Berger v. Bristol

Syllabus

The plaintiff appealed from the trial court's judgment rendered after its granting of the defendants' motion for summary judgment on her complaint asserting a claim pursuant to the municipal highway defect statute (§ 13a- 149), for personal injuries she sustained when she fell at the defendant city's transfer station. She claimed that the court improperly concluded that the walkway where she fell did not constitute a public highway for the purposes of § 13a-149. Held: The trial court did not err in granting the defendants' motion for summary judgment, as, pursuant to Read v. Plymouth (110 Conn. App. 657), because the transfer station was accessible only to the defendant's residents who had purchased a permit and, therefore, was confined to a group whose eligibility was gauged by predetermined criteria, it lacked the essential feature that would qualify it as open to public use and, thus, the plaintiff's claim did not fall within the purview of § 13a-149. Argued April 16—officially released June 10, 2025