Brass Mill Center, LLC v. Subway Real Estate Corp.

Citations

• 214 Conn. App. 379

Syllabus

The plaintiff shopping mall sought indemnification from the defendant A Co., a security company it contracted with to provide security services to the mall property, including crime prevention. The plaintiff had incurred economic losses as a result of a separate wrongful death action brought against it by the administrator of the estate of a pedestrian who had been struck and killed while crossing the roadway surrounding the mall while on her way to work in the mall. The wrongful death action alleged that the plaintiff's negligence caused the collision by, inter alia, its design of the mall's parking lots and roads and its failure to implement various traffic calming measures. The plaintiff demanded defense and indemnifi- cation from A Co. in connection with the wrongful death action; A Co. denied the plaintiff's demand, explaining that A Co. was not responsible for the design of the roadway or the absence of traffic calming measures. The plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment in the indemnification action, asserting that, inter alia, A Co. had a contractual duty to defend and indemnify the plaintiff in connection with the wrongful death action, and A Co. filed a cross motion for summary judgment. The trial court denied A Co.'s motion, granted the plaintiff's motion as to liability and awarded damages to the plaintiff. On A Co.'s appeal to this court, held that the trial court erred in granting the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and denying A Co.'s motion for summary judgment, as A Co. was entitled to judgment in its favor as a matter of law: A Co.'s obligation to defend the plaintiff was not triggered by the wrongful death action, as the wrongful death action did not contain allegations of negligence or other conduct that even arguably fell within the scope of A Co.'s contractual responsibilities to provide security services, and the court erroneously conflated the allegations in the wrongful death action regarding traffic control with A Co.'s contr