Rodriguez v. Hartford
Citations
- 224 Conn. App. 314
Syllabus
The plaintiff, as parent and next friend of her minor son, C, sought to recover damages from the defendants, the city of Hartford and D, the city forester, for injuries sustained by C when a tree fell on him while he was playing at a basketball court located in a city park. Eleven days before C was injured, D had visually inspected the tree at issue, which was located approximately twenty feet from the basketball court at the park. She determined that the tree did not constitute an immediate public hazard but designated the tree for removal by posting a sign on the tree allowing ten days for public comment, pursuant to a city ordi- nance (§ 26-11) and the statute (§ 23-59) governing the duties of tree wardens. The plaintiff's three count complaint included allegations of negligence against the city and D. The plaintiff alleged, inter alia, that the defendants were negligent in failing to adequately inspect the tree at issue and remove it. In their answer and special defenses, the defendants alleged that the plaintiff's negligence claims were barred by the doctrine of governmental immunity. Several months later, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that they were entitled to governmental immunity on the negligence claims because all of the allegations involved public duties that were discretionary as a matter of law. More than two years later, the plaintiff filed an objection to the motion for summary judgment wherein she argued that the defendants violated their ministerial duties as to the inspection and removal of the tree at issue. On that same day, the plaintiff also filed a request to amend her complaint, seeking to add one count asserting common-law recklessness, alleging the failure to conduct an inspection of the tree that fell on C. The plaintiff represented that her proposed new count of recklessness related back to her original complaint in that the factual basis for the claim of recklessness had not changed and the new claim merely
How courts have described this case
Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.
- recognizing the majority of federal courts “have employed the Fourth Amendment’s bedrock principle of reasonableness” when examining scope of search
- upholding search of all the files on a computer where the investigator specifically testified that, in his experience, suspects frequently mislabeled files
- upholding a search of all the files on a computer when the investigator specifically testified that, in his experience, suspects 13 frequently mislabeled files
- reiterating that “the chief purpose of the particularity requirement [is] to pre vent general searches by requiring a neutral judicial officer to cabin the scope of the search to those areas and items for which there exists probable cause that a crime has been committed”
- limiting the cross-examination of a witness’ prior sexual No. 20-5722 United States v. Clark Page 20 encounter with minors because they were “of peripheral relevance,” even in a child pornography case
- finding “no abuse of discretion in the district court’s denial of [defendant’s] motion to compel identification of evidence under Rule 16” where there was no evidence that the government acted in bad faith
Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).
Judges: Moll; Cradle; Bear
Read full opinion on CourtListenerSourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).
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