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 the basis that the issue should be addressed, if at all, by the legislature. There were also public policy considerations that the majority concluded did not support recognition of this cause of action, specifically, the costs of recognizing it — increased insurance premiums, increased litigation expenses and double recovery of damages by the child.