Begley v. State

Citations

• 234 Conn. App. 820

Syllabus

The plaintiff state police trooper appealed from the trial court's judgment for the defendant R following the granting of R's motion for summary judgment on the plaintiff's complaint, which alleged that R had transferred the plaintiff from his job in a certain work unit in retaliation for having filed a report three years earlier about another officer's sexual harassment of a female officer. The plaintiff claimed that the court improperly concluded that no genuine issue of material fact existed as to whether he had established a prima facie case of retaliation. Held: The trial court properly rendered summary judgment for R, as the plaintiff failed to establish a factual basis connecting R to the alleged retaliatory transfer, in that it was undisputed that R did not see the report until his deposition in this matter, that the plaintiff had not discussed the report with R or had any dealings at all with R, and the plaintiff's assertion that retaliatory animus on the part R could be inferred from an order that was given to another police unit to stop cooperating with the plaintiff's work unit was merely speculative, the plaintiff having presented no evidence that it was the defendant, rather than another supervisor, who gave the order or that the plaintiff was the target of the alleged retaliatory animus. Argued June 4—officially released September 2, 2025