DocketNumber: No. CV96-0251635S
Citation Numbers: 1996 Conn. Super. Ct. 4225, 17 Conn. L. Rptr. 13
Judges: SILBERT, J.
Filed Date: 5/8/1996
Status: Non-Precedential
Modified Date: 4/17/2021
The plaintiff's complaint, which bears a March 5, 1996 return date, was filed in this court on February 5, 1996. The parties agree that by certified letter dated February 2, 1996, the plaintiff gave notice to her employer, Home Healthcare Services Corporation, that a lawsuit was being filed against the defendants. The notice was sent by certified mail and received by Home Healthcare on February 3, 1996. In a motion dated March 26, 1996, Home Healthcare and Gallagher Bassett Services, Inc., a third party administrator engaged in the business of administering workers' compensation claims for Home Healthcare, which was self-insured, moved to intervene.
The plaintiff and the defendants join in objecting to the motion to intervene on the basis that it was filed after the thirty-day time limit set forth in General Statutes §
any employer having paid, or having become obligated to pay, compensation, under the provisions of this chapter, may bring an action against the third person to recover any amount that he has paid or has become obligated to pay as compensation to the injured employee. If. . . such employee. . . brings such an action against such third person, he shall notify the [employer], in writing by personal presentation or by registered or certified mail, of such fact CT Page 4225-A and of the name of the court to which the writ is returnable, and [the employer] may join as a party plaintiff in such action within thirty days after such notification, and, if [the employer] fails to join as a party plaintiff, his right of action against such third person shall abate.
Because the proposed intervening plaintiffs did not file their motion to intervene until more than thirty days had passed from the date of their receipt of notice under the terms of the statute, Home Healthcare and Gallagher Bassett have lost their right to intervene. Johndrow v. State,
The would be intervenors' response is that their attorney has been involved in the plaintiff's concurrent worker's compensation case since September of 1995 and that counsel for the plaintiff was aware of the would be intervenors' interest in the possibility of third-party litigation since at least October 17, 1995, at which time the would be intervenors' counsel had faxed a letter to plaintiff's counsel asserting "a lien against the proceeds of your client's third-party liability case."
From the standpoint of professional courtesy, the would be intervenors' counsel is understandably miffed that at no time did the plaintiffs provide him with written notice of their intention to bring a third-party liability action. Clearly, however, such notice alone would not have complied with the statute. The right to intervene in such cases is statutory, and when the plaintiff has complied with the statute, and the party seeking to intervene has failed to file the appropriate motion within the statutory time period, that party's intervention is precluded.
The would be intervenors next argue that the plaintiff's notice to Home Healthcare, mailed February 2, 1996 and received on February 3, 1996, should be deemed ineffective because the thirty-day time period required by General Statutes §
The purported intervenors further claim that even if denied direct intervention pursuant to General Statutes §
Although one would like to think that when an attorney representing the employer's interest and an attorney representing the plaintiff's interests have been involved in the resolution of a worker's compensation case, professional courtesy would result in notification to the former by the latter of the bringing of a third-party complaint, there is nothing in the statutes or the Code of Professional Conduct that requires it. Caveat jurisconsultus.
The motion to intervene is denied.