Duksa v. City of Middletown ( 1977 )

Bogdanski, J.

(concurring). When the plaintiff presented himself at city hall to seek information and advice from a city official concerning a sewer project that would cross his farm, he had no reason to believe he would be entering into the marketplace where the rule of caveat emptor would apply. Rather, he came to get information from a public servant: How would this sewer affect his farm? Would it affect his dairy farm operation? Would he get paid for the easement? If so, how much and how?

The director of the sewer department was handling sewer easement acquisitions for the city. He worked closely with the engineering department which adjoined his office in city hall. He affirmatively supplied the plaintiff with information about the sewer project and advised him what to do. When he represented that it would be to the plaintiff’s advantage to execute the easement and tie into the sewer, rather than to take cash, the plaintiff had a right to believe that the director had accurate knowledge of what he was representing. Clark v. Haggard, 141 Conn. 668, 109 A.2d 358. Indeed, the director went further. He stated that if the plaintiff were his own father he would advise him to do the same thing.

The director, however, informed the plaintiff of only the benefits that would accrue from the sewer easement. He did not tell him of the disadvantages: that the easement would result in cutting his farm in two by an embankment up to seventeen feet high, which would prevent the plaintiff from farming the land as a unit, and that expensive pumping equipment would be required to tie into the embankment portion of the sewer line. Had the plaintiff been informed of the embankment and the severance of his farm, he would not have executed the easement and would have sought legal and engineering advice.

Under the circumstances, where a city official is approached for information on a matter within his scope of technical knowledge and authority, and he chooses not only to provide the information requested but also chooses to make an affirmative recommendation intended to induce action on the part of the individual seeking the information, that official is required to make a full and fair disclosure as to the matters about which he assumes to speak. Clark v. Haggard, 141 Conn. 668, 672, 109 A.2d 358.