Pollard v. Geico General Ins. Co.


*********************************************** The “officially released” date that appears near the be- ginning of each opinion is the date the opinion will be pub- lished in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it was released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the be- ginning of all time periods for filing postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Reports and Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the latest version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying the opinion as it appears in the Connecticut Law Journal and bound volumes of official reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced and distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publica- tions, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. *********************************************** MICHELLE J. POLLARD v. GEICO GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY (AC 44560) Elgo, Suarez and DiPentima, Js. Syllabus The plaintiff sought to recover underinsured motorist benefits pursuant to an automobile insurance policy issued by the defendant insurer in connection with injuries she had sustained in a motor vehicle accident in 2012. The plaintiff first brought an action against the defendant in 2016 related to the accident, which the trial court disposed of by granting the defendant’s motion for nonsuit due to the plaintiff’s failure to comply with discovery orders. The plaintiff initiated the present action against the defendant in 2019 pursuant to the accidental failure of suit statute (§ 52-592 (a)). The defendant moved for summary judgment, alleging that the plaintiff could not bring the present action pursuant to § 52- 592 (a) because the nonsuit in the prior action was for disciplinary reasons and further alleging that her claim for benefits was untimely pursuant to the terms of the policy, which precluded claims for underin- sured motorist benefits from being brought more than three years after the date of an accident without invoking a tolling provision of the policy by providing the defendant with written notice of a claim for uninsured motorist benefits. The plaintiff claimed that a letter her counsel sent to the defendant in 2012 satisfied the tolling provision of the insurance policy. The trial court granted the motion and rendered judgment thereon, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held that the plaintiff could not prevail on her claim that the trial court improperly granted summary judgment to the defendant: although the trial court granted the motion for summary judgment on the basis that, as a matter of law, § 52-592 (a) was not applicable, this court affirmed the trial court’s granting of summary judgment on the alternative ground that no genuine issues of material fact existed as to whether …

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Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals