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· 1/9/2024

Lassen v. Hartford

Citations

  • 223 Conn. App. 285

Syllabus

The plaintiff, whose prior employment as a police officer with the defendant city of Hartford had been terminated, sought to recover damages from the city for, inter alia, its failure to rehire him as a police officer because of his disability, narcolepsy. The city had posted a job listing seeking applications from nonresidents of Hartford for a police officer position. Applicants were required to apply online and to include with their appli- cations a ''CHIP'' card signifying that they had successfully completed certain physical ability tests required of police officer candidates. The plaintiff, who was not a resident of Hartford, was among fifty-two appli- cants who did not submit a CHIP card with their applications and, thus, was determined by the city to be unqualified for the police officer position. In a two count complaint alleging violations of a provision (§ 46a-60) of the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act (§ 46a-51 et seq.), the plaintiff claimed that the city had discriminated against him on the basis of his disability and retaliated against him for having previously brought a lawsuit against the city in connection with the termination of his prior employment as a police officer. The city, which was aware at the time the plaintiff applied for the police officer position that he had been diagnosed with narcolepsy, moved for summary judg- ment, asserting that no genuine issue of material fact existed as to both counts of the plaintiff's complaint and that it was therefore entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The court granted the city's motion, conclud- ing that there was no genuine issue of material fact that the plaintiff had failed to establish a prima facie case of either disability discrimination or retaliation and that, even if he had established a prima facie case as to those claims, summary judgment was warranted on both counts because the city had articulated a legitimate, nondiscriminatory and nonretaliatory reason for its decision not

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

  • holding that earlier Title VII employment- discrimination suit barred later Section 1983 civil-rights suit alleging discriminatory practices in violation of equal protection
  • “[O]ne who has a choice of more than one remedy for a given wrong ... may not assert them serially, in successive actions, but must advance all at once on pain of bar.”
  • “it is black-letter law that res judicata, by contrast to narrower doctrines of issue preclusion, bars all claims that were or could have been advanced in support of the cause of action on the occasion of its former adjudication . . . not merely those that were adjudicated.”
  • “it is black-letter law that res judicata, by contrast to narrower doctrines of issue preclusion, bars all claims that were or could have been advanced in support of the cause of action on the occasion of its former adjudication . . . not merely those that were adjudicated.”
  • “it is black-letter law that res judicata, by contrast to narrower doctrines of issue preclusion, bars all claims that were or could have been advanced in support of the cause of action on the occasion of its former adjudication . . . not merely those that were adjudicated.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Judges: Cradle; Clark; Vertefeuille

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