Gordon v. Bridgeport Housing Authority, 208 Conn. 161 (1988)

Citation: Gordon v. Bridgeport Housing Authority, 208 Conn. 161 (1988)
Parent Document: Gordon v. Bridgeport Housing Authority, 208 Conn. 161 (1988)
Jurisdiction: Connecticut (state)
Effective Date: 1988-07-05
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7893244/gordon-v-bridgeport-housing-authority/ ↗

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This court has also discussed extensively the difference between a ministerial and a discretionary act. “A municipality is immune from liability for the performance of governmental acts as distinguished from ministerial acts. Governmental acts are performed wholly for the direct benefit of the public and are supervisory or discretionary in nature. ... On the other hand, ministerial acts are performed in a prescribed manner without the exercise of judgment or discretion *168as to the propriety of the action.” Gauvin v. New Haven, supra, 184; Tango v. New Haven, supra, 204-205; Wright v. Brown, 167 Conn. 464, 471, 356 A.2d 176 (1975); see General Statutes § 52-557n.3 The public/private duty distinction and the ministerial/discretionary test may appear to overlap and this has resulted in a lack of consistent analysis by this state’s courts. Compare Tango v. New Haven, supra (ministerial/discretionary test), and Fraser v. Henninger, 173 Conn. 52, 60, 376 A.2d 406 (1977) (ministerial/discretionary test), with Trautman v. Stamford, 32 Conn. Sup. 258, 262, 350 A.2d 782 (1975) (public/private duty test); see note, *169“The Official Responsibility Rule and its Implications for Municipal Liability in Connecticut: Shore v. Town of Stonington,” 15 Conn. L. Rev. 641, 647 (1983). Whether a public or private duty is established, there is no potential liability if the act complained of is a discretionary act that does not fit into any of the narrow exceptions outlined in Shore. The finding of a public duty is often, but not always, dispositive of whether the act is a discretionary one. See, e.g., Trautman v. Stamford, supra, 263 (demurrer sustained upon reaching conclusion of patrolmen’s duty to general public). In other cases, however, a breach of a public duty may *170still result in liability for the official if the act that he or she negligently performs is a ministerial act. See, e.g., Wright v. Brown, supra, 471-72 (failure to quarantine dog, although a violation of a duty to the public, was ministerial act and demurrer overruled). Thus, although the public duty doctrine provides the starting point of the analysis, distinctions between discretionary acts and ministerial acts are often controlling without regard to whether the duty is ascertained to be public or private. Shore v. Stonington, supra, 153.

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