Hernandez v. Anderson

Erwin HERNANDEZ v. Henry ANDERSON

No. FSTCV186038427S

Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of Stamford-Norwalk, Stamford

July 1, 2019

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

OPINION

POVODATOR, JTR.

This is a lawsuit arising from a somewhat bizarre and tragic series of events. At the time of the accident, the plaintiff was an employee of a restaurant, Table 104, located on Long Ridge Road in Stamford. Defendant Anderson was a patron of the restaurant, driving a modified vehicle. To the extent that the term "modified" is nonspecific, in this case it refers to modification of controls, enabling a driver with a disability/handicap that might otherwise prevent him from driving a non-modified vehicle, to operate the vehicle as modified.

Upon arrival at the restaurant, defendant Anderson entrusted his vehicle to defendant Daniel Teclechiel, a valet attendant at (and employed by) the restaurant. While driving the vehicle within the restaurant parking lot, defendant Daniel Teclechiel either lost control or was unable to control the vehicle, as the vehicle collided with a parked car and then crashed into the restaurant building itself, causing severe injuries (including eventual amputation of part of his leg) to the plaintiff who had been working inside the restaurant.

The most recent version of the complaint^[1] asserts claims of negligence directed to the owner of the vehicle, the valet/operator of the vehicle (General Statutes § 31-293a authorizing suit against a fellow employee arising from operation of a motor vehicle), and just recently added, the installer of the modified operating controls. These claims of negligence are not being challenged by the pending motion to strike.

The plaintiff also has asserted a claim of recklessness directed to the owner of the vehicle, and the defendant owner has moved to strike that count, based on a claim of legal insufficiency. The defendant owner contends that the allegations of the recklessness count do not assert factual claims that could rise to the level of recklessness if proven, such that that count should be stricken.

The standards for a motion to strike are sufficiently well-established that they do not need to be recited in detail. See, e.g., Strano v. Azzinaro, 188 Conn.App.183, 187, 204 A.3d 705, 707 (2019). In summary form the court is to determine whether the factual allegations of the complaint, accepting them as true and giving the nonmoving party the benefit of all reasonable favorable inferences, are sufficient to establish a legally-cognizable claim being pursued by the non-moving party.

In his objection, the plaintiff seems to think that the defendant actually is making two independent arguments- the conduct and circumstances alleged are not sufficiently egregious to constitute recklessness, and the recklessness count is inherently flawed because the allegations of recklessness are essentially identical to the allegations of negligence directed to the defendant owner. The court does not perceive there to be two separate claims of legal insufficiency, but rather that the identical nature of the allegations is an aspect of the claim that the recklessness count does not allege facts and circumstances rising to the level of recklessness. In effect, the defendant is arguing that the fact that the counts are linguistically indistinguishable establishes or confirms that the counts are legally indistinguishable as well- that the recklessness count only asserts claims constituting negligence.

In asserting that the defendant owner was negligent as well as reckless, the plaintiff refers to a variety of regulatory procedures and directives relating to motor vehicles with modified operating controls, and particularly those cautioning/warning against entrusting a modified vehicle to an operator not appropriately trained to operate such a vehicle. Assuming the existence of such authorities (discussed below), the starting point would appear to be the premise that the defendant owner should not have entrusted his vehicle to the defendant operator/valet. Even or perhaps especially starting with that premise, the defendant owner contends that the absence of any further allegations relating to aggravating circumstances precludes characterization of those claims as anything beyond negligence.

The court is well aware of the somewhat related split of authority relating to recklessness in the operation of a motor vehicle with many courts taking the position that the same allegations (or same allegations with minimal modifications) can assert recklessness as were used to justify a claim of negligence. Other courts take the position that there must be significant additional factually-aggravating circumstances for the claim to rise to the level of recklessness. This court is sensitive to the context-sensitive nature of factual allegations. Driving at 50 mph through a "school zone" might well be deemed reckless (in addition to negligent) based solely on the speed, if it occurs at about 3 P.M. (dismissal time), but likely would be more difficult to characterize as reckless if it occurred at 3 A.M. Thus, a single allegation that a defendant had been driving a vehicle at a high rate of speed through a school zone around dismissal time might seem to be sufficient to establish negligence as well as recklessness without any further differentiation, depending on factual details.

Another factor that this court considers is the sequential nature of pleadings. In most instances, a claim of negligence is asserted prior to a claim of recklessness directed to the same defendant. However, if the recklessness count were to be asserted first rather than after a negligence count, would it suffice? To put it another way, if the recklessness count were to be viewed in isolation without regard to the existence or location of a negligence count, with the allegations suffice to assert a legally sufficient claim of recklessness?

This case, however, does not implicate those considerations or modes of analysis. This case does not involve the actual operation of a motor vehicle involved in an accident, but rather entrustment of the motor vehicle. As will be discussed immediately below, there is less of a continuum of conduct and more of a discrete or binary quality to negligent entrustment. Therefore, the court believes is best to start with the requirements for a cognizable claim of negligent entrustment, before proceeding to determine whether the plaintiff has alleged a claim of reckless entrustment (assuming that there is such a cause of action).

Cases involving claims of negligent entrustment regularly look to the seminal case of Greeley v. Cunningham, 116 Conn 515 (1933):

When the evidence proves that the owner of an automobile knows or ought reasonably to know that one to whom he entrusts it is so incompetent to operate it upon the highways that the former ought reasonably to anticipate the likelihood of injury to others by reason of that incompetence, and such incompetence does result in such injury, a basis of recovery by the person injured is established. That recovery rests primarily upon the negligence of the owner in entrusting the automobile to the incompetent driver. 116 Conn. 520.

Recently (if in a different context), our Supreme Court indicated its continued adherence to the principles articulated in Greeley and declined an invitation to expand or modify the concept of negligent entrustment. Soto v. Bushmaster Firearms International, LLC, 331 Conn. 53, 75-85, 202 A.3d 262, 278-83 (2019).

As discussed by this court in Maisonette v. Gromiller, No. FSTCV 176031477S, 2018 WL 3203887 (Conn.Super.Ct. June 5, 2018), the constructive knowledge prong ("ought reasonably to know") does not generally incorporate a duty to investigate, especially in the absence of any circumstances that would suggest an investigation was necessary.^[2] The focus is on what the defendant actually knew, and whether that knowledge was sufficient to know that the operator was not fit to drive or was sufficient to put the owner on notice of facts from which that conclusion could or should have been drawn.

There is no claim in the complaint that defendant Anderson had actual knowledge that the valet driver to whom he entrusted his vehicle was unqualified/incompetent to drive his modified vehicle. There is no assertion or implication that he had asked the valet driver (or if there was a supervisor, any supervisor) about qualifications to drive his modified vehicle, and if anything, the import of his allegations of negligence is that it is claimed to be blameworthy that there was no such inquiry. There is no allegation that the defendant owner was told that the valet was unqualified/incompetent to drive his modified vehicle.

Against this backdrop, the essence of the claims of the plaintiff is that the defendant owner was negligent in entrusting his vehicle to the valet driver because he should have assumed incompetence to drive (for all of the reasons stated in the specifications of negligence) or at a minimum should have inquired about qualifications based on such considerations (notwithstanding the general proposition that inquiry is not required in an entrustment scenario).

The point of this exercise is that actual or constructive knowledge of the incompetence/incapability of the valet to operate the defendant owner’s vehicle safely is a necessary component of the claim of negligence directed to that owner. Therefore, since knowledge (actual or constructive) and a failure to act on that knowledge are already required for negligent entrustment, what is the potential aggravating factor that might permit these facts to be characterized as proof of recklessness? This is not a situation where there are explicit or implicit...