State Premises Liability: Was Area Abandoned?

The defendant, the State of Connecticut, claims on appeal that the lower court improperly denied its motion to dismiss because it did not have a duty to maintain and repair the area where the alleged injury occurred and is therefore entitled to sovereign immunity. On January 11, 2020, the plaintiff was walking on the public sidewalk adjacent to Center Street in Shelton, Connecticut.

Premises Liability: State’s Duty to Maintain and Sovereign Immunity

The plaintiff stepped into an open utility handhole on the public sidewalk, causing her to fall. The plaintiff brought action against the city of Shelton, the state of Connecticut, two businesses that own property abutting the sidewalk where the plaintiff was injured, and United Illuminating Company. In the second count, the plaintiff alleges that she is entitled to relief against the state of Connecticut pursuant to Connecticut General Statutes § 13a-144. The state filed a motion to dismiss the second count on the grounds that the plaintiff’s claim is barred by sovereign immunity contained in § 13a-144. In particular, the state argued that it did not have a duty to maintain the sidewalk where the alleged incident occurred, and therefore the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. In the state’s responses to the plaintiff’s requests for admission, the state first admitted that the handhole was owned by the state “at some time prior to [January 11, 2020],” and then subsequently admitted that the handhole was owned by the state “from 1992 until [it] was taken out of service and abandoned in 1997.” The state further admitted that the handhole contains an abandoned loop detection system, which was serviced by the state and controlled the traffic light at an intersection on Center Street. In the plaintiff’s supplemental objection to the state’s motion to dismiss, the plaintiff argued that even if the state intended to abandon the handhole, it did not do so in a proper manner because it failed to remove the handhole. After a hearing on the matter, the lower court denied the state’s motion to dismiss. The lower court concluded that the issue of whether the state abandoned the handhole is a question of fact for the jury to decide, and therefore the state’s argument that it is not liable as a matter of law must be rejected.

Dispute Over Abandonment of Utility Handhole Defeats Motion to Dismiss

The Appellate Court agrees that the question of whether the state abandoned the handhole involves a disputed issue of fact that is critical to the determination of whether the court has subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to § 13a-144. A fact finder may ultimately find that the state’s nonuse of the handhole from 1997 until the alleged accident in 2020 reflected its intention to abandon the handhole. The state, however, provides no legal support for its argument that its nonuse of the handhole during that time conclusively established, as a matter of law, that it abandoned the handhole. Because the question of whether the state abandoned the handhole involves a critical factual dispute, the lower court had the discretion to postpone the resolution of that issue until a trial on the merits occurred. Accordingly, the Appellate Court concludes that the lower court properly denied the state’s motion to dismiss, and the judgment is affirmed. Petrocelli v. City of Shelton, 230 Conn. App. 639, 646 (2025)