Epright v. Liberty Mutual Ins. Co.

Citations

• 349 Conn. 679

Syllabus

The plaintiff in error, B Co., a law firm that represented E in a civil action to recover underinsured motorist benefits from the defendant in error insurance company, L Co., filed a writ of error, claiming that the trial court had improperly imposed sanctions, which required B Co. to pay all of the costs related to L Co.'s retention of D, an orthopedic surgeon who had been retained and disclosed by L Co. to provide expert testi- mony in E's civil action. L Co. had disclosed in the civil action that D would opine that E's shoulder injury was not related to the underlying motor vehicle accident. During his deposition, however, D indicated that he could change his opinion if he learned certain additional facts. Subsequently, without informing L Co.'s counsel, B Co. scheduled an appointment for D to perform a medical examination on E and filed its own expert disclosure, indicating that E would call D as her own expert witness in the civil action and that D was expected to testify that E's shoulder injury was a direct result of the accident. After D's examination of E, B Co. sent L Co. a copy of D's medical report, in which D opined that E's shoulder injury was causally related to the accident. The trial court thereafter disqualified D from testifying at trial and, due to the purported violation of the rule of practice (§ 13-4) governing expert discovery, ordered B Co. to compensate L Co. for the expenses L Co. had incurred in retaining D for his expert services. Specifically, the trial court concluded that sanctions for the violation of a discovery order or rule were appropriate because Practice Book § 13-4 was clear, that rule was in fact violated, and the sanctions imposed were proportional to the violation at issue. This court transferred the writ of error to the Appellate Court, which reversed the trial court's order imposing sanctions on B Co. on the ground that § 13-4 did not clearly prohibit ex parte communications between an attorney and an opposing party's dis