Opinion
TSRCV174009076
09-10-2018
Chad PETITPAS v. COMMISSIONER OF CORRECTION
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Hon. John M. Newson, Judge
I. Procedural History
On or about May 1, 2017, the petitioner filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus that was previously pending under docket no. TSR-CV17-4008810. The complaint alleged certain retaliatory actions that had been taken against the petitioner by the Department of Corrections (hereinafter "D.O.C.") and certain employees for exposing illicit conduct within D.O.C. by both inmates and employees. The retaliatory conduct alleged included intentionally placing the petitioner in close proximity with individuals known to have vendettas against him, transferring him on multiple occasions without any legitimate penological interests, and destroying his personal property. At or about that same time, the petitioner also filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut titled Petitpas v. Hogan et al., 3:17CV562 (SRU) (hereinafter "Federal lawsuit"), wherein he made very similar allegations on overlapping, although not wholly identical, factual patterns of retaliatory conduct against him by the D.O.C. and certain employees. The defendants in the Federal lawsuit were several named individual employees of the D.O.C., including Commissioner, Scott Semple. On June 13, 2017, the parties entered into a "Release and Settlement Agreement" in the Federal lawsuit wherein, for certain agreement and guarantees from the defendant(s), including removal of certain disciplinary reports from the petitioner’s D.O.C. profile and to not further transfer him without legitimate penological reasons, the petitioner agreed to the following:
This complaint was withdrawn on May 24, 2017.
[E]ffective on the [date of execution by the final party] release and forever discharge the defendants, and all present and former officers and employees of the State of Connecticut, their heirs, successors and assigns, from all actions, suits, claims, controversies, damages, and demands of every nature and kind ..., including ... equitable relief, which the plaintiff ... ever had, now have or hereafter can, shall or may have for, upon, or by reason of any matter, cause or thing whatsoever from the beginning of the world to the date of this Release of Liability, including, but not limited to acts arising out of, or in any way related to the incidents or circumstances which formed the basis for the above-captioned lawsuit, including such actions as have been or may in the future be brought in the federal courts, the courts of the State of Connecticut ...(Emphasis added.) (Respondent’s Memorandum of Law in Support of Motion to Enforce Settlement Agreement, Attachment 1, p. 2.) The petitioner, by his own admission, with the assistance and the advice of counsel, executed the agreement on about June 13, 2017.
Although the petitioner withdrew the habeas case that had been pending under docket ending no. # 8810 as part of the agreement in the Federal lawsuit, he filed the present matter on September 17, 2017. While not factually identical to the claims made in docket no. # 8810, the present habeas petition alleges retaliatory conduct by D.O.C. and its employees for actions taken against the petitioner between February 14, 2017, and March 21, 2017. The respondent filed a "Motion to Enforce Settlement Agreement" (# 113.00) from the Federal lawsuit on August 8, 2018, which the Court has construed as a motion to dismiss, so a hearing on the motion was held on September 5, 2018.
See, Footnote 1.
II. Law and Discussion
When adjudicating a motion to dismiss, "a court must take the facts to be those alleged in the complaint, including those facts necessarily implied from the allegations, construing them in a manner most favorable to the pleader." (Citation omitted; quotation marks omitted.) Lawrence Brunoli, Inc. v. Town of Branford, 247 Conn. 407, 410-11, 722 A.2d 271 (1999). "Because subject matter jurisdiction implicates the authority of the court, the issue, once raised, must be resolved before proceeding to the merits of the case ..." (Citation omitted.) State v. Fowler, 102 Conn.App. 154, 158, 926 A.2d 672, cert. denied, 284 Conn. 922, 933 A.2d 725 (2007).
"A settlement agreement is a contract among the parties ... It is well settled that [w]here the language of the contract is clear and unambiguous, the contract is to be given effect according to its terms ... Although ordinarily the question of contract interpretation, being a question of the parties’ intent, is a question of fact ... [w]here there is definitive contract language, the determination of what the parties intended by their contractual commitments is a question of law ... The court’s determination as to whether a contract is ambiguous is a question of law ..." (Citation omitted, internal quotation marks omitted.) Amica Mutual Ins. Co. v. Welch Enterprises, Inc., 114 Conn.App. 290, 294, 970 A.2d 730 (2009). "[A] trial court has the inherent power to enforce summarily a settlement agreement as a matter of law when the terms of the agreement are clear and unambiguous ... A court’s authority to enforce a settlement by entry of judgment in the underlying action is especially clear where the settlement is reported to the court during the course of a trial or other significant courtroom proceedings
"The court’s determination as to whether a contract is ambiguous is a question of law ... A contract is unambiguous when its language is clear and conveys a definite and precise intent ... In contrast, a contract is ambiguous if the intent of the parties is not clear and certain from the language of the contract itself ... If the language of the contract is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation, the contract is ambiguous ... The test of disputation ... must be applied to the parties at the time they entered into the alleged settlement. To hold otherwise would prevent any motion to enforce a settlement from ever being granted ..." (Citations omitted, internal quotation marks omitted.) Meridian Partners, LLC v. Dragone Classic Motorcars, Inc., 171 Conn.App. 355, 364-65, 157 A.3d 87, 93 (2017).
In the present case, the Court finds the language of the "Release and Settlement Agreement" to be clear and unambiguous in expressing the parties’ intent to resolve all claims, rights and causes of action involving alleged retaliation against the petitioner by D.O.C. and its employees "from the beginning of time" to the point and time he executed the settlement agreement. The broad, clear, and all-encompassing language of the release could not be reasonably interpreted, as the petitioner has argued, not to have included the claims alleged in the present petition on the grounds that neither the specific defendant or facts had been asserted in the Federal lawsuit or the prior petition. The clear intent of the settlement agreement was to resolve any and all claims of wrongdoing alleged by the petitioner up to June 17, 2017, the day the petitioner executed the agreement. Amica Mutual Ins. Co. v. Welch Enterprises, Inc., supra, 114 Conn.App. 294. As such, the respondent is entitled to enforcement of the terms of the contractual agreement, which can only be obtained by dismissing the petition. Audubon Parking Associates Ltd. Partnership v. Barclay & Stubbs, Inc., supra, 225 Conn. 811 ("[A] trial court has the inherent power to enforce summarily a settlement agreement as a matter of law when the terms of the agreement are clear and unambiguous ...").
III. Conclusion
Based on the foregoing, the respondent’s motion is GRANTED. The petition for writ of habeas corpus is DISMISSED.