Jezouit v. Malloy

Citations

• 193 Conn. App. 576

Syllabus

The plaintiff brought this action against the defendant state officials, officers and employees, claiming that telephone calls he had made to them were unlawfully recorded because they failed to obtain his consent or to provide him with notice in violation of statute (§ 52-570d [a]) before recording the calls. The plaintiff sought, inter alia, to permanently enjoin the defendants and all state officials and employees from unlawfully recording telephonic communications in the conduct of state business. The trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss and rendered judgment thereon, concluding that § 52-570d did not waive sovereign immunity by force of necessary implication, and that the plaintiff's claim for injunctive relief failed because he did not make substantial allega- tions of wrongful conduct on the part of the defendants to promote an illegal purpose in excess of their statutory authority. On the plaintiff's appeal to this court, held: 1. The trial court properly granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the plaintiff's complaint on the ground that the defendants were immune from suit pursuant to the doctrine of sovereign immunity: a. The plaintiff could not prevail on his claim that because § 52-570d authorizes an aggrieved person to bring an action in the Superior Court, as does similar language in the statute (§ 17a-550) that provides remedies for violations of the patients' bill of rights, the only possible interpreta- tion of § 52-570d is that it impliedly waives sovereign immunity: unlike § 17a-550, which makes no distinction between patients of private and public mental health facilities, § 52-570d does not implicate a compelling public policy reason to provide those who have their telephonic commu- nications recorded in an illegal fashion by the government the same civil remedy as those who are recorded illegally by private parties and, thus, no language in § 52-570d required an interpretation that it impliedly waives sovereign immunity; mor