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CONNECTICUT LAW |
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MAY 2009 - Connecticut Appellate Court Holds That Penal Act Exclusion Negated Coverage For Stalking Claim In Wilderman v. Powers, 110 Conn.App. 819, 956 A.2d 613 (2008), the Connecticut Appellate Court held that a penal act exclusion in a homeowner’s policy negated coverage for a claim that the insured surrepticiously photographed a neighbor while she was partially clothed. The policy provided coverage for liability for personal injury which was defined to include invasion of privacy. The policy had an exclusion which negated coverage for “injury caused by a violation of a penal law or ordinance committed by or with the knowledge or consent of an insured....” The Wildemans filed suit against the insured, Powers, alleging that he had photographed Lisa Wildeman while she was partially clothed, and alleging that his conduct caused her to suffer emotional distress and her husband to suffer loss of consortium. Powers pled guilty to a criminal charge of disorderly conduct and he admitted at his deposition in the civil case that the charge included his photographing activities. In these circumstances, the court held that the penal act exclusion negated coverage for the claims that the Wildermans asserted against Powers. June 2008 June 2008 - CT SUPREME COURT REVERSES VERDICT AGAINST GENERAL CONTRACTOR The Connecticut Supreme Court has held that a general contractor did not have a non-delegable duty to inspect the welds created by a steel subcontractor. As a result the court reversed a $41,417,065 judgment against the general contractor, and ordered judgment for the general contractor. See Pelletier v, Sordoni/Skanska Construction Company, 2008 WL 1722013 (Conn). The bodily injured plaintiff was an employee of Berlin Steel Construction Company (“Berlin Steel”), a structural steel fabrication and erection subcontractor on a project for Pitney Bowes. He was injured when a weld failed, causing a crossbeam to strike him. He and his wife filed suit against Sordoni, the general contractor on the project, alleging that it had a duty to inspect the defective weld. The jury found for the plaintiffs, and Sordoni appealed. The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the building code did not impose a non-delegable duty on the general contractor to inspect the welds of the steel subcontractor. Instead, it was permissible for the general contractor to delegate that task to the steel fabricator. Sordoni was not liable in this case because it had, in fact, subcontracted the inspection work to Berlin Steel. Furthermore, no other statutes required Sordoni to conduct the inspections itself. The court also concluded that common law negligence principles did not impose on Sordoni a duty to inspect the weld. It was not reasonably foreseeable that the plaintiff would be hurt because a weld was not inspected, considering that Berlin Steel was contractually obligated to ensure that welds were performed in accordance with specifications, Berlin Steel was required to retain an independent inspection agency to inspect the welds, and Sordoni itself had retained an expert to conduct random inspections. Furthermore, Berlin Steel, not Sordoni, had control over the welding and inspection process. |
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