Joseph Bogdanski

This case involved a dispute over the appointment of a fire marshal in Waterbury, where state law under General Statutes § 29-45 required giving preference to members of the local fire department, but the city's civil service rules, authorized by special act, did not provide such a preference and ranked non-member Edward St. John first among applicants including plaintiff Jerry Beccia. Beccia sought declaratory and injunctive relief to block St. John's certification and have himself certified instead, while St. John separately pursued a writ of mandamus for appointment; the cases were consolidated. The trial court ruled that the city's civil service regulations controlled over § 29-45, which it found inapplicable and directory rather than mandatory, denying Beccia relief and granting the mandamus to St. John. On appeal, the court considered arguments about mootness due to the final unappealed mandamus judgment and issues of collateral estoppel, ultimately addressing whether practical relief remained available to Beccia.

labor & employmentprocedure

The case concerned a dispute over a roller-skating rink business started as a joint enterprise between Charles Karanian and Richard Maulucci, Sr., who agreed to equal ownership, equal capital contributions, and eventual incorporation; Karanian contributed his share (naming the plaintiff as beneficiary) but Maulucci did not, incorporation papers were filed listing the parties and their children as officers, yet no stock was issued or bylaws adopted, and Maulucci later barred Karanian from the premises. The plaintiff sued for an accounting, damages, and a receiver. The trial court ruled that the parties operated as a 50-50 partnership between themselves despite the corporate form. The appellate court held this was error because the filing of the certificate of incorporation with the secretary of the state created a corporation under Connecticut law, and parties who adopt the corporate form cannot be partners inter se while a corporation to outsiders; the entity was therefore a corporation whose dissolution must follow corporate statutes, and the trial court's order was modified accordingly before remand.

business & regulatory

This case involves a dispute between Connecticut Light & Power Co. and Holson Co. over the scope of a 1923 easement across land in Wilton for erecting and maintaining power lines. The power company sought injunctions to stop parking, loading, unloading, and building encroachment in the easement area, while the defendant counterclaimed to require relocation of a utility pole. The trial court denied the injunctions, found that the defendant's uses including vehicle parking did not interfere with the easement, ordered a compensatory extension of the easement border, and awarded nominal damages. On appeal, the court upheld these rulings, holding that the trial court properly determined the parties' rights under the deed's reservation clause and exercised discretion in denying equitable relief based on the facts, including long-standing non-interfering uses and lack of prior objection.

property

This case concerned two consolidated appeals by Robert Helbig from decisions of the Noank Fire District zoning commission and zoning board of appeals, which determined that his commercial boatyard use of property violated zoning regulations and rejected his claim of a valid preexisting nonconforming use under the ordinance. The Superior Court allowed Helbig to challenge the constitutionality of §13.7 of the zoning ordinance in the same proceeding, concluded that the section was invalid for lacking evidentiary standards and sufficient guidelines, and ruled the second appeal moot as a result. On review, the court addressed whether a party may attack an ordinance's constitutionality while seeking its benefits, reciting the general rule prohibiting such challenges but noting exceptions where compliance is compelled rather than voluntary, and examined whether the zoning enforcement officer acted independently of the commission in issuing violation notices.

propertybusiness & regulatory

The case involved the conviction of defendant Arthur Just on three counts of first-degree kidnapping under General Statutes § 53a-92(a)(2)(B) stemming from the March 1975 arson and explosion at the Sponge Rubber Factory plant in Shelton, Connecticut, during which three employees were seized at gunpoint, handcuffed, and driven to another location before the perpetrators fled. Just appealed the judgment, raising claims of error that included the admission into evidence of the criminal convictions of three alleged co-conspirators who testified for the state. The court reviewed the trial record detailing the planning, execution, and flight from the crime, applied precedents such as State v. Pikul on the limited admissibility of co-defendant pleas, and examined whether the convictions were introduced for permissible purposes like credibility rather than to establish the commission of the offense.

criminal law

This case involved an unmarried couple who purchased a home as tenants in common in 1974, contributed funds jointly for living expenses until their 1977 separation, and later sold the property with disputed allocation of the remaining escrow proceeds. The trial court divided ownership into three periods, treating pre-separation contributions as joint without reimbursement, post-separation mortgage payments as rent for the defendant's occupancy, and post-agreement payments as benefiting only the defendant, resulting in credits of $4,000 to the plaintiff and $14,339.12 to the defendant before splitting the balance. The Supreme Court of Connecticut affirmed this allocation, reasoning that the parties' conduct and the unperformed 1977 agreement demonstrated differing expectations of reimbursement across the periods. The plaintiff appealed the partial credit to the defendant, while the defendant cross-appealed seeking fuller credits.

propertyfamily law