Section 4-61dd

Citation: Section 4-61dd
Parent Document: Dept. of Public Health v. Estrada, 349 Conn. 223 (2024)
Jurisdiction: Connecticut (state)
Effective Date: 2024-06-11
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10131752/dept-of-public-health-v-estrada/ ↗

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preservation of claims’’). Cases cited by the department
       are inapposite because they do not involve situations
       in which this court failed to certify a question requested
       by the parties.
          The department also argues that the commission
       abandoned the one merits issue it does address before
       this court by failing to raise or brief that issue in the
       Appellate Court, which did not decide that issue. The
       department contends that the commission did not argue
       in its appeal to the Appellate Court that § 4-61dd pro-
       tected Estrada because she had a reasonable and good
       faith belief that a violation of the statute had occurred.
       This claim of abandonment is unpersuasive. The depart-
       ment conflates the distinction between arguments and
       claims. The commission’s claim has consistently been
       that Estrada made a protected whistleblower disclosure
       pursuant to § 4-61dd. The trial court and the Appellate
       Court each characterized the issue raised by the com-
       mission broadly. The argument as to whether Estrada
       needed to prove an actual violation of state law or
       a reasonable, good faith belief of such a violation is
       ‘‘subsumed within or intertwined with’’ the broader
       legal claim of whether her disclosure was a whis-
       tleblower disclosure under the statute. (Internal quota-
       tion marks omitted.) Jobe v. Commissioner of
       Correction, supra, 334 Conn. 644 n.2. It should also be
       noted that the department never argued that this
       broader claim was abandoned in its response to the
       commission’s petition for certification; rather, it agreed
       that this court should take up the issue. Cf. U.S. Sup.
       Ct. R. 15.2 (effective January 1, 2023) (‘‘Counsel are
       admonished that they have an obligation to the Court
       to point out in the brief in opposition, and not later,
       any perceived misstatement made in the petition. Any
       objection to consideration of a question presented
       based on what occurred in the proceedings below, if the
       objection does not go to jurisdiction, may be deemed
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