§ 46a-58

Citation: § 46a-58
Parent Document: Connecticut Judicial Branch v. Gilbert, 343 Conn. 90 (2022)
Jurisdiction: Connecticut (state)
Effective Date: 2022-04-26
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/6462677/connecticut-judicial-branch-v-gilbert/ ↗

Full Text

2,200 chars

interest was adopted by American courts. . . . Gradu-
ally, in suits between private parties, the necessity of
an agreement faded. . . .
‘‘The agreement requirement assumed special force
when applied to claims for interest against the United
States. As sovereign, the United States, in the absence
of its consent, is immune from suit. . . . This basic
rule of sovereign immunity, in conjunction with the
requirement of an agreement to pay interest, gave rise
to the rule that interest cannot be recovered unless
the award of interest was affirmatively and separately
contemplated by Congress. . . . The purpose of the
rule is to permit the [g]overnment to occupy an appar-
ently favored position . . . by protecting it from claims
for interest that would prevail against private parties.
. . .
‘‘For well over [one] century, this [c]ourt, executive
agencies, and Congress itself consistently have recog-
nized that federal statutes cannot be read to permit
interest to run on a recovery against the United States
unless Congress affirmatively mandates that result. The
no-interest rule is expressly described as early as
1819 . . . .
***
‘‘[Accordingly,] [i]n analyzing whether Congress has
waived the immunity of the United States, we must
construe waivers strictly in favor of the sovereign . . .
and not enlarge the waiver beyond what the language
requires . . . . The no-interest rule provides an added
gloss of strictness [on] these usual rules.
‘‘[T]here can be no consent by implication or by use
of ambiguous language. Nor can an intent on the part
of the framers of a statute or contract to permit the
recovery of interest suffice whe[n] the intent is not
translated into affirmative statutory or contractual
Page 62 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL April 26, 2022

Other Sections in This Document (128)

Full Text