NEMS, PLLC v. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care of Connecticut, Inc.

Citations

• 350 Conn. 525

Syllabus

The United States District Court for the District of Connecticut certified to this court, pursuant to statute (§ 51-199b (d)), three questions of law in connection with the efforts of the plaintiff, a group of emergency medicine physicians, to recover damages from the defendant health insurance com- pany for its alleged violations of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices witnesses. Connecticut Criminal Jury Instructions 2.1-2, available at https:// www.jud.ct.gov/ji/criminal/Criminal.pdf (last visited August 19, 2024). Con- necticut case law has recognized such a cautionary instruction for at least as long. See, e.g., State v. Rosario, 209 Conn. App. 550, 565–66, 267 A.3d 946, cert. denied, 342 Conn. 901, 270 A.3d 98 (2022); State v. Swilling, 180 Conn. App. 624, 644–45, 184 A.3d 773, cert. denied, 328 Conn. 937, 184 A.3d 268 (2018); State v. Fernandez, 169 Conn. App. 855, 874–75, 153 A.3d 53 (2016). For reasons not apparent from the record, however, the trial court's cautionary instruction did not contain a specific warning about the court's own questions, instead instructing only that its ''actions during the trial in ruling on motions or objections by counsel, or in comments to counsel or in setting forth the law in these instructions are not to be taken by you as any indication of [its] opinion as to how you should determine or resolve questions of fact.'' Although a cautionary instruction can sometimes prevent harm or prejudice from a party's or a trial court's actions, neither the majority nor the state can rely on such an instruction in the present case to counteract what, in my view, was the almost certain impact of the court's questions on the jurors. See, e.g., Filakosky v. Valente, 175 Conn. 192, 196, 397 A.2d 95 (1978) (cautionary instructions ''tend to remove any doubts that the court properly discharged its duty of leaving the jury free to determine the facts and draw [its] own conclusions therefrom'' (internal quotation marks omitted)). This case ori