Ponns Cohen v. Cohen

Citations

• 342 Conn. 354

Syllabus

The plaintiff appealed from the trial court's judgment dissolving her marriage to the defendant. During the course of pretrial proceedings, the plaintiff failed to comply with certain of the trial court's standing trial manage- ment orders. As a result of numerous motions for continuances, discov- ery disputes and the plaintiff's failure to comply with the orders, the trial court held several hearings and status conferences during which the plaintiff repeatedly would attempt to speak to the court directly instead of through counsel. In response, the trial court would advise the plaintiff to speak through counsel and granted continuances to allow her to confer with counsel. Throughout trial, the plaintiff continued to fail to comply with trial management orders and failed to submit her more than 500 exhibits to the court in an organized fashion, in violation of the court's pretrial orders concerning the submission of exhibits. Ultimately, the trial court awarded the plaintiff approximately 50 percent of the marital assets but ordered the plaintiff to pay certain of the defendant's legal fees and imposed sanctions on her for her failure to comply with the court's orders regarding the submission of exhibits. On appeal, the plaintiff claimed that the trial court's judgment should be reversed because the court improperly had prejudged her credibility and displayed judicial bias. In support of her claim, the plaintiff referred to two sets of comments that the court had made during the course of the proceedings. Because neither the plaintiff nor her counsel objected to those comments, she sought to prevail on her unpreserved claim under the plain error doctrine. The first set of comments occurred during a telephonic conference when the court was in recess. During that conference, while the plaintiff and her counsel were on hold, the court could be heard on an audio recording saying ''I just am not [going to] have that stupid woman talk,'' and saying to the court clerk duri