King v. Volvo Excavators AB

Syllabus

The plaintiff, individually and on behalf of the estate of K, sought to recover damages pursuant to the Connecticut Product Liability Act (§ 52-572m et seq.) in connection with a fatal workplace accident. The plaintiff alleged that K had sustained fatal injuries when the bucket of an excava- tor became dislodged and fell on him while he was acting within the scope of his employment. The defendants, the designer and manufac- turer, the distributor, and a prior owner of the excavator, filed motions for summary judgment, claiming, inter alia, that the plaintiff's claims against them were barred by the act's ten year statute of repose (§ 52- 577a [a]). While those motions were pending, the legislature passed an amendment to § 52-577a (P.A. 17-97) removing certain statutory language that previously had prevented employees entitled to workers' compensa- tion from invoking an exception to the ten year statute of repose set forth in § 52-577a (a) for product liability claims. Following that amendment, employees, like other claimants, could avoid the ten year statute of repose by demonstrating that the harm occurred during the useful safe life of the product. In granting the defendants' motions for summary judgment, the trial court concluded that P.A. 17-97 was not retroactive and that the plaintiff's action was barred by the preamendment version of § 52-577a because there was no genuine issue of material fact as to whether the defendants had possession of or control over the excavator or the part that attached the bucket thereto in the ten years prior to the plaintiff's commencement of the present action. The trial court rendered judgment in favor of the defendants, and the plaintiff appealed. Held that the trial court improperly granted the defendants' motions for summary judgment, this court having concluded that P.A. 17-97 applied retroactively: although the plaintiff was initially unable to raise the issue of retroactivity in opposing summary judgment because P.A. 17-97