Court Opinion

ID: 3007272
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2015-10-06 13:02:15.185708+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:46:29.661210
License: Public Domain

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    TRUSZ v. UBS REALTY INVESTORS, LLC—CONCURRENCE

   ZARELLA, J., concurring. I agree with the result that
the majority reaches. I write separately simply to reiter-
ate that I would interpret General Statutes § 31-51q as
being ‘‘inapplicable to any speech made by a private
sector employee in a private workplace, contrary to the
reasoning in Cotto v. United Technologies Corp., 251
Conn. 1, 738 A.2d 623 (1999).’’ (Footnote omitted.)
Schumann v. Dianon Systems, Inc., 304 Conn. 585,
627–28, 43 A.3d 111 (2012) (Zarella, J., concurring). I
recognize that this claim has not been raised by the
parties in the present case, and, therefore, it would be
inappropriate to decide the case on that basis. Neverthe-
less, ‘‘when presented with the appropriate case, I
would overrule Cotto and instead follow Justice Bor-
den’s concurrence and dissent in Cotto. [See Cotto v.
United Technologies Corp., supra, 21 (Borden, J., con-
curring and dissenting).] A proper reading of § 31-51q
extends protections to private sector employees only
from discipline or discharge [resulting from] the exer-
cise of their constitutionally guaranteed free speech
rights outside of the workplace. It does not protect a
private sector employee’s speech in the private work-
place, regardless of whether that speech [is] a matter
of public concern or made pursuant to his or her job
duties.’’ Schumann v. Dianon Systems, Inc., supra, 638
(Zarella, J., concurring). Accordingly, I respectfully
concur.