In a stinging rebuke, a Superior Court judge announced Sept. 18 that she would refer Neubert, Pepe & Monteith principal Gretchen Randall to the Statewide Grievance Committee for providing inaccurate interrogatories to the plaintiff's counsel in a premises liability slip-and-fall case.

The judge also ordered a mistrial, and said a new trial with a new judge would be set for December to unravel why Randall hadn't mentioned a video recording of the incident at the center of the suit.

"Because the court believes that it has an obligation to do so, it is the court's intention to refer counsel to the grievance committee, something I have never done in my nine and a half years sitting on the bench," Hartford Superior Court Judge Susan Quinn Cobb said. "Doing this gives me no pleasure, but not doing anything is not an option as it sends the wrong message to counsel, to her firm, and to other counsel practicing in this state, that filling out interrogatory forms in this manner is not appropriate."

Randall, who specializes in medical malpractice and hospital liability defense and professional malpractice and insurance defense, referred all comment to Mike Neubert, the firm's managing partner. Neubert told the Connecticut Law Tribune Tuesday, "Because this matter is still in litigation, it's inappropriate to comment. But we are confident attorney Randall did not breach any of her professional obligations."

Plaintiff counsel Ed Gasser of Avon-based Gasser Law Firm declined to comment for this report.

Gasser had requested a motion for sanctions against Randall. He represents MaryAnn Prince, who is suing Eastern Connecticut Health Network Inc. and Prospect Manchester Hospital Inc., alleging she fell and suffered injuries from a broken section of a cement walkway.

At the crux of Cobb's decision are interrogatories plaintiff's counsel sent to Randall, who represented defendants, including ECHN.

According to the judge's timeline of events, the defendant's risk manager, Ann Donahue, certified under oath that the answers to the interrogatories were true and accurate. Randall signed the certification and informed the court in chambers that she had advised the defendants and Donahue as to the answers. But, the judge wrote, the answers were not accurate.

Two questions, specifically, the judge said, were not answered honestly. The first question asks whether any written report of the incident noted in the complaint was prepared by "you or your employees in the regular course of business." Donahue answered no when she should have answered yes, the judge said.

The second question reads: "Have you made any statements, as defined in the Connecticut Practice Book, section 13-1, to any person regarding any of the incidents in the complaint." Again Donahue answered no when she should have said yes, Cobb wrote.

At the center of the case is Reggie Davis, a hospital security officer, who knew the plaintiff's daughter. Davis met with the plaintiff and her daughter the day after the incident. He examined the area where Prince said she fell, and took information from both women concerning the incident.

Davis, the judge wrote, also wrote an email to his supervisor setting forth the details of the meeting with the two women and that the plaintiff had reported falling the day before. The judge said the email included all of the information that Davis would have included in a hospital incident report.

There was a video of the incident. That video no longer exists due to a changeover in the hospital's camera systems, according to the litigants, despite Davis taking steps to save the video so it would not be taped over.

The judge wrote that Randall, maintaining that Davis' email to the supervisor was not a statement, "apparently made the deliberate decision not to disclose the email. The court also believes that the defendant had a duty to disclose the existence of the video and that it had been destroyed inadvertently or not." Cobb also wrote that "the court has a duty to send a message that this sort of discovery practice is inappropriate."

The 10-page transcript shows that Cobb said with regard to discovery that Randall might have violated the following Rules of Professional Conduct: 3.1, involving meritorious claims and contentions; 3.3, involving candor toward the tribunal; and 3.4, regarding fairness to opposing counsel and the commentaries to those rules.