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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Evidence credited by the referee also supports the
department’s nonretaliatory justifications, including
evidence that Estrada (1) had a history of declining
work quality and performance improvement plans
before her disclosure, (2) prepared the inaccurate let-
ters she was initially reprimanded for—the second of
which was submitted after she was put on notice of
the problem with the Wang letter and the importance
of not repeating it—and also failed to appropriately log
the Wang complaint, and (3) continued to exhibit poor
work quality after those incidents, including the failure
to track and keep files, more problems communicating
with her supervisors about appointment letters, and
continued resistance to the issues identified in her ongo-
ing performance improvement plan.
Estrada’s first written reprimand was issued nearly
one month after the disclosure, and then only after
Estrada had again, less than one week after the Wang
incident, submitted another letter to the department’s
commissioner for his signature without first confirming
the facts reported in the letter. Thus, regardless of
whether the two year statutory presumption applies,
Estrada presented no evidence that contradicted the
department’s proffered reason for the adverse person-
nel actions.12
Significantly, and contrary to the referee’s decision,
at this procedural stage, the department’s burden was
only one of production, not persuasion. See, e.g., Craine
v. Trinity College, 259 Conn. 625, 643, 791 A.2d 518
(2002); see also, e.g., Texas Dept. of Community Affairs
v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 254, 101 S. Ct. 1089, 67 L. Ed.
2d 207 (1981) (when burden shifts, defendant ‘‘need not
persuade the court that it was actually motivated by
12
The referee concluded that the department’s proffered reasons for disci-
pline were pretextual but provided no explanation as to why it was pretextual
to support that conclusion.
June 11, 2024 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL Page 47

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