Connecticut Appellate Court, Hartford, Connecticut
HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT — A defense lawyer’s failure to file a motion in time means a Connecticut home for the disabled is on the hook for a $10 million jury verdict over a patient’s death.
Connecticut Institute for the Blind, also known as Oak Hill, was sued by Kathleen Case seven years after her son died in 2016. She accused the home’s employees of failing to monitor him as he slept with a breathing mask and failing to provide adequate care after he was found nonresponsive.
A jury awarded her $10 million, including $6 million in punitive damages, after a trial in 2024. With interest, the verdict soared past $14 million.
Oak Hill appealed the judgment but the Connecticut Appellate Court refused to reverse it, ruling the home’s lawyers had failed to submit a motion to set aside the verdict within the 10-day deadline. The home argued on appeal they had made an oral motion with the judge after the close of arguments and after the verdict and believed the judge had taken it under consideration.
What the home’s lawyers thought doesn’t matter, the appellate court ruled in a Sept. 15 decision by Judge Melanie Cradle, who has since been advanced to the Connecticut Supreme Court. The lawyer’s failure to file a written motion within the 10-day deadline and before the plaintiff moved to make the judgement final “is inexplicable,” she wrote.
“Although the court scheduled the filing of briefs on the plaintiff’s motion for judgment to be filed by that date, it is unclear why the defendant would not immediately have filed a motion for permission to file a late motion to set aside,” the appellate judge wrote.
The plaintiff’s lawyers rested on March 12, 2024, and the defendant’s lawyer made an oral request for directed verdict for lack of evidence, which the trial judge delayed until after the jury returned their verdict. After the verdict was entered on March 20, defense counsel reminded the judge of the motion for directed verdict. The judge said “I will advise you as to when” he would take up the motion. But the defense didn’t file a written motion until May 3, long after the 10-day deadline had expired.
At an April 12 hearing, the defense lawyer again reminded the judge about the oral motion made at the close of trial, but the judge said he had denied it at the time and there was no way to revive it now. In a May filing, the defense said they “reasonably and in good faith believed” that the judge was considering the oral motion and would schedule a hearing to address it. The judge rejected the request.
“Even if the court considered the defendant’s verbal ‘reminder’ that the court had reserved judgment on ‘several motions’ as a renewal of those motions—which is a generous interpretation of counsel’s statement, to say the least—the renewal was made orally” and didn’t comply with the rules, the judge said.
The appeals court said it couldn’t act on any of the other defense motions, including that punitive damages weren’t merited, because all those arguments had been waived by the failure to challenge the verdict in time.
Oak Hill is a private rehabilitative institute affiliated with Easter Seals. The home was represented by Brenand Levesque and David G. Hill, while the plaintiff was represented by James J. Healy.
