Opinion
No. CV 03 0477889 S
March 8, 2005
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON PLAINTIFF'S OBJECTION TO DEFENDANT LINDA CUSANO'S REQUEST TO REVISE ( #127)
Even as a common-law civil tort a cause of action for rape requires sexual intercourse and penetration. See Connecticut Jury Instruction (Civil), Fourth Edition, Section 403. The plaintiff's reliance on Black's Law Dictionary to expand the definition of sexual intercourse is not persuasive. While the plaintiff's cause of action may not be statutory it must still provide a factual basis for rape if that be the intended cause of action. The court has reviewed State v. Carrol, 152 Conn. 703 (1964), and State v. Owens, 21 Conn.Sup. 418 (1958). Neither case addresses the issue at hand.
Even though the court should attempt a reasonable construction to effectuate a plaintiff's intended cause of action it cannot supply missing terms or construe the language of a complaint contrary to its plain meaning.
Here the plaintiff has unequivocally and repeatedly alleged she was raped. Any reasonable interpretation of her choice of words implicates an act of sexual intercourse but nowhere does the plaintiff allege penetration. While the plaintiff may have adequately alleged some form of misconduct it does not amount to rape.
The court does not read the defendant's argument to be that the plaintiff has failed to allege any actionable conduct at all but only that whatever it is the term rape misdescribes it. This court agrees. Otherwise it would have found merit in the plaintiff's argument that the use of a request to revise was procedurally improper.
Accordingly, the court finds that use of the term rape has no relevance to the plaintiff's cause of action. It is misleading, unnecessary, scandalous and inflammatory.
Objection overruled.
Licari, J.