Connecticut Supreme Court
Connecticut Supreme Court

In a decision that will be officially released next week, the Connecticut Supreme Court has, at last, ruled that punitive damages are not an available remedy for state law employment discrimination claims.

You may recall that I discussed the Appellate Court’s decision that had originally found the

Not every case can be a U.S. Supreme Court case filled with sweeping pronouncements on employment law.

Blowing the whistle on a notable court decision

Indeed, many times the law develops through under-reported cases that you’ll never hear about.  The pronouncements may not be sweeping on those cases, but those cases help clarify a point that had been left uncertain before then and may open the door to other arguments as well.

Take the case of Commissioner of Mental Health and Addiction Services v. Saeedi, a Connecticut Appellate decision (download here) that will be officially released on July 9th.

Its ostensibly a whistleblower case under Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 4-61dd, where — as part of the damages awarded to the whistleblower — the CHRO ordered agency personnel to undergo professional ethics training and to alter the personnel file of the employee.

But the court was asked to look at something greater: Under the state’s whistleblower statute, where the CHRO has the power to award “any other damages”, does that include equitable (or non-monetary) relief?

The Appellate Court, in reviewing the language of the statute and the legislative history, concluded “no”.  Thus, the ordering of training was improper under the statute. But notably, the court said that because the CHRO was empowered to order reinstatement, the altering of the personnel file was appropriate to achieve that result.

That conclusion is not entirely surprising.

But the Appellate Court goes on a bit further in language that employers may see again in the future and that opens the door a crack to arguments about whether the CHRO can award other relief (perhaps even emotional distress damages) in discrimination cases.  (For background, I’ve talked about the CHRO’s attempt to include emotional distress damages as part of the award of damages.)Continue Reading Appellate Court Limits Relief for Whistleblowers But Opens the Door in Discrimination Cases

A case out of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (of which, Connecticut is part of) addresses an interesting question:

When a jury  finds that sexual harassment has been perpetuated by a single employee, is injunctive (non-monetary) relief required to be issued by the District Court?

The EEOC argued yes and argued that remedies such as preventing the harassing employee from returning to the workplace were appropriate. 

Um, there’s a problem in Aisle 3.

The Second Circuit agreed in part, saying that ordinarily a termination of a lone harasser should be enough. But the court said that given the egrigious facts of this particular case, something more should’ve been done to protect the female employees from potential future harassment.

The case, EEOC v. KarenKim, Inc. (d/b/a Paul’s Big M Grocery), can be downloaded here. 

There’s a lot of facts to the case, but this summary, by the Outten & Golden Employment Law Blog, captures some of the salient points:

KarenKim is a grocery store whose employees largely consist of teenage female employees. The company is owned and managed by Karen Connors. In 2001, she hired Allen Manwaring as the store manager. In 2006, Connors and Manwaring became romantically involved and had a son together.

At trial, a number of current and former employees testified about Manwaring’s sexual harassment of the female employees, which consisted of verbal and physical harassment. Some of his verbal comments included making comments of a sexual nature to employees and compliments about parts of their body. He told one employee that if he was her boyfriend, he would never “let her out of his sheets” and that “if he was 10 years younger, he would be on top of her.” He also physically harassed the women by touching and massaging them in inappropriate ways and on a daily basis. He would brush up against them to deliberately touch their breasts, put his crotch against their buttocks, breath on their necks, hug them, and squeeze their hips.

Oy.Continue Reading What Remedy Is Appropriate When a Jury Concludes Sexual Harassment Occurred?

Suppose a former employee has breached your company’s covenant not to compete after she left employment.  Are you, the employer, entitled to get the non-compete period extended as a remedy for the breach?

Great question. And one that differs depending on the state.

A federal court in Connecticut (Aladdin Capital Holdings, LLC v. Donoyan

A few months ago, I reported on the District Court’s decision in Amara v. CIGNA, an important class-action case on ERISA retirement benefits and on alleged misrepresentations made by the Company about retirement benefits.  Over the last few months, then, the court was asked to consider the issue of what is appropriate relief from the