The plaintiff appealed to this court from the judgments of the trial court
dismissing the substitute complaints in three cases she had filed against
her former employer, the defendant hospital, as barred by the exclusivity
provision (§ 31-284 (a)) of the Workers’ Compensation Act (§ 31-275 et
seq.). The plaintiff had been employed by the defendant when she suf-
fered an injury for which she sought workers’ compensation benefits,
and the defendant accepted the claim. The plaintiff filed functionally
identical substitute complaints in each of the three actions, alleging, inter
alia, that the defendant had engaged in retaliatory and discriminatory
conduct against her in violation of statute (§ 31-290a) as a result of her
having sought workers’ compensation benefits. The trial court granted
the defendant’s motions to strike all three complaints, determining that
they did not allege employment discrimination claims pursuant to § 31-
290a but, rather, bad faith processing of a workers’ compensation claim,
which was barred by § 31-284 (a). Held that the trial court properly
struck the complaints as being barred by § 31-284 (a), as the plaintiff
failed to allege any adverse employment action by the defendant, none
of its alleged behavior related to or had any effect on her employment
status, she admitted in her complaints that the defendant’s behavior did
not arise out of or in the course of her employment, and, despite her
attempt to recast her claims as alleging employment discrimination,
she alleged nothing more than bad faith processing of her workers’
compensation claim.
Argued January 20—officially released May 3, 2022 Procedural History