This publish was written by Matthew Loescher, Esq.
On this case, the applicant for a particular allow filed a lawsuit in opposition to his neighbor for defamation per se, defamation, defamation, and defamation, alleging that the neighbor’s feedback on the planning and zoning fee assembly triggered injury to his popularity in society and the career and accused him of commits a prison error and can’t be trusted. The Court docket of Attraction, Judicial District of Stamford-Norwalk, granted the neighbor’s movement to dismiss on the grounds that the court docket lacked principal jurisdiction and rejected the plaintiff’s movement to file a counterclaim. The plaintiff filed an attraction, and the Excessive Court docket upheld.
On attraction, the court docket discovered that given the absence of procedural safeguards to make sure the reliability of proceedings earlier than a planning and zoning fee, the general public profit to be derived from statements made by the general public throughout particular allow software hearings earlier than such a fee isn’t compelling sufficient to outweigh the likelihood the injury {that a} misrepresentation could cause to the popularity of a person to ensure the granting of absolute immunity in opposition to such statements. As well as, the fee’s restricted authority to reject proof or restrict what info is introduced beforehand to make sure the reliability of a trial, and the shortage of public coverage causes to increase the “potent treatment” of absolute immunity on this context, assist the court docket’s discovering that public hearings on allow purposes particularly earlier than the town planning and zoning fee isn’t quasi-judicial in nature.
After concluding that the listening to on the appliance for a particular allow earlier than the municipal planning and zoning fee was not quasi-judicial in nature, the court docket additional held that the Court docket of Attraction wrongly decided that the accused’s assertion entitled him to absolute immunity. Due to this fact, the choice of the Court docket of Attraction was annulled and the case returned with instructions to reverse the court docket’s determination and submit the case to the court docket for additional proceedings.
Earlier v Haig, 2022 WL 4099434 (CT 9/7/2022)