Prescott v. Gilshteyn

Citations

• 227 Conn. App. 553

Syllabus

The plaintiff filed an application for a prejudgment remedy and a verified complaint in which she sought to recover damages from the defendant for assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and intimi- dation based on bigotry or bias. The plaintiff, a Black woman who suffered from multiple sclerosis, was attending a protest at the Capitol building in January, 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, to demonstrate her support of the Black Lives Matter movement. The defendant, a white woman, approached the plaintiff and, inter alia, asked her about ''Black on Black'' crime. After a brief exchange of words between the parties, the defendant spat directly into the plaintiff's face. During the hearing on her application, the plaintiff, inter alia, introduced testimony from G, a professor of criminology and social justice, as an expert on issues related to racism and social justice. The trial court granted the application, and the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court did not err in awarding the plaintiff a prejudgment remedy of $75,000 in emotional distress damages; the plaintiff's testimony that she experienced severe emotional distress and humiliation as a result of being spat on, that the experience reawakened trauma of a past sexual assault, and that she had increased concerns that she might contract COVID-19, which could worsen her multiple sclerosis symp- toms, afforded a reasonable basis for the prejudgment remedy. 2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting G's expert testi- mony: pursuant to the standard set forth in Weaver v. McKnight (313 Conn. 393) for the admission of nonscientific evidence, the court found that G had special knowledge that was directly applicable to the matter at issue, his testimony offered the court a historical and sociological perspective on race and racism that would not have been within the knowledge of the average person, and his testimony providing context for how the de