Blog
50 Founders Plaza
East Hartford, CT 06108
50 Founders Plaza
East Hartford, CT 06108
In the past, personal injury trials arising from car accidents involved a judge or jury trying to determine fault and responsibility by sifting through conflicting testimony from the drivers and any expert witnesses they hired to support their claims. On occasion, a witness to the accident, debris and skid marks, or other objective evidence was available to provide some support to one driver’s version of events or the other. But where objective evidence was nonexistent, a verdict depended mostly on which driver’s story seemed more credible.
Many cars are now equipped with EDR devices, or event data recorders. Some refer to these devices as “black boxes” for cars, as they take and record several different measurements in the moments before a crash. Specialists with the education and knowledge to read and interpret this data (sometimes referred to as reconstructionists) can then provide information regarding a car’s speed, movements, and activities – literally recreating the moments leading up to the crash. This data can provide much needed certainty and clarity regarding causation and any comparative fault in auto injury cases.
Although Connecticut law requires drivers to carry some minimum amount of car insurance, oftentimes those policies do not pay for the full cost of an individual's damages. Connecticut law only requires a motorist to carry $20,000 of coverage per injured person and $40,000 of per accident. In cases where the responsible driver’s insurance is not enough, drivers injured in a traffic accident have another option: they can file a claim against their own insurance carrier provider based on their underinsured motorist coverage, however, there are special doctrines surrounding those claims in Connecticut. The Connecticut Supreme Court recently clarified one of those doctrines in a case relating to a fatal traffic accident, Guarino v. Allstate Property and Casualty Insurance.
Many people appreciate the fact that they can get a restraining order against another person in case they are victims of abusive conduct or harassment. However, what people often overlook is that there are three different types of restraining orders available under Connecticut law, each with their own unique effects. First, there are Protective Orders, which judges in a criminal case can hand down after a domestic violence case. Second, there are Reliefs from Abuse, which are available in family court. Finally, there are Civil Restraining Orders, a new form of relief available in civil court outside of the family context. Importantly, regardless of the type of order issued, a violation of any of them is a Class D felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
Protective Order
Protective Orders are available from criminal courts in two circumstances. First, if a person has been the victim of stalking by a family member, as defined under Connecticut law, then they may be able to receive a criminal Protective Order. Second, if a person has been a victim of family violence that resulted in the arrest of the other family member, then they may also be eligible for a Protective Order. However, people should be aware that a mere argument or physical abuse does not qualify as family violence, unless there was a likelihood of immediate physical violence. Protective orders, which usually last until the resolution of a criminal case, can forbid a variety of behaviors, including restraining the person's freedom, threatening or assaulting the person, or entering the victim's home. There is also an alternate version of the Protective Order, known as a Standing Criminal Restraining Order, which can stay in effect after the end of the case, usually for life.
Kidnapping and unlawful restraint are a pair of related crimes under Connecticut law that both have to do with restricting a person's freedom of movement. However, the two crimes are of very different grades. Kidnapping can be charged as a Class A or B felony, while unlawful restraint can only be a Class D felony or a Class A misdemeanor. The difference between the two crimes is the fact that unlawful restraint only requires the offender to restrict the victim's freedom, while kidnapping requires a person to have actually abducted the victim.
Understanding Unlawful Restraint
Connecticut law lays out the basic requirements for unlawful restraint in General Statutes § 53a-96. That section of the law defines unlawful restraint in the second degree, which is a broad crime defined simply as one person's restraining another. There is also a crime of unlawful restraint in the first degree, which occurs when one person's restraint of another places the victim at substantial risk of personal injury.
Speaking last month at Yale Law School, Governor Dannel Malloy announced a proposal to create a “Second Chance Society,” which would have a major impact on drug laws in Connecticut. The plan is reflective of a larger movement to change how the federal and state governments treat drug crimes. The idea behind the plan is to focus more on rehabilitating drug offenders and allowing them to reenter society, rather than simply locking them in prison, which can create a damaging cycle of recidivism. The proposal would make two important changes to the way that Connecticut handles drug offenses if it became law.
Two Key Changes
The first change that the Second Chance Society initiative would make is a reclassification of many drug offenses as misdemeanors. As long as there was no evidence of intent to sell, the possession of any drug would be treated as a misdemeanor under the new policy. This would minimize the number of non-violent offenders being funneled into the prison system. In particular, it would also give many offenders access to things like Connecticut's pretrial diversion programs, special programs that focus more on rehabilitating offenders than on punishing them.
With incidents like the Enron scandal and the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme gaining such notoriety in recent years, white collar crime has become a much more public topic. In fact, white collar crime currently makes up almost 10 percent of the federal docket, according to Department of Justice Statistics, as reported by Fortune Magazine. This measurement is particularly important because of the intense role that the federal government plays in prosecuting white collar crime. Although many of the practices that comprise white collar crime are illegal under Connecticut law as well, the majority of the prosecutions in Connecticut are federal in nature. These white collar prosecutions can cover a variety of different unique crimes, including fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement, and money laundering.
Fraud
With warmer weather now on the horizon in Connecticut, many people may be considering remodeling their homes or making additions. This can be a busy time of year for contractors, so they should take this opportunity to make sure that their insurance is up to date. Many people think that homeowners' insurance will cover injuries to contractors, but that is not usually the case.
Contractor injuries are outside the normal risk profile that homeowners' insurance deals with. Consequently, they are subject to a policy exclusion, meaning that there is a specific clause in the insurance policy that exempts them from coverage. The only time there may be an exception to this is if the homeowner's negligence was the direct cause of the contractor's injury. As such, contractors working in homes should take care to make sure that they are properly covered by other insurance policies, especially since Occupational Safety and Health Administration statistics highlight the unique dangers faced in the construction industry.
Connecticut criminal law has a variety of different goals. In a narrow sense, it exists to punish offenders and to deter people from committing crimes. However, the law also has a more positive purpose; in fact, one of the most important goals of the criminal law system is rehabilitation. Yet, ordinary criminal law punishments like prison or fines are notoriously bad at preventing recidivism. In order to deal with this, the Connecticut legislature introduced a set pretrial diversion programs. These programs are available to some less serious offenders, who can complete the rehabilitative programs and see their charges dismissed.
There are a variety of pretrial diversion programs available in Connecticut, including Accelerated Rehabilitation (AR), the Pretrial Drug Education Program, the Connecticut Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission Diversionary Program (CADAC), the Family Violence Education Program, and the Alcohol Education Program.
Traffic accidents can be confusing and stressful. Accidents impose many tangible costs on those involved, such as medical bills and repair costs. Additionally, they require the parties to the accident to deal with legal structures with which they may not be familiar, such as giving statements to the police and entering into settlement negotiations with insurance companies. However, there are over 100,000 traffic accidents in Connecticut every year, according to a report by the Connecticut Department of Transportation, so it is important for people to know what to avoid saying after a traffic accident in the event that a wreck takes place.
Talking to Police
Immediately after the accident the police will likely seek statements from both of the parties to the accidents as well as possible witnesses nearby. People involved in an accident need to know what to avoid saying when asked for this statement. One of the most important things to avoid is lying. Statements to the police are only one of many pieces of evidence available. If other evidence contradicts a false statement to the police, then that can damage the plaintiff's credibility with the court.
Personal injury and other tort lawsuits allow injured victims to hold defendants responsible for their negligence when it causes someone harm. One of the key phases of any personal injury litigation is the damages calculation, which is where the court determines what harms the plaintiff suffered, and how much compensation they are owed.
It is important to remember that the legal system in Connecticut wants to perfectly compensate the plaintiff for all of the harm that the defendant's negligence caused. In order to do this, Connecticut law recognizes a wide variety of damages. Plaintiffs may seek “special compensatory damages” to cover specific harms such as medical bills, and they may also seek “general compensatory damages” to cover their pain and suffering. Additionally, juries in Connecticut are allowed to award “punitive damages,” extra damages designed to punish defendants.
50 Founders Plaza
