Cookish v. Commissioner of Correction

Citations

• 337 Conn. 348

Syllabus

The petitioner, who had been convicted, on a guilty plea, of the crime of unlawful sexual contact in the first degree, filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, seeking to have his guilty plea withdrawn or vacated. A clerk of the court granted the self-represented petitioner's application duty under the state and city pursuit policies, we need not consider the plaintiff's claims that (1) beyond emergency operation in accordance with § 14-283, the state traffic statutes impose ministerial obligations, and (2) as a corollary, nonemergency operation of a motor vehicle is not a discretionary act. See Borelli v. Renaldi, supra, 336 Conn. 5 (specifically declining to ''address the question of whether governmental immunity applies to routine driving of emergency response vehicles by municipal actors''). This is partic- ularly so given that a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether Curry had activated her emergency lights and sirens and engaged in the emergency operation of her cruiser at the time of the collision. See footnote 4 of this opinion. Because the Statewide Policy, the General Order, and Maldonado's testimony were sufficient to establish the existence of a minis- terial duty in this case, we need not consider further this issue concerning the effect of the state traffic statutes to establish a ministerial duty in this case. But see Daley v. Kashmanian, 193 Conn. App. 171, 187–89, 219 A.3d 499 (2019) (concluding that Hartford police officer engaging in surveillance operations in ''soft car'' lacking lights and sirens was engaged in discretionary act and did not have ministerial duty to comply with motor vehicle statutes but ''declin[ing] to hold that, under all circumstances, a municipal police officer operating a motor vehicle is engaged in discretionary conduct, thereby immunizing the officer and municipality from damages arising from all violations of motor vehicle statutes'' (emphasis in original)), cert. granted, 335 Conn. 939, 237 A.3d 1 (202