Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency v. Jackson

Citations

• 333 Conn. 206

Syllabus

Pursuant to the alternative liability doctrine, when the conduct of two or more actors is tortious and it is proven that the plaintiff's injuries have been caused by only one of those actors but it is unclear which one, the burden of proving causation shifts from the plaintiff to each actor to prove that he did not cause those injuries. The plaintiff appealed from the trial court's judgment in favor of the defen- dants, three teenagers who had entered an abandoned mill in the town of Somers and discarded multiple cigarette butts without extinguishing them, thereby causing a fire that destroyed the mill and a sewage line in the mill's basement. While the defendants were exploring inside the mill for about forty-five minutes, each of them smoked approximately five cigarettes and discarded their unextinguished cigarettes by tossing them onto the mill's wooden floor. Experts later determined that the 333 Conn. 206 SEPTEMBER, 2019 207 Connecticut Interlocal Risk Management Agency v. Jackson likely cause of the fire was the defendants' careless disposal of the cigarettes. After the plaintiff paid the town for the cost of replacing the sewage line, it brought the present subrogation action against the defendants. The trial court granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment, concluding that the plaintiff could not prevail on the element of causation because it was unable to establish which of the defendants' cigarettes caused the fire. The trial court also declined the plaintiff's request to apply the alternative liability rule, reasoning that it would have the effect of significantly changing the negligence standards in this state and that adoption of the rule was a policy decision to be made by an appellate court or the legislature, none of which previously had endorsed the rule. On appeal, the plaintiff claimed that the trial court improperly failed to apply the alternative liability rule in granting the defendants' motions for summary judgment. Held that the pla