Section 31-51q

Citation: Section 31-51q
Parent Document: Cotto v. United Technologies Corp., 251 Conn. 1 (1999)
Jurisdiction: Connecticut (state)
Effective Date: 1999-10-12
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7898264/cotto-v-united-technologies-corp/ ↗

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Third, the majority, in footnote 5 of its opinion, suggests that I have raised on my own the question of “the constitutional rights of employers to express their own *23political views,” and that the defendant has not done so. Thus, the majority dismisses one of the central points of this dissent with the statement that if and “when the rights of an employee under § 31-51q conflict with the employer’s free expression rights ... we will be required to resolve any such conflict in light of the particular facts and circumstances presented.” The majority, however, mischaracterizes the argument of the defendant. In reliance on Redgrave v. Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc., 855 F.2d 888 (1st Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 448 U.S. 1043, 109 S. Ct. 869, 102 L. Ed. 2d 993 (1989), the defendant in its brief explicitly argued that “a private employer does not have a constitutional right to discriminate or retaliate, but does have a constitutional right to speak that is on an equal footing with the free speech right of others,” and explicitly pointed to “the difficulty in enforcing through a statute the protection of an employee’s speech against an employer who has an equal constitutional right to be free from state interference on a matter of speech . . . .” (Emphasis added.)

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