Every once in a while, a case is listed on the Connecticut
Supreme Court docket that reminds me of some significant cases I
helped decide while serving as an Associate Justice. When this
happens, I find myself going back to the briefs submitted, the oral
arguments we heard, the conferences that followed, the drafts that
circulated, the opinions that were published, and the cases
subsequently decided that tweak the reasoning, explain the
imprecise verbiage and sometimes even reverse the holding. In the
fall, the court will entertain a certified question that has given
me this opportunity. Rather than issue a spoiler alert, I'd
rather keep you in suspense.
I begin with Mendillo v. Board of Education, a case in
which a majority of the Supreme Court declined to recognize a
derivative cause of action for loss of parental consortium by a
minor child. Some of the jurisdictions that the Mendillo
Court followed had rejected the loss of parental consortium cause
of action on
