Unit Owner Not Liable for Common Area Assault

Premises Liability / Condo & Hospitality Parking Lot Assault:

Unit owner wins summary judgment by showing no duty for injuries in condominium “common elements”

The plaintiff claimed he was assaulted in a parking lot serving a condominium-style hospitality property. He sued, among others, a non-residential unit owner (Kautilya, LLC), arguing that the unit owner shared control over the travel lanes where the attack occurred. The unit owner moved for summary judgment, relying on the condominium declaration and the Connecticut Common Interest Ownership Act (CIOA), which assign control and maintenance of “common elements” to the association, not unit owners. The court carefully walked through the declaration’s language and then highlighted CIOA’s protection: under General Statutes § 47-253, “a unit owner is not liable, solely by reason of being a unit owner, for injury arising out of the use of the common elements.” Because the incident location was within the common elements and there was no evidence of direct control or separate negligence by the unit owner, the court granted summary judgment, effectively reinforcing that bodily-injury claims arising from common-area conditions or incidents generally run against the association, not individual unit owners.
Savage v. Vernon Hospitality Condominium Ass’n, Inc., No. TTD-CV-23-6028147-S (Conn. Super. Ct. Nov. 3, 2025).