City of Norwich v. Silverberg

511 A.2d 336, 200 Conn. 367, 1986 Conn. LEXIS 873
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
DecidedJuly 8, 1986
Docket12775; 12776
StatusPublished
Cited by117 cases

This text of 511 A.2d 336 (City of Norwich v. Silverberg) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Norwich v. Silverberg, 511 A.2d 336, 200 Conn. 367, 1986 Conn. LEXIS 873 (Colo. 1986).

Opinion

Peters, C. J.

The sole issue on this appeal is a determination of the scope of the indemnification provisions of General Statutes § 7-101a. The plaintiff, the city of Norwich, brought suit against the defendants, Richard N. Ziff and Guerson D. Silverberg, for legal malpractice. Ziff was corporation counsel to the plaintiff and Silverberg was assistant corporation counsel. In its malpractice action, the plaintiff complained that the defendants had provided inadequate representation in litigation involving a disputed tax assessment.1 Each defendant answered by denying the plaintiffs allegations and by filing a counterclaim demanding reimbursement from the plaintiff under General Statutes § 7-101a2 for any amount that the court might order the [369]*369defendants to pay as well as for all expenses incurred by the defendants as a result of the suit. The trial court granted the plaintiffs motions to strike these counterclaims. The defendants appeal from the judgments thereafter rendered against them on the counterclaims.* *3

General Statutes § 7-101a (a) requires a municipality to “protect and save harmless any municipal officer, whether elected or appointed, of any board, committee, council, agency or commission, or any full-time municipal employee, of such municipality from financial loss and expense, including legal fees and costs, if any, arising out of any claim, demand, suit or judgment by reason of alleged negligence, or for alleged infringement of any person’s civil rights, on the part of such officer or such employee while acting in the discharge of his duties.” The trial court, in striking the defendants’ counterclaims, held that this statute requires the municipality to indemnify officers and employees only when they are sued by third parties and not when the municipality itself is the plaintiff.

On appeal, the defendants claim that the trial court erred in its judgment because § 7-101a, by its plain lan[370]*370guage, applies to “any claim, demand, suit or judgment.” They urge us to hold that, in cases where a municipality sues its officials for negligence, the municipality must indemnify the officials for the amount it recovers as well as for costs to the officials that arise as a result of the action. In their view, § 7-101a effectively immunizes municipal officers and employees from any liability to their municipality for negligence. We find no error in the ruling of the trial court.

We note preliminarily the procedural framework that governs our inquiry on this appeal. “It is well settled that ‘[wjhere an appeal is taken from a judgment following the granting of a motion to strike, we take the facts to be those alleged in the [appellant’s pleadings] construed in a manner most favorable to the pleader. Sheets v. Teddy’s Frosted Foods, Inc., 179 Conn. 471, 472, 427 A.2d 385 [1980]; Stradmore Development Corporation v. Commissioners, 164 Conn. 548, 550-51, 324 A.2d 919 [1973]; Senior v. Hope, 156 Conn. 92, 97, 239 A.2d 486 [1968]; Rossignol v. Danbury School of Aeronautics, Inc., 154 Conn. 549, 557, 227 A.2d 418 [1967]. For purposes of appeal, all well-pleaded facts and those facts necessarily implied from the allegations are taken as admitted. DeMello v. Plainville, 170 Conn. 675, 677, 368 A.2d 71 [1976]; McAnerney v. McAnerney, 165 Conn. 277, 282, 334 A.2d 437 [1973]. See Practice Book, 1978, § 151.’ Amodio v. Cunningham, 182 Conn. 80, 82-83, 438 A.2d 6 (1980).” Mead v. Burns, 199 Conn. 651, 655, 509 A.2d 11 (1986). Accordingly, in this case, we must assume that the defendants were, as they have alleged, municipal officers who qualified for whatever protection § 7-101a provides. The only question before us is whether that statute affords indemnity to municipal officers whom the municipality itself sues for negligence.

Well-established principles of statutory construction govern our analysis of § 7-101a. Our objective is to con[371]*371strue the language of the section so as to give effect to the apparent intent of the legislature. State v. Kozlowski, 199 Conn. 667, 673, 509 A.2d 20 (1986); Hayes v. Smith, 194 Conn. 52, 57, 480 A.2d 425 (1984); 2A Sutherland, Statutory Construction (4th Ed. Sands 1984) § 45.05. In our pursuit of that objective, we look to the language of the statute itself, its legislative history, and previous judicial construction. State v. Kozlowski, supra, 673-74; DeFonce Construction Corporation v. State, 198 Conn. 185, 187, 501 A.2d 745 (1985); State v. Parmalee, 197 Conn. 158, 161, 496 A.2d 186 (1985). Mindful of inherent statutory interrelationships, furthermore, we endeavor “to read the statute as a whole and so as to reconcile all parts as far as possible.” Grodis v. Burns, 190 Conn. 39, 44, 459 A.2d 994 (1983); see also P. X. Restaurant, Inc. v. Windsor, 189 Conn. 153, 159-60, 454 A.2d 1258 (1983); Connecticut Theatre Foundation, Inc. v. Brown, 179 Conn. 672, 677, 427 A.2d 863 (1980).

The defendants’ argument that they may rely on § 7-101a for immunity from liability to their municipal employers depends primarily on the language of subsection (a) of § 7-101a. They point out that this subsection purports to govern “any” claim of negligence and therefore argue that this unqualified coverage conclusively establishes a legislative intent that § 7-101a apply to two-party as well as to three-party indemnity claims. We are unpersuaded.

Read as a whole, § 7-101a refutes a construction affording the defendants the immunity they seek, because the section demonstrates, in its remaining subsections, that the transactions that the legislature sought to address were transactions in which an injured third person was seeking relief from a municipal employee and, indirectly, from a municipality itself. None of these subsections contemplates reimbursement [372]*372for a municipal employee who has negligently failed to discharge his duties to his municipal employer.

Subsection (c) is instructive to a reading of “any claim” that excludes the municipality itself, because this subsection authorizes municipalities to purchase insurance to cover “the liability imposed by this section.” Liability insurance is designed to protect an insured from claims for damages owed to a third person, and not from losses that the insured suffers directly. Cain v. American Policyholders’ Ins. Co., 120 Conn. 645, 653, 183 A. 403 (1936); see Alcorn Bank & Trust Co. v.

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Bluebook (online)
511 A.2d 336, 200 Conn. 367, 1986 Conn. LEXIS 873, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-norwich-v-silverberg-conn-1986.