlement terms. The defendants here asked the trial court to hold an evidentiary “Audubon hearing” to decide whether summary enforcement of the Release and Separation Agreement was appropriate.
Soon after the defendants filed these motions, the court scheduled a hearing for March 31, 2014. One week before the hearing, the defendants moved to continue the “[e]videntiary [h]earing” on their motion to enforce the Release and Separation Agreement because two witnesses would not be available to testify. The court granted that motion on the day it was filed and set a new hearing date of April 14, 2014, ordering that: “All matters scheduled for March 31 are continued to short calendar of April 14, 2014.”
A few days after the court postponed the hearing, the plaintiff filed a “Motion in Limine” seeking to preclude any evidence of the Release and Separation Agreement and asking the court to “assist the plaintiff in his endeavor to get at all the material facts [of] this case via the discovery proceedings of the trial.” The plaintiff noted that the contract posed a...
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