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SKUZINSKI v. BOUCHARD FUELS5/6/1997
The principal issue in this appeal is whether, as a condition to a common law action for indemnification, a tortfeasor must establish the existence of an independent relationship between itself and the joint tortfeasor from which it seeks indemnity. The plaintiff, Alfons Skuzinski, filed a complaint seeking damages for personal injuries that he had sustained when he was struck by a truck operated by the defendant Brian Bouchard and owned by the defendant Bouchard Fuels, Inc. (Bouchard). Bouchard then filed a third party complaint against the third party defendants, C.B.C. Associates (C.B.C.) and V.S.F., Inc., doing business
as Clearview Liquor Shoppe (Clearview), in which Bouchard alleged that it was entitled to indemnity because the failure of the third party defendants to clear snow from their sidewalk had caused the plaintiff to walk in the adjacent street, where he was injured. The trial court granted the third party defendants' motions to strike the third party complaint and subsequently rendered judgment in their favor. After a jury trial, the plaintiff recovered damages from Bouchard in the amount of $1,400,000. Bouchard appealed to the Appellate Court from the judgment in favor of the third party defendants, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199 (c). We affirm the judgment of the trial court, but on alternate grounds.
"In an appeal from a judgment granting a motion to strike, we operate in accordance with well established principles. We take the facts to be those alleged in the [third party] complaint that has been stricken and we construe the [third party] complaint in the manner most favorable to sustaining its legal sufficiency." Bohan v. Last, 236 Conn. 670, 674, 674 A.2d 839 (1996); Waters v. Autuori, 236 Conn. 820, 825, 676 A.2d 357 (1996); RK Constructors, Inc. v. Fusco Corp., 231 Conn. 381, 384, 650 A.2d 153 (1994).
In its third party complaint, Bouchard alleged, inter alia, that C.B.C. controlled and operated premises located at 192 Hall Avenue in Meriden and that Clearview was in the business of selling alcoholic beverages on those premises. Bouchard also alleged that, prior to the accident, the plaintiff had entered the premises of the third party defendants, as an invitee, and had purchased alcoholic beverages there. Bouchard further
alleged that the third party defendants had failed to remove snow on the sidewalk in front of their premises and had failed to warn the plaintiff of the risks associated with the existing snow cover, and that, as a result, after having made his purchases, the plaintiff proceeded to walk in the street on Hall Avenue, where he was struck by Bouchard's truck. The third party complaint contains no allegation, however, of any independent legal relationship of any kind between Bouchard and the third party defendants. As the trial court observed in so ruling in its memorandum of decision: "The relationship between these parties was clearly random and unanticipated . . . ."
The question that we must decide is whether Bouchard's third party complaint is legally sufficient to state a cause of action for common law indemnity. "Ordinarily there is no right of indemnity or contribution between joint tort-feasors. . . . Where, however, one of the defendants is in control of the situation and his negligence alone is the direct immediate cause of the injury and the other defendant does not know of the fault, has no reason to anticipate it and may reasonably rely upon the former not to commit a wrong, it is only justice that the former should bear the burden of damages due to the injury. . . . Under the circumstances described, we have d
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