Duso v. Groton

Citations

• 228 Conn. App. 390

Syllabus

The defendant town appealed from the trial court's judgment declaring that, pursuant to a pension agreement between the defendant and a police union, the plaintiffs, all retirees who formerly had been employed by the defendant, were entitled to the same deductible contribution payments to their health savings accounts as those received by the defendant's active employees. The defendant claimed, inter alia, that, in making its determination, the trial court misinterpreted the language of a collective bargaining agreement between the defendant and the union. The plaintiffs cross appealed from the trial court's judgment denying their motion for sanctions. Held: The trial court had subject matter jurisdiction over the action because the plaintiffs satisfied the requirements for demonstrating standing, as it was clear that they were intended third-party beneficiaries of the pension agree- ment, and that their claims were ripe. The trial court properly denied the defendant's motion to strike the complaint because the defendant failed to establish that the police union was a neces- sary party to the action. The trial court correctly determined that the defendant's payment of a certain percentage of the annual deductible for its group health insurance plan to the health savings accounts of only its active employees contravened the terms of the pension agreement because the effect of such payments was that the plaintiffs did not receive the same nature and scope of health care coverage as the active employees. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in awarding the plaintiffs damages, as the evidence supported the trial court's rejection of the defendant's request that it offset the award by the amount of the increase in health insurance premiums that the plaintiffs would have incurred had they received the deductible contributions to their health savings accounts. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in declining to award attorney's fees to the plaintiffs as a