Opinion
No. HHD X04 CV-06-6002109 S
October 21, 2009
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION
This matter is before the court concerning the defendant's objection to the plaintiff's motion to amend its complaint (#110), which was presented for adjudication by request dated October 7, 2009 (#139).
The plaintiff seeks to amend its complaint to add counts concerning alleged leakage which occurred on other dates besides that which is alleged in its original complaint. The defendant objects, arguing that these new claims are time-barred by the two-year statute of limitations on negligence claims, General Statutes § 52-584.
Section 52-584 provides, in relevant part, "No action to recover damages for injury . . . to real or personal property, caused by negligence . . . shall be brought but within two years from the date when the injury is first sustained or discovered or in the exercise of reasonable care should have been discovered, and except that no such action may be brought more than three years from the date of the act or omission complained of . . ."
The appellate authority cited by the defendant addressed the statutes of limitations in the context of motions for summary judgment, not objections to proposed amendments. See Keenan v. Yale New Haven Hospital, 167 Conn. 284, 286, 355 A.2d 253 (1974); Lindsay v. Pierre, 90 Conn.App. 696, 702, 879 A.2d 482 (2005). "[O]rdinarily, [a] claim that an action is barred by the lapse of the statute of limitations must be pleaded as a special defense . . ." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Greco v. United Technologies Corp., 277 Conn. 337, 344 n. 12, 890 A.2d 1269 (2006). See, in contrast, Dimmock v. Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Inc., 286 Conn. 789, 795-96, 945 A.2d 955 (2008), where, by agreement of the parties, the trial court decided the objections to a request to amend on statute of limitations grounds.
Here, no agreement is presented. For the foregoing reasons, since the statute of limitations is the only ground stated in the objection, it is overruled. The court makes no determination as to whether the claims in the amended complaint are time-barred.
It is so ordered.