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ANN MARIE BENEDETTO ET AL. v. DIETZE AND

ASSOCIATES, LLC, ET AL.

(AC 36778)

Gruendel, Lavine and Prescott, Js.

Argued April 16—officially released September 15, 2015

(Appeal from Superior Court, judicial district of

Waterbury, Hon. Barbara J. Sheedy, judge trial referee

[motion to reargue; objection to request to revise];

Shapiro, J. [summary judgment].)

Eddi Z. Zyko, for the appellants (plaintiffs).

Thomas P. O’Connor, with whom were Wyatt R. Jansen, and, on the brief, Gerard N. Saggese III, for the

appellees (named defendant et al.).
Opinion

PER CURIAM. In this case arising out of alleged

employment discrimination, the plaintiffs, Ann Marie

Benedetto and Joseph Benedetto,1 appeal from the summary judgment rendered by the trial court in favor of

the defendants Dietze and Associates, LLC (Dietze),

and Herlof Sorensen.2 The plaintiffs claim on appeal

that the court (1) abused its discretion by granting the

defendants’ motion to reargue its ruling sustaining the

plaintiffs’ objection to the defendants’ request to revise,

and (2) improperly granted summary judgment in favor

of the defendants. We affirm the judgment of the

trial court.

The following undisputed facts and procedural history are relevant to this appeal. In an amended complaint filed against the defendants, the plaintiffs

asserted claims of age discrimination pursuant to the

Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act, General

Statutes § 46a-60 et seq., statutory forgery pursuant to

General Statutes § 52-565, and common-law loss of consortium relating to Benedetto’s termination from

employment as an office manager at Dietze. The central

allegation underlying each of these claims is that Benedetto’s direct supervisor, Sorensen, fired her one day

before her sixty-fifth birthday because of her age and

to cover up an act of forgery that he had enlisted her

assistance in committing.

The defendants filed a request to revise the plaintiffs’

amended complaint under Practice Book § 10-35 et seq.

The plaintiffs objected, arguing that the request violated

the order of the pleadings set forth in Practice Book

§ 10-6 because it was filed after a previous motion to

strike one of the plaintiffs’ earlier complaints. Although

the court, Hon. Barbara J. Sheedy, judge trial referee,

initially sustained the plaintiffs’ objection, the court

later overruled it after the defendants moved to reargue

the issue. The plaintiffs subsequently filed a revised

amended complaint.

Following their request to revise, the defendants

moved for summary judgment on all counts of the operative complaint. They argued that there was no genuine

issue of material fact that the circumstances surrounding Benedetto’s termination did not give rise to

an inference of discrimination, and that Dietze had met

its burden of articulating a nondiscriminatory rationale

for terminating her employment. They further contended that Benedetto could not prevail on her forgery

claim because the undisputed evidence demonstrated

that she was a willing participant in the unlawful behavior alleged in her complaint. Finally, the defendants

argued that because both of Benedetto’s individual

claims failed, so did Joseph Benedetto’s derivative loss

of consortium claim. In a comprehensive and well reasoned opinion, the court, Shapiro, J., agreed with all
of the defendants’ arguments, and rendered summary

judgment in favor of the defendants on all counts

alleged in the operative complaint. This appeal followed. Additional facts will be set forth as necessary.

I

The plaintiffs first claim that the court improperly

granted the defendants’ motion to reargue its ruling

sustaining the plaintiffs’ objection to the defendants’

requestto revise. Specifically,the plaintiffs contend that

the defendants’ motion to reargue improperly sought a

‘‘second bite at the apple’’ and was based on law that

was available to the defendants at the time that they

filed their request to revise. In response, the defendants

contend that their motion to reargue permissibly sought

to correct factual and legal errors underlying the court’s

initial ruling. We agree with the defendants.

The following facts are relevant to our resolution of

this claim. The plaintiffs’ first complaint raised thirteen

claims against the defendants relating to Benedetto’s

termination of employment. The defendants moved to

strike each of those claims on various grounds. Judge

Shapiro granted in part the defendants’ motion. Thereafter, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint.

The defendants filed a request to revise seeking to

delete portions of the plaintiffs’ amended complaint.

The plaintiffs objected on the ground that the defendants had filed their request out of order without the

court’s permission. Specifically, relying on Practice

Book §§ 10-63 and 10-7,4

they contended that the defendants had waived their right to file a request to revise

when they previously moved to strike the plaintiffs’

first complaint. Judge Sheedy initially agreed with the

plaintiffs and sustained their objection.

Following the court’s ruling, the defendants moved

for reargument pursuant to Practice Book § 11-12. In

their motion, they contended that the plaintiffs’ assertion that the defendants had filed their request to revise

out of order was factually and legally incorrect. In particular, they argued that by filing an amended complaint

after the court had granted in part the defendants’

motion to strike, the plaintiffs had essentially reset the

order of the pleadings such that a request to revise

could be filed properly. In support of their argument,

the defendants cited two cases from our Supreme Court

and this court. The trial court agreed with the defendants’ argument, and overruled the plaintiffs’ objection

to the request to revise.

‘‘[W]e review the adjudication of a motion to reargue

for an abuse of discretion. . . . In determining whether

there has been an abuse of discretion, every reasonable

presumption should be given in favor of the correctness

of the court’s ruling. . . . Reversal is required only

[when] an abuse of discretion is manifest or [when]

injustice appears to have been done.’’(Citation omitted;
internal quotation marks omitted.) Weiss v. Smulders,

313 Conn. 227, 261, 96 A.3d 1175 (2014).

‘‘[T]he purpose of a reargument is . . . to demonstrate to the court that there is some decision or some

principle of law which would have a controlling effect,

and which has been overlooked, or that there has been

a misapprehension of facts. . . . It also may be used

to address . . . claims of law that the [movant] claimed

were not addressed by the court. . . . [A] motion to

reargue [however] is not to be used as an opportunity

to have a second bite of the apple . . . .’’ (Internal

quotation marks omitted.) Liberti v. Liberti, 132 Conn.

App. 869, 874, 37 A.3d 166 (2012).

The plaintiffs’ claim that the court improperly granted

the defendants’ motion for reargument merits little discussion. A motion to reargue is proper either when its

purpose is to direct the court’s attention to a case or

legal principle that the court has overlooked or when

the movant seeks to correct a misapprehension of facts.

Id. In the present case, the defendants’ motion fell

squarely within the first of these two categories. It specifically directed the court’s attention to two cases that

were relevant to court’s ruling sustaining the plaintiffs’

objection to the request to revise and that the defendants could reasonably have believed were overlooked

by the court.5 Moreover, because the defendants’

motion to reargue did not address the underlying merits

of their request to revise, but only the plaintiffs’ objection thereto, the defendants cannot reasonably be said

to have sought a ‘‘second bite atthe apple.’’ We therefore

conclude that the court did not abuse its discretion in

granting the defendants’ motion for reargument.

II

The plaintiffs next argue that the court improperly

granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants.

Specifically, they contend that it was improper for

Judge Shapiro to grant summary judgment on Benedetto’s age discrimination claims because the defendants

failed to submit any evidence from her employment

personnel file and instead relied on an affidavit from

Michael Jedlicka, a member of Deitze. They further

argue that the court could not properly grant summary

judgment on Benedetto’s statutory forgery claim

because a disputed issue of material fact existed over

whether she acted under duress in participating in the

illegal conduct alleged in that claim. We conclude that

the plaintiffs’ claims are inadequately briefed and

decline to review them.

‘‘It is well settled that [w]e are not required to review

claims that are inadequately briefed. . . . We consistently have held that [a]nalysis, rather than mere

abstract assertion, is required in order to avoid abandoning an issue by failure to brief the issue properly.

. . . [F]or this court judiciously and efficiently to con-
sider claims of error raised on appeal . . . the parties

must clearly and fully set forth their arguments in their

briefs. We do not reverse the judgment of a trial court

on the basis of challenges to its rulings that have not

been adequately briefed. . . . The parties may not

merely cite a legal principle without analyzing the relationship between the facts of the case and the law

cited. . . . [A]ssignments of error which are merely

mentioned but not briefed beyond a statement of the

claim will be deemed abandoned and will not be

reviewed by this court.’’(Internal quotation marks omitted.) Clelford v. Bristol, 150 Conn. App. 229, 233, 90

A.3d 998 (2014).

With respect to their age discrimination claim, the

plaintiffs assert that the court could not have granted

the defendants’ motion for summary judgment because

‘‘[n]othing . . . from [Benedetto’s] personnel file was

provided’’ and because Jedlicka’s affidavit ‘‘as a matter

of law fails to establish that there is no genuine issue

of material fact.’’ The plaintiffs make no attempt, however, to support either of these assertions with any

discussion or analysis. Instead, they quote from General

Statutes § 31-128a, which provides the statutory definition of ‘‘personnel file,’’ and General Statutes § 31-128b

(c), which obligates employers to provide employees

with a copy of any documentation of any disciplinary

action imposed upon them, without providing any

explanation how either of these two statutes support

their assertions. Because the plaintiffs have made no

attempt to explain precisely why the defendants were

obligated to provide evidence from Benedetto’s personnel file in support of their motion for summary judgment, or why Jedlicka’s affidavit failed to establish the

absence of a genuine issue of material fact, we deem

this claim abandoned and decline to review it.

The plaintiffs’ statutory forgery claim is similarly

inadequately briefed. Their entire argument consists of

quoting one sentence from one of the decisions relied

upon by the trial court and attempting—unpersuasively—to distinguish the present case on the basis of

that single sentence.6 The plaintiffs do not, however,

make any attempt to analyze any of the other case law

relied upon by the trial court, nor do they attempt to

provide any independent analysis why Benedetto’s participation in the alleged forgery scheme should not preclude herfrom prevailing on her statutory forgery claim.

Accordingly, we conclude that this claim is also inadequately briefed and decline to review it.

The judgment is affirmed.

1 Because Ann Marie Benedetto is the principal plaintiff in this action, we

refer to her individually by her last name and Joseph Benedetto by his

full name.

2 The defendants in this action also included David McCann, Paul Schwack,

and Michael Jedlicka; the trial court previously rendered judgment in their

favor and no appeal was taken from that decision. The defendant Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities did not appear before the trial

court. We refer in this opinion to Dietze and Sorensen as the defendants.
3 Practice Book § 10-6 provides: ‘‘The order of pleading shall be as follows:

‘‘(1) The plaintiff’s complaint.

‘‘(2) The defendant’s motion to dismiss the complaint.

‘‘(3) The defendant’s request to revise the complaint.

‘‘(4) The defendant’s motion to strike the complaint.

‘‘(5) The defendant’s answer (including any special defenses) to the complaint.

‘‘(6) The plaintiff’s request to revise the defendant’s answer.

‘‘(7) The plaintiff’s motion to strike the defendant’s answer.

‘‘(8) The plaintiff’s reply to any special defenses.’’

4 Practice Book § 10-7 provides: ‘‘In all cases, when the judicial authority

does not otherwise order, the filing of any pleading provided for by the

preceding section will waive the right to file any pleading which might have

been filed in due order and which precedes it in the order of pleading

provided in that section.’’

5

In particular, the defendants cited in their motion to Royce v. Westport,

183 Conn. 177, 179, 439 A.2d 298 (1981), in which our Supreme Court stated:

‘‘When a [motion to strike] is [granted] and the pleading to which it was

directed is amended, that amendment acts to remove the original pleading

and the [motion to strike] thereto from the case. The filing of the amended

pleading is a withdrawal of the original pleading.’’ The defendants also cited

P & L Properties, Inc. v. Schnip Development Corp., 35 Conn. App. 46, 50,

643 A.2d 1302, cert. denied, 231 Conn. 913, 648 A.2d 155 (1994), in which

this court stated: ‘‘When the allegations of an amended complaint appear

to be the same in substance as those of an earlier complaint that was

stricken, the defendant may challenge the amended complaint by filing a

request to revise . . . or a second motion to strike.’’ (Citation omitted.)

6 Specifically, the plaintiffs claim that the following language from Riley

v. Pierson, 51 Conn. Supp. 513, 530, 13 A.3d 732 (2009), aff’d, 126 Conn.

App. 486, 12 A.3d 581 (2011), supports their argument on appeal: ‘‘Nor has

the plaintiff submitted an affidavit or any other documentary support for a

claim of duress.’’ Id. Unlike the plaintiff in Riley, the plaintiffs argue, Benedetto has submitted an affidavit establishing that she acted under duress.

The plaintiffs fail, however, to direct us to any portion of the affidavit

supporting that assertion, and we are unable to discern any testimony contained therein creating a genuine issue of material fact that her participation

in the alleged forgery was motivated by threats from her employer.