Johnson Electric Company, Inc. v. Salce Contracting Associates

Argued May 28, 2002 Opinion Our Unfair Trade Practices Act, General Statutes § 42-110a et seq. (CUTPA), 1 provides a remedy for a person who has sustained an ascertainable loss as a result of conduct that is immoral, unethical, oppressive or unscrupulous. The CUTPA claimant in this case is a subcontractor that was denied a subcontract even though the subcontractor had been named in the successful bid proposal of the general contractor. An attorney trial referee, relying on his extensive findings of fact, issued a report concluding that the subcontractor had proven a CUTPA violation. The trial court rejected the report of the attorney trial referee. The most important issue in this case is whether, as a matter of statutory interpretation, CUTPA requires a claimant to prove not only misconduct, but also a repeated course of misconduct. Because we agree with the claimant that a single instance of misconduct may be actionable, we reverse the judgment of the trial court. The plaintiff subcontractor, Johnson Electric Company, Inc., filed a complaint against the defendant general contractor, Salce Contracting Associates, Inc., in which it alleged that the defendant had violated CUTPA by failing to award it a subcontract to do the electrical work on a Bridgeport school project. Despite the fact that the school project required a general contractor to ''name its subs,'' the defendant denied that it owed any duty to the plaintiff. The trial court, without expressly challenging the findings of Mark J. Rosen, an attorney trial referee to whom the case had been referred, concluded that the plaintiff had not proven its CUTPA claim.