Georges v. OB-GYN Services, P.C.

Citations

• 335 Conn. 669

Syllabus

The plaintiffs, L and L's minor daughter, G, sought damages for personal injuries that G had sustained allegedly as a result of the defendants' medical malpractice. Prior to trial, the plaintiffs filed an offer of compro- mise for $2 million, which the defendants did not accept. On October 28, 2016, the trial court accepted the jury verdict awarding the plaintiffs $4.2 million against both of the defendants. Subsequently, the plaintiffs filed a motion for statutory (§ 52-192a (c)) offer of compromise interest and for statutory (§ 37-3b) postjudgment interest. On November 28, 2016, evidently as a result of a clerical error, an entry was placed on the case docket, stating ''judgment on verdict for plaintiff.'' On December 12, 2016, the court awarded the plaintiffs both offer of compromise and postjudgment interest. On December 16, 2016, the defendants filed an appeal with the Appellate Court, challenging both the jury verdict and the trial court's awards of offer of compromise and postjudgment inter- est. The plaintiffs filed a timely motion to dismiss the appeal, claiming that the defendants had failed to file the appeal within twenty days of the date that judgment was rendered, as required by the rule of practice (§ 63-1 (a)) governing the time to appeal. The defendants filed an objec- tion to that motion, claiming that their appeal from the judgment ren- dered in accordance with the jury verdict was timely because they filed it within twenty days of the trial court's December 12, 2016 awards of offer of compromise and postjudgment interest. The defendants also filed a motion to suspend the rules of practice to permit the filing of a late appeal pursuant to the applicable rules of practice (§§ 60-2 (5) and 60-3), claiming, in the alternative, that there was good cause to permit the late appeal in light of the confusion in the trial court concerning the date the judgment was rendered. The Appellate Court dismissed as untimely that portion of the defendants' appeal ch