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DOCKET NO: HHD-CV20-6124733-S : SUPERIOR COURT
JOHN PINHEIRO : JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF HARTFORD
VS. : AT HARTFORD
NORTHLAND PAVILIONS LIMITED :
PARTNERSHIP MARCH 25, 2024
OBJECTION TO MOTION FOR ORDER OF COMPLIANCE AND FOR SANCTIONS
[#178.00]
Defendant, Northland Pavilions Limited Partnership, hereby objects to Plaintiff John
Pinheiro’s Motion for Order of Compliance and for Sanctions [#178.00]. As set forth in greater
detail below, Plaintiff’s motion is without merit for a variety of reasons. Most notably, much of
the argument mounted by the Plaintiff surrounds the filing of pleadings between Northland and
former apportionment/cross-claim defendant Atlas Concrete Products. Additionally, much of the
remainder of Plaintiff’s argument rests on a misconception as to whether Plaintiff is entitled to
certain documents or information, or whether such information would be within the scope of
Plaintiff’s standard discovery or otherwise relevant to Plaintiff’s claim. Finally, Plaintiff makes
a blatantly false claim that Defendant withheld an incident report from the Plaintiff, when in fact,
this report was introduced as an exhibit at the Plaintiff’s deposition on February 3, 2022.
Plaintiff’s motion should be denied in its entirety.
LEWIS BRISBOIS BISGAARD
& SMITH LLP
185 Asylum Street, Suite 2603
Hartford, CT 06103
Juris No. 435076
PHONE: 860.748.4806
FAX: 860.748.4857
I. RELEVANT FACTUAL BACKGROUND
On page 4 of Plaintiff’s motion, he makes the correct point that “Northland and Atlas
were represented by joint counsel from December 20, 2020, until February 23, 2023. The
significance of this cannot be understated.” On this, the parties are in agreement. For this two
and a half year time period, both Atlas and Northland were represented by the law firm of
Hickey Smith, LLP. Also of relevance, for the majority of this time the Plaintiff was represented
by the Nevins Law Group, LLC, with Atty. John Pavano filing a substitute appearance for the
Plaintiff on March 7, 2022. This is significant because, with respect to much of the conduct
alleged or described within Plaintiff’s instant motion, none of the current counsel of record were
involved in this matter. While Atty Pavano has served as Plaintiff’s counsel of record for
approximately two years, the undersigned law firm of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith only
appeared approximately one year ago. Much of the subject matter discussed within the instant
motion is therefore outside of the realm of knowledge of any of the participants in this case;
certainly, Atty. Pavano cannot speak for the actions of his predecessor counsel any more than
undersigned could for the actions of Hickey Smith, LLP.
It is clear that something was “lost in translation” during the various transitions from one
attorney to another. Most notably, Plaintiff makes a considerable amount of noise over a claim
that Defendant did not produce an incident report to the Plaintiff with initial discovery on
October 22, 2021. As discussed below, undersigned cannot say for certain that this document
was produced on that date (though circumstances suggested that it had been). However, it is
138152076.1 2
100% clear that this document was produced absolutely no later than February 3, 2022, at
which time it was introduced as an exhibit at the deposition of the Plaintiff. Thus, though
undersigned counsel may have gotten the date incorrect, it is abundantly clear that this document
was in fact provided to the Plaintiff no later than February 3, 2022.
Plaintiff also spends considerable time within his motion addressing the apportionment
complaint and cross-claim between Northland and Atlas. To be frank, it is unclear why this is
relevant, or what Plaintiff’s specific grievance is regarding this issue. As astutely noted within
his motion, Northland brought an apportionment complaint against Atlas in August of 2020,
which resulted in Atlas accepting Northland’s tender and the joint representation listed above.1
At the time, Northland asserted that the stair in question had been replaced by Atlas. Some two
and a half years later, Atlas and its insurer revoked the tender in question, apparently upon
making a determination that the stair in question had not been replaced prior to the Plaintiff’s
fall. As undersigned was not counsel of record from December 20, 2020 until February 23,
2023, undersigned has absolutely no idea why it took Atlas nearly two and a half years to reach
this conclusion before revoking its acceptance of the tender.
1
Bizarrely, at various points throughout the motion, Plaintiff acts as if the fact that Atlas was hired to replace the
stairs at the Pavilions is some newly discovered fact which was concealed from the Plaintiff. Atlas’s retention by
Northland to replace all of the stairs at the Pavilions was quite literally the basis for the Apportionment Complaint
filed in August of 2020. For Plaintiff to now act as if this is some newly discovered element which changes the
mechanics of this case is laughable.
138152076.1 3
Plaintiff is again correct that, in May of 2023, Northland filed a cross-claim for
indemnification and breach of contract against Atlas. The basis for the cross-claim was two-
fold; first, that Atlas was performing work on the building in question at the time of the incident,
and alternatively, that if Atlas had failed to replace the stairs in question by the date of the
incident, then it had breached the contract between the two parties which called for Atlas to
replace all of the stairs on the premises by a date certain. Plaintiff argues that this cross-claim
was “improper”, yet this is not Plaintiff’s argument to make (nor is it clear as to how the cross-
claim negatively impacted the Plaintiff). Plaintiff’s argument on this issue mirrors exactly those
arguments made by Atlas within its own Motion to Dismiss, which was disregarded by this court
when Atlas was found to be in default at the time such motion was made. Nonetheless, if
Plaintiff had some issue with the propriety of the filing of the cross-claim against Atlas, he was
certainly free to file his own objection to that pleading with the court, which he failed to do.
Similarly, Plaintiff takes issue with the status of discovery between Northland and Atlas.
Once again, this is quite simply not Plaintiff’s grievance to air. Northland was in the process of
responding to non-standard discovery requests from Atlas which pertained to the breach of
contract claim raised in the cross-claim. Had Atlas remained as a party to this case, any such
responsive discovery to Atlas’s requests would have been provided to the Plaintiff as well;
having withdrawn against Atlas, such discovery requests are now moot. Despite having more
than four years to do so, Plaintiff has never moved for permission to serve additional discovery
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requests upon the Defendant nor has Plaintiff taken any affirmative actions to pursue depositions
nor resolve any objections lodged by prior handling counsel.
II. ARGUMENT
A. Plaintiff’s Allegations Regarding Defendant’s “Improper Conduct” Are
Misleading and Unsupported By the Facts of the Case
Much of Plaintiff’s motion is window dressing; it is not until page 21 of Plaintiff’s
motion that he details with specificity the allegedly improper conduct of the Defendant.
Defendant will now respond to each of those allegations, in turn.
1. “It filed a third-party complaint which made the factual misrepresentation that
the stair at issue was recently replaced prior to the incident.”
Plaintiff first argues that the Defendant alleging within the Apportionment Complaint that
Atlas had recently replaced the stair at issue is somehow improper. First, there is no evidence or
showing of proof that Defendant knew at the time of the filing of the Apportionment Complaint
that this was untrue. As Plaintiff astutely notes on page 4 of his motion, Atlas accepted tender
and defended Northland for nearly two and a half years before contesting this claim. The very
fact that Atlas did not dispute this claim at the time it was made (and indeed, not for several
years) would seemingly defeat any claim by the Plaintiff that this “misrepresentation” was either
intentional or that the claim itself was not made in good faith. (Defendant would also question
whether the Plaintiff has standing to claim aggrievement here, as this claim seemingly invokes
only Northland and Atlas.)
138152076.1 5
2. “It improperly withheld the incident report for the plaintiff’s event from
responses to standard discovery by asserting attorney-client privilege.”
Undersigned would actually agree with Plaintiff that the incident report would not be
covered by the attorney-client privilege; however, as noted above, undersigned had nothing to do
with the lodging of that objection. Nor is undersigned aware at all of what, if any, discussions
occurred regarding that objection between any of Plaintiff’s attorneys or prior defense counsel.
Moreover, undersigned has been at all times operating under the belief that Plaintiff was
provided the incident report during standard discovery. Upon receipt of the transferred file, the
incident report was included within a folder containing documents produced during initial
discovery. However, even if this document was not provided with Defendant’s initial
discovery responses, there can be no doubt that Plaintiff was provided the incident report
less than three months later, on February 3, 2022 at the Plaintiff’s deposition.
On page 55 of the transcript of the deposition of Plaintiff John Pinheiro, the following
exchange occurs:
MR. DUNNE: All right. I just want to show you this report. Let’s mark
this as Defendant’s D for identification. (Whereupon, Defendants’ Exhibit D,
Incident report, was marked for identification.)
Q. This is the incident report that Northland did fill out. So have you
ever seen this report prior to today?
A. No sir.
Q. And it looks like it was filled out a couple of days after the incident
occurred and the person filling it out – well, withdrawn – not withdrawn. But the
138152076.1 6
person says the Community Manager was Cheryl Desmond. Is that a different
person than the Sherry you provided the information to?
A. I believe that was her.
Relevant portions of Plaintiff’s deposition transcript have been attached hereto as
Exhibit A. It should be noted that Plaintiff himself chose to read and sign the deposition
transcript, thus putting its accuracy beyond any dispute.
It is still not known to undersigned whether the incident report in question was provided
to the Plaintiff prior to February 3, 2022. Circumstances would suggest that it was; certainly, it
would be highly unusual for a document such as an incident report to be produced for the first
time at a deposition. Additionally, the deposition does not reflect any surprise, shock, or
objection on the part of Plaintiff’s counsel as to the use of the incident report as an exhibit.
However, it is beyond any doubt that this report was made available to the Plaintiff on that date,
if not sooner. Any claim that Defendant “withheld” the incident report is quite simply false.2
3. “It falsely responded to discovery demands by representing there were no prior
incidents involving similar defects.”
Respectfully, Plaintiff misconstrues the interrogatory at issue. The interrogatory in
question reads “state whether you received, at any time within twenty-four (24) months before
the incident described by the Plaintiff, complaints from anyone about the defect or condition that
2
It must also be noted that, if Plaintiff had in fact believed Defendant had lodged an improper objection to an
interrogatory, and was withholding relevant evidence as a result, he should have – and could have – sought the
intervention of this court at any time in the prior three years. He failed to ever do so.
138152076.1 7
the Plaintiff claims caused the Plaintiff’s injury.” Plaintiff claims that he fell on the stairs
located at building 5200, one of many buildings located within the Pavilions. Defendant has no
record of any complaints or incidents at building 5200 prior to Plaintiff’s alleged fall. Any such
complaints regarding incidents at other buildings are irrelevant and not within the scope of the
interrogatory; the notice requirement with respect to premises liability claims requires notice of
the specific defect or dangerous condition which caused the Plaintiff’s injury, and not merely of
conditions precedent thereto or general conditions existing at the property. In other words, if
Defendant had received any complaints about the stairs at building 5200, such complaints would
certainly relate to the “defect or condition that Plaintiff claims caused the Plaintiff’s injury”, as
contemplated by the interrogatory. Plaintiff has claimed that the stairs at building 5200 were
defective on the date in question; any such complaints regarding other staircases located
elsewhere on the premises are simply not relevant nor responsive to the subject interrogatory.
4. “It improperly filed a ‘cross claim’ when it appeared its apportionment
complaint would be stricken, in order to keep the third party in the litigation.”
The basis for Plaintiff’s claimed grievance is unclear. If Plaintiff took issue with the
cross claim, he could have raised an objection at the time it was filed. Similarly, whether or not
the cross-claim was proper was an issue raised by Atlas by way of a Motion to Dismiss. It is
also simply not apparent how, in any way, the filing of the cross-claim by Northland against
Atlas is “improper conduct” subject to sanctions or requisite of an order for compliance. If
138152076.1 8
anything, an argument that the cross-claim was “improper” would be reserved for Atlas to raise
as the party to whom the cross-claim was directed.
5. “It attempted to unilaterally exclude the plaintiff from discovery in his very own
lawsuit, by producing documents in response to discovery to one party, and
intentionally withholding them from another, in violation of the Practice Book.”
Plaintiff’s next allegation is little more than another result of the confusion caused by the
replacement of defense counsel at various points in the litigation. To wit, Defendant was
understandably confused as to why counsel for Atlas was requesting documents such as the
incident report, contracts between Northland and Atlas, and Northland’s responses to standard
form discovery. Where Atlas and Northland had been represented by joint counsel for two and a
half years, Defendant understandably believed that Atlas’s file would include all of these items,
as Defendant believed that they had been produced by prior defense counsel several years ago.
The occasions described within Plaintiff’s motion where Plaintiff alleges that Defendant was
“withholding” documents from the Plaintiff are instead instances when Defendant was under the
impression that it was re-producing items to Atlas which already provided during standard
discovery by prior counsel. Once again, Defendant was under the impression that all of the items
in question were already possessed by all parties. There was certainly no intent to deprive
Plaintiff of any of these items, nor is there any evidence of any such intent. Additionally, the
items identified by the Plaintiff (mainly the contracts between Atlas and Northland) have
absolutely no bearing on Plaintiff’s claim, and as such, Plaintiff cannot have suffered any
prejudice in being slightly delayed access to the same.
138152076.1 9
6. “It attempted to justify doing so by mischaracterizing the conduct as some, but
not all, parties to a lawsuit engaging in ‘limited discovery’ related to a ‘cross
claim.’”
Here, Plaintiff conflates multiple different occurrences. The discussion in reference
relates specifically to Defendant’s effort to sift through a large volume of documents to identify
items sought specifically by Atlas through their targeted interrogatories related to the breach of
contract claim. Plaintiff blithely attempts to assert that he has an independent right to these
documents, when in fact, these were documents compiled specifically in response to Atlas’s non-
standard discovery. The specific email exchange attached as an exhibit by Plaintiff to his motion
shows a conversation where undersigned stated that Defendant had already verified, several
years ago, that there had been no prior complaints about the stairs at building 5200. In response,
Plaintiff’s counsel stated “how would you know without going thru the documents you are
reviewing now?”, to which undersigned asserted that the documents being reviewed were those
specifically identified as potentially relevant to the indemnification and breach of contract claims
in response to Atlas’s discovery. Plaintiff sought a fishing expedition when the only documents
at issue were being reviewed to ascertain whether any were relevant or responsive to Atlas’s
discovery requests. Once again, if Plaintiff felt he needed additional discovery at any point, he
had several years to petition this court for permission to serve additional requests, but he failed to
do so.
7. “It represented it was gathering information to respond to discovery demands
for seven months only to withdraw its claims against the third party to avoid
having to respond to the third party’s discovery demands.”
138152076.1 10
This allegation represents nothing more than guesswork on the part of the Plaintiff
resulting in an unsubstantiated conclusory statement. First, as has been made abundantly clear
herein, the discovery demands at issue were those propounded by former defendant Atlas.
Plaintiff is without standing to seek enforcement of those discovery obligations nor to assert a
grievance regarding the same. Once again, if Plaintiff felt he needed additional discovery to
pursue his claims against the Defendant, he would have been well within his right to seek
permission from the court to serve additional discovery requests. Instead, he sought to ride the
coattails of former defendant Atlas, rather than prosecute the case himself.
Finally, Northland’s reasons for withdrawing against Atlas are immaterial. Nonetheless,
undersigned can assert that a strategic decision was made to withdraw against Atlas where
Defendant was uncertain of its ability to provide enough evidence to sustain its claims against
Atlas. It is unclear why Plaintiff feels this decision is worthy of scorn or should be subject to a
motion for sanctions; if anything, a litigant withdrawing a claim when the viability of that claim
becomes uncertain represents sound legal practice and consideration of the time and resources of
everyone involved, including the court.
8. “It produced a witness for a § 13-27(h) deposition who expressly testified that he
was not the person most knowledgeable for any of the designated topics.”
Defendant will only briefly respond to this allegation, as it is the subject of another
motion filed by the Plaintiff [#179.00] to which Defendant will be objecting. However,
Defendant would represent that this allegation misrepresents what actually occurred, and leaves
138152076.1 11
out critical context. Notably, the witness produced by the Defendant testified that the actual
persons most knowledgeable were no longer employed by the Defendant, having retired several
years ago. Essentially, it was made clear during the deposition in question (which lasted
approximately five-and-a-half hours) that the witness was as knowledgeable a corporate
representative as could be produced. The property in question was sold by Defendant three years
ago; nearly everyone involved with that property at the time of Plaintiff’s incident is no longer
employed by or connected with Northland in any way. (The witness also testified that he
attempted to speak with the former employees who may have had relevant knowledge in
preparation for the deposition.)
9. “It filed a motion for protective order to prevent the plaintiff from deposing
witnesses recently identified in the previously withheld incident report; and,
10. It misrepresented to the Court that the incident report was produced with its
initial discovery responses in support of the motion for protective order.”
Plaintiff has filed a separate motion related to these topics [#180.00] to which Defendant
will file a separate response. However, as addressed above, even if this report was not produced
on October 25, 2021, with the Defendant’s discovery responses, it was absolutely provided to the
Plaintiff no later than February 3, 2022, when it was used as “exhibit D” at Plaintiff’s deposition.
(See Exhibit A.) If Plaintiff wishes to argue that he was somehow prejudiced from taking timely
depositions over the last two years due to receiving the incident report on February 3, 2022 as
opposed to October 22, 2021, he is certainly welcome to attempt such an argument.
138152076.1 12
That said, these two allegations – as well as the entirety of the instant motion – represent
little more than Plaintiff attempting to gloss over his own failures at diligently prosecuting this
matter by pointing the finger at the Defendant. First, Plaintiff’s claim that he did not receive the
incident report until November 28, 2023 is factually untrue as evidenced by sworn deposition
testimony. Second, former Northland employee Cheryl Desmond was identified as a person with
knowledge of the incident within the October 2021 discovery responses provided by the
Defendant. No explanation has been offered as to why Plaintiff did not complete Desmond’s
deposition until March 13, 2024. Similarly, Plaintiff could have, at any time in the preceding
four years, taken the deposition of a corporate designee of the Defendant, yet waited until March
8, 2024 to do so. These failures can in no way be imputed to the Defendant; Plaintiff cannot
claim that he was somehow prejudiced when he had the ability to take these depositions (as well
as a deposition of an Atlas designee) for three years yet failed to do so.
B. Plaintiff Fails to Establish Support for the Relief Sought Within His Motion
Plaintiff requests that this court provide specific relief; first, that the Defendant be
compelled to supplement its response to Interrogatory #9; and second, that Plaintiff be provided
carte blanche access to data held by the Defendant so that Plaintiff might perform a fishing
expedition in a desperate search for support for his claims. There exists no reasonable basis for
either remedy, and Plaintiff’s request should be denied.
1. Defendant’s response to Interrogatory #9 was proper, correct, and plaintiff has
not demonstrated that he is “entitled” to any additional documents.
138152076.1 13
Plaintiff first seeks an order of this court compelling the Defendant to change its response
to Interrogatory #9 and to produce documents related thereto. As discussed above, Plaintiff
misconstrues what he is “entitled” to.
The subject interrogatory reads as follows: “State whether you received, at any time
within twenty-four (24) months before the incident described by the Plaintiff, complaints from
anyone about the defect or condition that the Plaintiff claims caused the Plaintiff’s injury.” The
“defect or condition” which Plaintiff claims caused his injury was a stair that collapsed under the
Plaintiff while he was descending the staircase at building 5200 within the Pavilions property.
Defendant would re-aver that it is not aware of any complaints or prior incidents regarding the
stairs at building 5200. Thus, defendant’s initial response in the negative to interrogatory #9 is
correct, and proper.
Plaintiff seeks to expand the scope of this interrogatory. Cheryl Desmond testified at her
deposition that there had been other instances, at other buildings, involving cracked or broken
stairs. Similarly, Plaintiff obtained a “signed statement” through a private investigator of former
Northland employee Carlos Zabala, who purportedly states generally that he replaced other steps
at the premises due to noticeable cracking. Neither Desmond nor Zabala identified any prior
issues with building 5200.
It is well established that the critical element of “notice” with respect to premises liability
claims means notice of the specific and exact defect upon which a plaintiff claims to be injured.
“We have repeatedly stated that the notice, whether actual or constructive, must be notice of the
138152076.1 14
very defect which occasioned the injury and not merely of conditions naturally productive of that
defect even though subsequently in fact producing it. . . . On the question of notice, the trier's
consideration must be confined to the defendants' knowledge of the specific condition causing
the injury, and such knowledge cannot be found to exist from a knowledge of the general or
overall conditions obtaining on the premises.” (Citation omitted, emphasis added.) Cruz v.
Drezek, 175 Conn. 230, 235, 397 A.2d 1335, 1339 (1978)
This principle has routinely been applied by our courts. For example, in the matter of
Boretti v. Panacea Co., 67 Conn. App. 223, 226, 786 A.2d 1164, 1167 (2001), the Appellate
Court held that testimony and evidence regarding the general condition of a parking lot in which
plaintiff claimed to have fallen were immaterial, holding that the fact that ice may have existed
in other parts of the parking lot was not germane to the issue of notice as to the ice that plaintiff
herself fell upon. Connecticut’s caselaw reflects the well-established rule that notice of a general
condition existing on a premises is not relevant to a claim of a specific defect.
To that end, any incident reports or claims regarding other stairs located within the
Pavilion would not relate to the “defect or condition that the Plaintiff claims caused the
Plaintiff’s injury” as our law has held that any such defects or condition must be specific, and not
general. Thus, Plaintiff’s entire premise – that Defendant answered interrogatory #9 falsely or
incorrectly – is faulty and does not comport with the law in Connecticut. Any attempt to compel
production of documents related to staircases other than that upon which Plaintiff fell is
meritless.
138152076.1 15
2. No basis exists to compel the defendant to produce unrelated documents to
which plaintiff would ordinarily have no right within a premises liability case.
Plaintiff next seeks an order compelling the Defendant to produce 9 GB of raw data so
that Plaintiff might perform a fishing expedition. As established elsewhere, the data sought by
the Plaintiff was compiled in response to discovery requests propounded by former defendant
Atlas in relation to the indemnification and breach of contract claims which existed in the now-
withdrawn cross-claim against Atlas. Plaintiff has included a copy of Atlas’s discovery requests
as exhibit 3 to his motion; the second page of that document clearly identifies that the
“complaint” at issue is the cross-claim filed May 15, 2023. The production requests are targeted
to the contract dispute between Atlas and Northland; namely, Atlas sought documents related to
the negotiation of the contract, the agreed upon phases of work, communications related thereto,
and the like. As such, Defendant began to undergo a fairly exhaustive process to identify
documents which might be potentially responsive to Atlas’s requests. The 9 GB of data
discussed is not 9 GB of responsive documents, but a large amount of raw data which would
need to be examined and culled to identify any responsive items.
Simply put, Plaintiff has no right to these documents. These documents were collected in
specific response to Atlas’s breach of contract discovery. They far exceed the standard form
discovery allowed for premises liability cases to which Plaintiff is entitled. Plaintiff has never,
to this day, sought permission from the court to seek additional discovery from the Defendant,
despite having had years to do so. But now, simply because Atlas might have been entitled to
138152076.1 16
some information contained within this larger file, Plaintiff asserts without support that they
should also be entitled to the same.
"A party's right to discovery should not be abused by broad 'fishing expeditions'
designed to enable a party to ascertain whether or not he has a cause of action ...[claim or
defense], [it] should be carefully limited to situations where the ends of justice clearly require its
use." Smith v. Hartford Firefighters, Local 760, 1997 Conn. Super LEXIS 761, *5, Superior
Court, judicial district of Hartford-New Britain at Hartford, Docket No. 565304citing, 19 CONN.
L. RPTR. 314, 1997 Conn. Super LEXIS 761 (March 14, 1997, Aurigemma, J.), Muti v. New
Haven, 24 Conn. Supp. 452, 454, 194 A.2d 447 (1963). A party issuing discovery should not be
allowed to indulge a hope that through ransacking of any information and material which the
party may possess would turn up evidence helpful to [their] case." Smith v. Hartford
Firefighters, Local 760, supra, citing, Pottetti v. Clifford, 146 Conn. 252, 259, 150 A.2d 207 and
263 (1959); Katz v. Richman, 114 Conn. 165, 171, 158 A. 219 (1932). "Discovery is confined to
facts material to the ... cause of action and does not afford an open invitation to delve into the
defendant's affairs. (citation omitted.) Berger v. Cuomo, 230 Conn. 1, 6, 644 A.2d 333 (1994).
Discovery in premises liability cases is mandated by Practice Book §§ 13-6(b) and 13-
9(a), which holds that discovery is limited to the forms established by the rules of practice
“unless, upon motion, the judicial authority determines that such [interrogatories and requests for
production] are inappropriate or inadequate in the particular action.” Plaintiff has failed to offer
138152076.1 17
any basis as to why he should be entitled to discovery outside of that allowed by our rules of
practice in a premises liability action.
For example, on page 9 of his motion, Plaintiff asserts – without detail – that “a review of
the non-standard requests reveals that they touched on a number of issues which would be
relevant to the plaintiff’s claims, and that responses would undoubtedly lead to the discovery of
the facts concerning defendant’s knowledge of prior incidents, as well as the underlying reason
the defendant even hired Atlas.” There is again no basis for this assertion; as discussed above,
knowledge of prior incidents occurring elsewhere on the property have no bearing on the
Plaintiff’s claim that he fell at building 5200. Additionally, Defendant’s reason for hiring a
contractor to perform a general replacement of the stairs at the subject property is irrelevant to
Plaintiff’s claim that a defect existed upon a certain stair located within a certain staircase.
If Plaintiff felt that he needed additional discovery beyond the standard premises forms,
he had ample time to seek the court’s permission to obtain it. The Apportionment Complaint,
filed on August 11, 2020, openly states in paragraph 7 that Atlas was hired on May 28, 2017 to
replace stairs at the Pavilions. Atlas’ involvement in the replacement of the stairs at the
apartment complex was not some secret only recently unearthed by the Plaintiff. If Plaintiff felt
that he needed additional discovery plumbing the reasons for the hiring of Atlas, or the work
performed by Atlas, he has had several years to pursue it. Instead, Plaintiff is now asserting,
without basis in fact, that he has some right to perform a fishing expedition in a large amount of
138152076.1 18
data collected by the Defendant solely in response to a breach of contract discovery request by an
entity who is no longer a party to this case.
Plaintiff should not be rewarded for waiting until immediately before trial to revisit
discovery. It is abundantly clear that if Plaintiff felt he needed additional information related to
the subject matter of this case, he has had ample time to seek permission of this court to obtain it.
Instead, he now seeks to undergo an impermissible fishing expedition into a collection of data
procured solely in response to an entirely different legal cause of action, without any good faith
basis as to why this should be allowed.
III. CONCLUSION
As noted above, Plaintiff now seeks to point the finger at the Defendant in an attempt to
divert blame from his own failure to prosecute his case with any reasonable diligence.
Confoundingly, Plaintiff seems vexed and aggrieved primarily due to Defendant withdrawing
against the Apportionment/Cross-Claim Defendant Atlas Concrete. A large portion of the instant
motion is dedicated to Plaintiff airing grievances relating to either the apportionment complaint
or cross-claim, or otherwise regarding discovery disputes between Atlas and Northland.
Throughout the motion, Plaintiff continually attempts to evade responsibility; for instance,
Plaintiff offers no explanation as to why he failed to take a single deposition for four years, or
failed to plead over against Atlas, or failed to seek permission to conduct additional discovery.
Instead, Plaintiff attempts to place blame squarely at the feet of the Defendant.
138152076.1 19
However, as demonstrated above, Plaintiff is without recourse. His lengthy motion is
merely window-dressing for one goal: the obtaining of discovery to which he is not entitled. As
such, the instant Motion to Compel should be denied in its entirety.
THE DEFENDANT,
NORTHLAND PAVILIONS LIMITED
PARTNERSHIP
BY: /s/ Timothy M. Gondek
Timothy M. Gondek
LEWIS BRISBOIS BISGAARD &
SMITH LLP
HartfordEService@LewisBrisbois.com
138152076.1 20
CERTIFICATION OF SERVICE
I certify that a copy of this document was or will immediately be mailed or delivered
electronically or non-electronically on this 25th day of March, 2024, to all attorneys and self-
represented parties of record and that written consent for electronic delivery was received from
all attorneys and self-represented parties of record who received or will immediately be receiving
electronic delivery.
John Jay Pavano, Esq.
The Flood Law Firm LLC
190 Washington Street
Middletown, CT 06457
T: (860) 346-2695
Accepts Electronic Service: – legaldocs@thefloodlawfirm.com
(Counsel for Plaintiff John Pinheiro )
Atlas Concrete Products –party removed
__/s/Timothy M. Gondek
Timothy M. Gondek
138152076.1 21
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT
JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF HARTFORD
AT HARTFORD
_______________________________
:
JOHN PINHEIRO :
Plaintiff, :
-vs- :
NORTHLAND PAVILIONS LIMITED :
PARTNERSHIP :
Defendant. : FEBRUARY 3, 2022
:
_______________________________
DOCKET NO. HHD-CV-20-6124733-S
ZOOM VIDEOCONFERENCE DEPOSITION
OF
JOHN PINHEIRO
Pretrial deposition taken before Jolene Isdale,
Certified Connecticut Shorthand Reporter and Notary
Public in and for the State of Connecticut,
pursuant to the Connecticut Practice Book. The
witness provided testimony from his home residence
located at 100 Starr Avenue, Newington, Connecticut
on February 3, 2022, commencing at 2:04 p.m.
Magna Legal Services
866-624-6221
www.MagnaLS.com
Page 2
1
A P P E A R A N C E S
2
3
4 REPRESENTING THE PLAINTIFF:
5 NEVINS LAW GROUP, LLC
2234 Main Street
6 Glastonbury, Connecticut 06033
BY: KATHLEEN M. NEVINS, ESQ.
7 KNevins@NevinsLaw.com
8
REPRESENTING THE DEFENDANTS:
9
HICKEY SMITH LLP
10 1040 Avenue of the Americas
Suite 9C
11 New York, New York 10018
BY: ROBERT J. DUNNE, ESQ.
12 Rdunne@hickeysmith.com
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1 STIPULATIONS AS TO TAKING OF DEPOSITION
2
3 IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED by
4 and between counsel representing the respective
5 parties that each party reserves the right to make
6 specific objections at the trial to each and every
7 question asked and of the answers given thereto by
8 the deponent, reserving the right to move to strike
9 out where applicable, except as to such objections
10 as are directed to the form of the question.
11 IT IS FURTHER STIPULATED AND AGREED by
12 and between counsel representing the respective
13 parties that proof of the official authority of the
14 Notary Public before whom this deposition is taken
15 is waived.
16 IT IS FURTHER STIPULATED AND AGREED by
17 and between counsel representing the respective
18 parties that the reading and signing of the
19 deposition by the deponent is reserved.
20 IT IS FURTHER STIPULATED AND AGREED by
21 and between counsel representing the respective
22 parties that all defects, if any, as to the notice
23 of the taking of the deposition are waived.
24 Filing of the Notice of Deposition with
25 the original transcript is waived.
Page 4
1 THE COURT REPORTER: Will counsel
2 stipulate to the fact that I am
3 swearing in the witness remotely?
4 MS. NEVINS: Yes.
5 MR. DUNNE: Yes.
6 THE COURT REPORTER: Thank you.
7 Attorney Nevins, do you wish to order
8 copy of the transcript?
9 MS. NEVINS: Yes, please.
10 THE COURT REPORTER: What format
11 do you prefer?
12 MS. NEVINS: I think I have a
13 profile and I like the little
14 compressed one, soft copy is fine, yes.
15 THE COURT REPORTER: Attorney
16 Dunne, can you let me know what you
17 would like to order?
18 MR. DUNNE: I'll take a PDF and
19 then the original goes to the New York
20 office.
21 THE COURT REPORTER: Mr. Pinheiro,
22 please raise your right hand for the
23 oath.
24 J O H N P I N H E I R O,
25 called as a witness, having first been
Page 5
1 duly sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and
2 nothing but the truth, testified as follows:
3 THE COURT REPORTER: Please state
4 your full name and address for the
5 record.
6 THE WITNESS: My name is John
7 Pinheiro, P-i-n-h-e-i-r-o. I live at
8 100 Starr, that's with two rs,
9 S-t-a-r-r, Avenue, Newington,
10 Connecticut 06111.
11 THE COURT REPORTER: Thank you,
12 sir.
13 THE WITNESS: You're welcome.
14 THE COURT REPORTER: All set
15 Attorney Dunne.
16 MR. DUNNE: Thank you so much.
17 DIRECT EXAMINATION
18 BY MR. DUNNE:
19 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Pinheiro. My name
20 is Rob Dunne.
21 A. Yeah.
22 Q. And I represent Northland Pavilions and
23 Atlas Concrete in this matter. Have you ever been
24 through this deposition process before?
25 A. I believe I was with an arbitrator.
Page 55
1 MR. DUNNE: All right. I just
2 want to show you this report. Let's
3 mark this as Defendant's D for
4 identification.
5 (Whereupon, Defendants' Exhibit D,
6 Incident report, was marked for
7 identification.)
8 Q. This is the incident report that
9 Northland did fill out. So have you ever seen this
10 report prior to today?
11 A. No, sir.
12 Q. And it looks like it was filled out a
13 couple of days after the incident occurred and the
14 person filling it out -- well, withdrawn -- not
15 withdrawn. But the person says the Community
16 Manager was Cheryl Desmond. Is that a different
17 person than the Sherry you provided the information
18 to?
19 A. I believe that was her.
20 Q. All right. So Cheryl, not Sherry?
21 A. I'm sorry.
22 Q. Okay. No problem. And it says that
23 you did not provide your name to her. Do you
24 recall giving her your name the day that you met
25 with her?
Page 116
1 STATE OF CONNECTICUT:
: ss:
2 COUNTY OF FAIRFIELD :
3 I, Jolene F. Isdale, Certified
4 Shorthand Reporter and Notary Public for the State
5 of Connecticut, do hereby certify that
6 John Pinheiro was by me first duly sworn, to
7 testify the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
8 the truth, and that the above deposition was
9 recorded stenographically pursuant to Notice by me
10 and reduced to typewriting by me.
11 I FURTHER CERTIFY taken that the foregoing
12 transcript of the said deposition is a true and
13 correct transcript of the testimony given by the said
14 witness at the time and place specified hereinbefore.
15 I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am not a
16 relative or employee or attorney or counsel of any
17 of the parties, nor a relative or employee of such
18 attorney or counsel, or financially interested
19 directly or indirectly in this action.
20 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set
21 my hand and seal of office at Newtown, Connecticut,
22 this 3rd day of February, 2022.
23 ____________________________
24 Jolene Isdale, Notary Public
25 My Notary Commission Expires:
Page 117
1 I N D E X
2
3 WITNESS: JOHN PINHEIRO
4 EXAMINATIONS PAGE
5 DIRECT EXAMINATION 5
BY MR. DUNNE
6
LIST OF EXHIBITS
7 No. (Marked for Identification) PAGE
A Photograph 38
8 B Photograph 40
C Photograph 50
9 D Incident report 55
E Photograph 108
10
11 **REPORTER'S NOTE: All exhibits retained by
Attorney Dunne.
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Page 119
1 ERRATA SHEET
2 Please note any corrections on this sheet.
Do not mark up the transcript.
3
The ORIGINAL JURAT and ERRATA SHEETS must be
4 NOTARIZED if there are any noted changes and
returned within 30 days of receipt to the
5 attorney who took the DIRECT EXAMINATION. All
other counsel of record must be sent a copy,
6 along with a copy to our office for our records.
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2- day WVtrCU_______
Sworn to before me this
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MAGNA©
Legal Services
Page 118
1 CERTIFICATE OF DEPONENT
2
3
4 I, P|A/|4f7|(ZB having read the
5 foregoing transcript consisting of my testimony
6 given at the aforementioned time and place, do
7 hereby attest to the correctness and truthfulness
8 of the transcript to the best of my knowledge as
9 originally transcribed and/or with the changes as
10 noted on the attached Errata Sheet.
15
16 Subscribed and sworn to before me
17
18 This c^V\& day of Mmh________________
19 2022.
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Magna® Legal Services
IN THE SUPERIOR COURT
JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF HARTFORD
AT HARTFORD
_______________________________
:
JOHN PINHEIRO :
Plaintiff, :
-vs- :
NORTHLAND PAVILIONS LIMITED :
PARTNERSHIP :
Defendant. : FEBRUARY 3, 2022
:
_______________________________
DOCKET NO. HHD-CV-20-6124733-S
ZOOM VIDEOCONFERENCE DEPOSITION
OF
JOHN PINHEIRO
Pretrial deposition taken before Jolene Isdale,
Certified Connecticut Shorthand Reporter and Notary
Public in and for the State of Connecticut,
pursuant to the Connecticut Practice Book. The
witness provided testimony from his home residence
located at 100 Starr Avenue, Newington, Connecticut
on February 3, 2022, commencing at 2:04 p.m.
Magna Legal Services
866-624-6221
www.MagnaLS.com
Page 2
1
A P P E A R A N C E S
2
3
4 REPRESENTING THE PLAINTIFF:
5 NEVINS LAW GROUP, LLC
2234 Main Street
6 Glastonbury, Connecticut 06033
BY: KATHLEEN M. NEVINS, ESQ.
7 KNevins@NevinsLaw.com
8
REPRESENTING THE DEFENDANTS:
9
HICKEY SMITH LLP
10 1040 Avenue of the Americas
Suite 9C
11 New York, New York 10018
BY: ROBERT J. DUNNE, ESQ.
12 Rdunne@hickeysmith.com
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1 STIPULATIONS AS TO TAKING OF DEPOSITION
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3 IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED by
4 and between counsel representing the respective
5 parties that eac
Preview
DOCKET NO: HHD-CV20-6124733-S : SUPERIOR COURT JOHN PINHEIRO : JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF HARTFORD VS. : AT HARTFORD NORTHLAND PAVILIONS LIMITED : PARTNERSHIP MARCH 25, 2024 OBJECTION TO MOTION FOR ORDER OF COMPLIANCE AND FOR SANCTIONS [#178.00] Defendant, Northland Pavilions Limited Partnership, hereby objects to Plaintiff John Pinheiro’s Motion for Order of Compliance and for Sanctions [#178.00]. As set forth in greater detail below, Plaintiff’s motion is without merit for a variety of reasons. Most notably, much of the argument mounted by the Plaintiff surrounds the filing of pleadings between Northland and former apportionment/cross-claim defendant Atlas Concrete Products. Additionally, much of the remainder of Plaintiff’s argument rests on a misconception as to whether Plaintiff is entitled to certain documents or information, or whether such information would be within the scope of Plaintiff’s standard discovery or otherwise relevant to Plaintiff’s claim. Finally, Plaintiff makes a blatantly false claim that Defendant withheld an incident report from the Plaintiff, when in fact, this report was introduced as an exhibit at the Plaintiff’s deposition on February 3, 2022. Plaintiff’s motion should be denied in its entirety. LEWIS BRISBOIS BISGAARD & SMITH LLP 185 Asylum Street, Suite 2603 Hartford, CT 06103 Juris No. 435076 PHONE: 860.748.4806 FAX: 860.748.4857 I. RELEVANT FACTUAL BACKGROUND On page 4 of Plaintiff’s motion, he makes the correct point that “Northland and Atlas were represented by joint counsel from December 20, 2020, until February 23, 2023. The significance of this cannot be understated.” On this, the parties are in agreement. For this two and a half year time period, both Atlas and Northland were represented by the law firm of Hickey Smith, LLP. Also of relevance, for the majority of this time the Plaintiff was represented by the Nevins Law Group, LLC, with Atty. John Pavano filing a substitute appearance for the Plaintiff on March 7, 2022. This is significant because, with respect to much of the conduct alleged or described within Plaintiff’s instant motion, none of the current counsel of record were involved in this matter. While Atty Pavano has served as Plaintiff’s counsel of record for approximately two years, the undersigned law firm of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith only appeared approximately one year ago. Much of the subject matter discussed within the instant motion is therefore outside of the realm of knowledge of any of the participants in this case; certainly, Atty. Pavano cannot speak for the actions of his predecessor counsel any more than undersigned could for the actions of Hickey Smith, LLP. It is clear that something was “lost in translation” during the various transitions from one attorney to another. Most notably, Plaintiff makes a considerable amount of noise over a claim that Defendant did not produce an incident report to the Plaintiff with initial discovery on October 22, 2021. As discussed below, undersigned cannot say for certain that this document was produced on that date (though circumstances suggested that it had been). However, it is 138152076.1 2 100% clear that this document was produced absolutely no later than February 3, 2022, at which time it was introduced as an exhibit at the deposition of the Plaintiff. Thus, though undersigned counsel may have gotten the date incorrect, it is abundantly clear that this document was in fact provided to the Plaintiff no later than February 3, 2022. Plaintiff also spends considerable time within his motion addressing the apportionment complaint and cross-claim between Northland and Atlas. To be frank, it is unclear why this is relevant, or what Plaintiff’s specific grievance is regarding this issue. As astutely noted within his motion, Northland brought an apportionment complaint against Atlas in August of 2020, which resulted in Atlas accepting Northland’s tender and the joint representation listed above.1 At the time, Northland asserted that the stair in question had been replaced by Atlas. Some two and a half years later, Atlas and its insurer revoked the tender in question, apparently upon making a determination that the stair in question had not been replaced prior to the Plaintiff’s fall. As undersigned was not counsel of record from December 20, 2020 until February 23, 2023, undersigned has absolutely no idea why it took Atlas nearly two and a half years to reach this conclusion before revoking its acceptance of the tender. 1 Bizarrely, at various points throughout the motion, Plaintiff acts as if the fact that Atlas was hired to replace the stairs at the Pavilions is some newly discovered fact which was concealed from the Plaintiff. Atlas’s retention by Northland to replace all of the stairs at the Pavilions was quite literally the basis for the Apportionment Complaint filed in August of 2020. For Plaintiff to now act as if this is some newly discovered element which changes the mechanics of this case is laughable. 138152076.1 3 Plaintiff is again correct that, in May of 2023, Northland filed a cross-claim for indemnification and breach of contract against Atlas. The basis for the cross-claim was two- fold; first, that Atlas was performing work on the building in question at the time of the incident, and alternatively, that if Atlas had failed to replace the stairs in question by the date of the incident, then it had breached the contract between the two parties which called for Atlas to replace all of the stairs on the premises by a date certain. Plaintiff argues that this cross-claim was “improper”, yet this is not Plaintiff’s argument to make (nor is it clear as to how the cross- claim negatively impacted the Plaintiff). Plaintiff’s argument on this issue mirrors exactly those arguments made by Atlas within its own Motion to Dismiss, which was disregarded by this court when Atlas was found to be in default at the time such motion was made. Nonetheless, if Plaintiff had some issue with the propriety of the filing of the cross-claim against Atlas, he was certainly free to file his own objection to that pleading with the court, which he failed to do. Similarly, Plaintiff takes issue with the status of discovery between Northland and Atlas. Once again, this is quite simply not Plaintiff’s grievance to air. Northland was in the process of responding to non-standard discovery requests from Atlas which pertained to the breach of contract claim raised in the cross-claim. Had Atlas remained as a party to this case, any such responsive discovery to Atlas’s requests would have been provided to the Plaintiff as well; having withdrawn against Atlas, such discovery requests are now moot. Despite having more than four years to do so, Plaintiff has never moved for permission to serve additional discovery 138152076.1 4 requests upon the Defendant nor has Plaintiff taken any affirmative actions to pursue depositions nor resolve any objections lodged by prior handling counsel. II. ARGUMENT A. Plaintiff’s Allegations Regarding Defendant’s “Improper Conduct” Are Misleading and Unsupported By the Facts of the Case Much of Plaintiff’s motion is window dressing; it is not until page 21 of Plaintiff’s motion that he details with specificity the allegedly improper conduct of the Defendant. Defendant will now respond to each of those allegations, in turn. 1. “It filed a third-party complaint which made the factual misrepresentation that the stair at issue was recently replaced prior to the incident.” Plaintiff first argues that the Defendant alleging within the Apportionment Complaint that Atlas had recently replaced the stair at issue is somehow improper. First, there is no evidence or showing of proof that Defendant knew at the time of the filing of the Apportionment Complaint that this was untrue. As Plaintiff astutely notes on page 4 of his motion, Atlas accepted tender and defended Northland for nearly two and a half years before contesting this claim. The very fact that Atlas did not dispute this claim at the time it was made (and indeed, not for several years) would seemingly defeat any claim by the Plaintiff that this “misrepresentation” was either intentional or that the claim itself was not made in good faith. (Defendant would also question whether the Plaintiff has standing to claim aggrievement here, as this claim seemingly invokes only Northland and Atlas.) 138152076.1 5 2. “It improperly withheld the incident report for the plaintiff’s event from responses to standard discovery by asserting attorney-client privilege.” Undersigned would actually agree with Plaintiff that the incident report would not be covered by the attorney-client privilege; however, as noted above, undersigned had nothing to do with the lodging of that objection. Nor is undersigned aware at all of what, if any, discussions occurred regarding that objection between any of Plaintiff’s attorneys or prior defense counsel. Moreover, undersigned has been at all times operating under the belief that Plaintiff was provided the incident report during standard discovery. Upon receipt of the transferred file, the incident report was included within a folder containing documents produced during initial discovery. However, even if this document was not provided with Defendant’s initial discovery responses, there can be no doubt that Plaintiff was provided the incident report less than three months later, on February 3, 2022 at the Plaintiff’s deposition. On page 55 of the transcript of the deposition of Plaintiff John Pinheiro, the following exchange occurs: MR. DUNNE: All right. I just want to show you this report. Let’s mark this as Defendant’s D for identification. (Whereupon, Defendants’ Exhibit D, Incident report, was marked for identification.) Q. This is the incident report that Northland did fill out. So have you ever seen this report prior to today? A. No sir. Q. And it looks like it was filled out a couple of days after the incident occurred and the person filling it out – well, withdrawn – not withdrawn. But the 138152076.1 6 person says the Community Manager was Cheryl Desmond. Is that a different person than the Sherry you provided the information to? A. I believe that was her. Relevant portions of Plaintiff’s deposition transcript have been attached hereto as Exhibit A. It should be noted that Plaintiff himself chose to read and sign the deposition transcript, thus putting its accuracy beyond any dispute. It is still not known to undersigned whether the incident report in question was provided to the Plaintiff prior to February 3, 2022. Circumstances would suggest that it was; certainly, it would be highly unusual for a document such as an incident report to be produced for the first time at a deposition. Additionally, the deposition does not reflect any surprise, shock, or objection on the part of Plaintiff’s counsel as to the use of the incident report as an exhibit. However, it is beyond any doubt that this report was made available to the Plaintiff on that date, if not sooner. Any claim that Defendant “withheld” the incident report is quite simply false.2 3. “It falsely responded to discovery demands by representing there were no prior incidents involving similar defects.” Respectfully, Plaintiff misconstrues the interrogatory at issue. The interrogatory in question reads “state whether you received, at any time within twenty-four (24) months before the incident described by the Plaintiff, complaints from anyone about the defect or condition that 2 It must also be noted that, if Plaintiff had in fact believed Defendant had lodged an improper objection to an interrogatory, and was withholding relevant evidence as a result, he should have – and could have – sought the intervention of this court at any time in the prior three years. He failed to ever do so. 138152076.1 7 the Plaintiff claims caused the Plaintiff’s injury.” Plaintiff claims that he fell on the stairs located at building 5200, one of many buildings located within the Pavilions. Defendant has no record of any complaints or incidents at building 5200 prior to Plaintiff’s alleged fall. Any such complaints regarding incidents at other buildings are irrelevant and not within the scope of the interrogatory; the notice requirement with respect to premises liability claims requires notice of the specific defect or dangerous condition which caused the Plaintiff’s injury, and not merely of conditions precedent thereto or general conditions existing at the property. In other words, if Defendant had received any complaints about the stairs at building 5200, such complaints would certainly relate to the “defect or condition that Plaintiff claims caused the Plaintiff’s injury”, as contemplated by the interrogatory. Plaintiff has claimed that the stairs at building 5200 were defective on the date in question; any such complaints regarding other staircases located elsewhere on the premises are simply not relevant nor responsive to the subject interrogatory. 4. “It improperly filed a ‘cross claim’ when it appeared its apportionment complaint would be stricken, in order to keep the third party in the litigation.” The basis for Plaintiff’s claimed grievance is unclear. If Plaintiff took issue with the cross claim, he could have raised an objection at the time it was filed. Similarly, whether or not the cross-claim was proper was an issue raised by Atlas by way of a Motion to Dismiss. It is also simply not apparent how, in any way, the filing of the cross-claim by Northland against Atlas is “improper conduct” subject to sanctions or requisite of an order for compliance. If 138152076.1 8 anything, an argument that the cross-claim was “improper” would be reserved for Atlas to raise as the party to whom the cross-claim was directed. 5. “It attempted to unilaterally exclude the plaintiff from discovery in his very own lawsuit, by producing documents in response to discovery to one party, and intentionally withholding them from another, in violation of the Practice Book.” Plaintiff’s next allegation is little more than another result of the confusion caused by the replacement of defense counsel at various points in the litigation. To wit, Defendant was understandably confused as to why counsel for Atlas was requesting documents such as the incident report, contracts between Northland and Atlas, and Northland’s responses to standard form discovery. Where Atlas and Northland had been represented by joint counsel for two and a half years, Defendant understandably believed that Atlas’s file would include all of these items, as Defendant believed that they had been produced by prior defense counsel several years ago. The occasions described within Plaintiff’s motion where Plaintiff alleges that Defendant was “withholding” documents from the Plaintiff are instead instances when Defendant was under the impression that it was re-producing items to Atlas which already provided during standard discovery by prior counsel. Once again, Defendant was under the impression that all of the items in question were already possessed by all parties. There was certainly no intent to deprive Plaintiff of any of these items, nor is there any evidence of any such intent. Additionally, the items identified by the Plaintiff (mainly the contracts between Atlas and Northland) have absolutely no bearing on Plaintiff’s claim, and as such, Plaintiff cannot have suffered any prejudice in being slightly delayed access to the same. 138152076.1 9 6. “It attempted to justify doing so by mischaracterizing the conduct as some, but not all, parties to a lawsuit engaging in ‘limited discovery’ related to a ‘cross claim.’” Here, Plaintiff conflates multiple different occurrences. The discussion in reference relates specifically to Defendant’s effort to sift through a large volume of documents to identify items sought specifically by Atlas through their targeted interrogatories related to the breach of contract claim. Plaintiff blithely attempts to assert that he has an independent right to these documents, when in fact, these were documents compiled specifically in response to Atlas’s non- standard discovery. The specific email exchange attached as an exhibit by Plaintiff to his motion shows a conversation where undersigned stated that Defendant had already verified, several years ago, that there had been no prior complaints about the stairs at building 5200. In response, Plaintiff’s counsel stated “how would you know without going thru the documents you are reviewing now?”, to which undersigned asserted that the documents being reviewed were those specifically identified as potentially relevant to the indemnification and breach of contract claims in response to Atlas’s discovery. Plaintiff sought a fishing expedition when the only documents at issue were being reviewed to ascertain whether any were relevant or responsive to Atlas’s discovery requests. Once again, if Plaintiff felt he needed additional discovery at any point, he had several years to petition this court for permission to serve additional requests, but he failed to do so. 7. “It represented it was gathering information to respond to discovery demands for seven months only to withdraw its claims against the third party to avoid having to respond to the third party’s discovery demands.” 138152076.1 10 This allegation represents nothing more than guesswork on the part of the Plaintiff resulting in an unsubstantiated conclusory statement. First, as has been made abundantly clear herein, the discovery demands at issue were those propounded by former defendant Atlas. Plaintiff is without standing to seek enforcement of those discovery obligations nor to assert a grievance regarding the same. Once again, if Plaintiff felt he needed additional discovery to pursue his claims against the Defendant, he would have been well within his right to seek permission from the court to serve additional discovery requests. Instead, he sought to ride the coattails of former defendant Atlas, rather than prosecute the case himself. Finally, Northland’s reasons for withdrawing against Atlas are immaterial. Nonetheless, undersigned can assert that a strategic decision was made to withdraw against Atlas where Defendant was uncertain of its ability to provide enough evidence to sustain its claims against Atlas. It is unclear why Plaintiff feels this decision is worthy of scorn or should be subject to a motion for sanctions; if anything, a litigant withdrawing a claim when the viability of that claim becomes uncertain represents sound legal practice and consideration of the time and resources of everyone involved, including the court. 8. “It produced a witness for a § 13-27(h) deposition who expressly testified that he was not the person most knowledgeable for any of the designated topics.” Defendant will only briefly respond to this allegation, as it is the subject of another motion filed by the Plaintiff [#179.00] to which Defendant will be objecting. However, Defendant would represent that this allegation misrepresents what actually occurred, and leaves 138152076.1 11 out critical context. Notably, the witness produced by the Defendant testified that the actual persons most knowledgeable were no longer employed by the Defendant, having retired several years ago. Essentially, it was made clear during the deposition in question (which lasted approximately five-and-a-half hours) that the witness was as knowledgeable a corporate representative as could be produced. The property in question was sold by Defendant three years ago; nearly everyone involved with that property at the time of Plaintiff’s incident is no longer employed by or connected with Northland in any way. (The witness also testified that he attempted to speak with the former employees who may have had relevant knowledge in preparation for the deposition.) 9. “It filed a motion for protective order to prevent the plaintiff from deposing witnesses recently identified in the previously withheld incident report; and, 10. It misrepresented to the Court that the incident report was produced with its initial discovery responses in support of the motion for protective order.” Plaintiff has filed a separate motion related to these topics [#180.00] to which Defendant will file a separate response. However, as addressed above, even if this report was not produced on October 25, 2021, with the Defendant’s discovery responses, it was absolutely provided to the Plaintiff no later than February 3, 2022, when it was used as “exhibit D” at Plaintiff’s deposition. (See Exhibit A.) If Plaintiff wishes to argue that he was somehow prejudiced from taking timely depositions over the last two years due to receiving the incident report on February 3, 2022 as opposed to October 22, 2021, he is certainly welcome to attempt such an argument. 138152076.1 12 That said, these two allegations – as well as the entirety of the instant motion – represent little more than Plaintiff attempting to gloss over his own failures at diligently prosecuting this matter by pointing the finger at the Defendant. First, Plaintiff’s claim that he did not receive the incident report until November 28, 2023 is factually untrue as evidenced by sworn deposition testimony. Second, former Northland employee Cheryl Desmond was identified as a person with knowledge of the incident within the October 2021 discovery responses provided by the Defendant. No explanation has been offered as to why Plaintiff did not complete Desmond’s deposition until March 13, 2024. Similarly, Plaintiff could have, at any time in the preceding four years, taken the deposition of a corporate designee of the Defendant, yet waited until March 8, 2024 to do so. These failures can in no way be imputed to the Defendant; Plaintiff cannot claim that he was somehow prejudiced when he had the ability to take these depositions (as well as a deposition of an Atlas designee) for three years yet failed to do so. B. Plaintiff Fails to Establish Support for the Relief Sought Within His Motion Plaintiff requests that this court provide specific relief; first, that the Defendant be compelled to supplement its response to Interrogatory #9; and second, that Plaintiff be provided carte blanche access to data held by the Defendant so that Plaintiff might perform a fishing expedition in a desperate search for support for his claims. There exists no reasonable basis for either remedy, and Plaintiff’s request should be denied. 1. Defendant’s response to Interrogatory #9 was proper, correct, and plaintiff has not demonstrated that he is “entitled” to any additional documents. 138152076.1 13 Plaintiff first seeks an order of this court compelling the Defendant to change its response to Interrogatory #9 and to produce documents related thereto. As discussed above, Plaintiff misconstrues what he is “entitled” to. The subject interrogatory reads as follows: “State whether you received, at any time within twenty-four (24) months before the incident described by the Plaintiff, complaints from anyone about the defect or condition that the Plaintiff claims caused the Plaintiff’s injury.” The “defect or condition” which Plaintiff claims caused his injury was a stair that collapsed under the Plaintiff while he was descending the staircase at building 5200 within the Pavilions property. Defendant would re-aver that it is not aware of any complaints or prior incidents regarding the stairs at building 5200. Thus, defendant’s initial response in the negative to interrogatory #9 is correct, and proper. Plaintiff seeks to expand the scope of this interrogatory. Cheryl Desmond testified at her deposition that there had been other instances, at other buildings, involving cracked or broken stairs. Similarly, Plaintiff obtained a “signed statement” through a private investigator of former Northland employee Carlos Zabala, who purportedly states generally that he replaced other steps at the premises due to noticeable cracking. Neither Desmond nor Zabala identified any prior issues with building 5200. It is well established that the critical element of “notice” with respect to premises liability claims means notice of the specific and exact defect upon which a plaintiff claims to be injured. “We have repeatedly stated that the notice, whether actual or constructive, must be notice of the 138152076.1 14 very defect which occasioned the injury and not merely of conditions naturally productive of that defect even though subsequently in fact producing it. . . . On the question of notice, the trier's consideration must be confined to the defendants' knowledge of the specific condition causing the injury, and such knowledge cannot be found to exist from a knowledge of the general or overall conditions obtaining on the premises.” (Citation omitted, emphasis added.) Cruz v. Drezek, 175 Conn. 230, 235, 397 A.2d 1335, 1339 (1978) This principle has routinely been applied by our courts. For example, in the matter of Boretti v. Panacea Co., 67 Conn. App. 223, 226, 786 A.2d 1164, 1167 (2001), the Appellate Court held that testimony and evidence regarding the general condition of a parking lot in which plaintiff claimed to have fallen were immaterial, holding that the fact that ice may have existed in other parts of the parking lot was not germane to the issue of notice as to the ice that plaintiff herself fell upon. Connecticut’s caselaw reflects the well-established rule that notice of a general condition existing on a premises is not relevant to a claim of a specific defect. To that end, any incident reports or claims regarding other stairs located within the Pavilion would not relate to the “defect or condition that the Plaintiff claims caused the Plaintiff’s injury” as our law has held that any such defects or condition must be specific, and not general. Thus, Plaintiff’s entire premise – that Defendant answered interrogatory #9 falsely or incorrectly – is faulty and does not comport with the law in Connecticut. Any attempt to compel production of documents related to staircases other than that upon which Plaintiff fell is meritless. 138152076.1 15 2. No basis exists to compel the defendant to produce unrelated documents to which plaintiff would ordinarily have no right within a premises liability case. Plaintiff next seeks an order compelling the Defendant to produce 9 GB of raw data so that Plaintiff might perform a fishing expedition. As established elsewhere, the data sought by the Plaintiff was compiled in response to discovery requests propounded by former defendant Atlas in relation to the indemnification and breach of contract claims which existed in the now- withdrawn cross-claim against Atlas. Plaintiff has included a copy of Atlas’s discovery requests as exhibit 3 to his motion; the second page of that document clearly identifies that the “complaint” at issue is the cross-claim filed May 15, 2023. The production requests are targeted to the contract dispute between Atlas and Northland; namely, Atlas sought documents related to the negotiation of the contract, the agreed upon phases of work, communications related thereto, and the like. As such, Defendant began to undergo a fairly exhaustive process to identify documents which might be potentially responsive to Atlas’s requests. The 9 GB of data discussed is not 9 GB of responsive documents, but a large amount of raw data which would need to be examined and culled to identify any responsive items. Simply put, Plaintiff has no right to these documents. These documents were collected in specific response to Atlas’s breach of contract discovery. They far exceed the standard form discovery allowed for premises liability cases to which Plaintiff is entitled. Plaintiff has never, to this day, sought permission from the court to seek additional discovery from the Defendant, despite having had years to do so. But now, simply because Atlas might have been entitled to 138152076.1 16 some information contained within this larger file, Plaintiff asserts without support that they should also be entitled to the same. "A party's right to discovery should not be abused by broad 'fishing expeditions' designed to enable a party to ascertain whether or not he has a cause of action ...[claim or defense], [it] should be carefully limited to situations where the ends of justice clearly require its use." Smith v. Hartford Firefighters, Local 760, 1997 Conn. Super LEXIS 761, *5, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford-New Britain at Hartford, Docket No. 565304citing, 19 CONN. L. RPTR. 314, 1997 Conn. Super LEXIS 761 (March 14, 1997, Aurigemma, J.), Muti v. New Haven, 24 Conn. Supp. 452, 454, 194 A.2d 447 (1963). A party issuing discovery should not be allowed to indulge a hope that through ransacking of any information and material which the party may possess would turn up evidence helpful to [their] case." Smith v. Hartford Firefighters, Local 760, supra, citing, Pottetti v. Clifford, 146 Conn. 252, 259, 150 A.2d 207 and 263 (1959); Katz v. Richman, 114 Conn. 165, 171, 158 A. 219 (1932). "Discovery is confined to facts material to the ... cause of action and does not afford an open invitation to delve into the defendant's affairs. (citation omitted.) Berger v. Cuomo, 230 Conn. 1, 6, 644 A.2d 333 (1994). Discovery in premises liability cases is mandated by Practice Book §§ 13-6(b) and 13- 9(a), which holds that discovery is limited to the forms established by the rules of practice “unless, upon motion, the judicial authority determines that such [interrogatories and requests for production] are inappropriate or inadequate in the particular action.” Plaintiff has failed to offer 138152076.1 17 any basis as to why he should be entitled to discovery outside of that allowed by our rules of practice in a premises liability action. For example, on page 9 of his motion, Plaintiff asserts – without detail – that “a review of the non-standard requests reveals that they touched on a number of issues which would be relevant to the plaintiff’s claims, and that responses would undoubtedly lead to the discovery of the facts concerning defendant’s knowledge of prior incidents, as well as the underlying reason the defendant even hired Atlas.” There is again no basis for this assertion; as discussed above, knowledge of prior incidents occurring elsewhere on the property have no bearing on the Plaintiff’s claim that he fell at building 5200. Additionally, Defendant’s reason for hiring a contractor to perform a general replacement of the stairs at the subject property is irrelevant to Plaintiff’s claim that a defect existed upon a certain stair located within a certain staircase. If Plaintiff felt that he needed additional discovery beyond the standard premises forms, he had ample time to seek the court’s permission to obtain it. The Apportionment Complaint, filed on August 11, 2020, openly states in paragraph 7 that Atlas was hired on May 28, 2017 to replace stairs at the Pavilions. Atlas’ involvement in the replacement of the stairs at the apartment complex was not some secret only recently unearthed by the Plaintiff. If Plaintiff felt that he needed additional discovery plumbing the reasons for the hiring of Atlas, or the work performed by Atlas, he has had several years to pursue it. Instead, Plaintiff is now asserting, without basis in fact, that he has some right to perform a fishing expedition in a large amount of 138152076.1 18 data collected by the Defendant solely in response to a breach of contract discovery request by an entity who is no longer a party to this case. Plaintiff should not be rewarded for waiting until immediately before trial to revisit discovery. It is abundantly clear that if Plaintiff felt he needed additional information related to the subject matter of this case, he has had ample time to seek permission of this court to obtain it. Instead, he now seeks to undergo an impermissible fishing expedition into a collection of data procured solely in response to an entirely different legal cause of action, without any good faith basis as to why this should be allowed. III. CONCLUSION As noted above, Plaintiff now seeks to point the finger at the Defendant in an attempt to divert blame from his own failure to prosecute his case with any reasonable diligence. Confoundingly, Plaintiff seems vexed and aggrieved primarily due to Defendant withdrawing against the Apportionment/Cross-Claim Defendant Atlas Concrete. A large portion of the instant motion is dedicated to Plaintiff airing grievances relating to either the apportionment complaint or cross-claim, or otherwise regarding discovery disputes between Atlas and Northland. Throughout the motion, Plaintiff continually attempts to evade responsibility; for instance, Plaintiff offers no explanation as to why he failed to take a single deposition for four years, or failed to plead over against Atlas, or failed to seek permission to conduct additional discovery. Instead, Plaintiff attempts to place blame squarely at the feet of the Defendant. 138152076.1 19 However, as demonstrated above, Plaintiff is without recourse. His lengthy motion is merely window-dressing for one goal: the obtaining of discovery to which he is not entitled. As such, the instant Motion to Compel should be denied in its entirety. THE DEFENDANT, NORTHLAND PAVILIONS LIMITED PARTNERSHIP BY: /s/ Timothy M. Gondek Timothy M. Gondek LEWIS BRISBOIS BISGAARD & SMITH LLP HartfordEService@LewisBrisbois.com 138152076.1 20 CERTIFICATION OF SERVICE I certify that a copy of this document was or will immediately be mailed or delivered electronically or non-electronically on this 25th day of March, 2024, to all attorneys and self- represented parties of record and that written consent for electronic delivery was received from all attorneys and self-represented parties of record who received or will immediately be receiving electronic delivery. John Jay Pavano, Esq. The Flood Law Firm LLC 190 Washington Street Middletown, CT 06457 T: (860) 346-2695 Accepts Electronic Service: – legaldocs@thefloodlawfirm.com (Counsel for Plaintiff John Pinheiro ) Atlas Concrete Products –party removed __/s/Timothy M. Gondek Timothy M. Gondek 138152076.1 21 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF HARTFORD AT HARTFORD _______________________________ : JOHN PINHEIRO : Plaintiff, : -vs- : NORTHLAND PAVILIONS LIMITED : PARTNERSHIP : Defendant. : FEBRUARY 3, 2022 : _______________________________ DOCKET NO. HHD-CV-20-6124733-S ZOOM VIDEOCONFERENCE DEPOSITION OF JOHN PINHEIRO Pretrial deposition taken before Jolene Isdale, Certified Connecticut Shorthand Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of Connecticut, pursuant to the Connecticut Practice Book. The witness provided testimony from his home residence located at 100 Starr Avenue, Newington, Connecticut on February 3, 2022, commencing at 2:04 p.m. Magna Legal Services 866-624-6221 www.MagnaLS.com Page 2 1 A P P E A R A N C E S 2 3 4 REPRESENTING THE PLAINTIFF: 5 NEVINS LAW GROUP, LLC 2234 Main Street 6 Glastonbury, Connecticut 06033 BY: KATHLEEN M. NEVINS, ESQ. 7 KNevins@NevinsLaw.com 8 REPRESENTING THE DEFENDANTS: 9 HICKEY SMITH LLP 10 1040 Avenue of the Americas Suite 9C 11 New York, New York 10018 BY: ROBERT J. DUNNE, ESQ. 12 Rdunne@hickeysmith.com 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Page 3 1 STIPULATIONS AS TO TAKING OF DEPOSITION 2 3 IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED by 4 and between counsel representing the respective 5 parties that each party reserves the right to make 6 specific objections at the trial to each and every 7 question asked and of the answers given thereto by 8 the deponent, reserving the right to move to strike 9 out where applicable, except as to such objections 10 as are directed to the form of the question. 11 IT IS FURTHER STIPULATED AND AGREED by 12 and between counsel representing the respective 13 parties that proof of the official authority of the 14 Notary Public before whom this deposition is taken 15 is waived. 16 IT IS FURTHER STIPULATED AND AGREED by 17 and between counsel representing the respective 18 parties that the reading and signing of the 19 deposition by the deponent is reserved. 20 IT IS FURTHER STIPULATED AND AGREED by 21 and between counsel representing the respective 22 parties that all defects, if any, as to the notice 23 of the taking of the deposition are waived. 24 Filing of the Notice of Deposition with 25 the original transcript is waived. Page 4 1 THE COURT REPORTER: Will counsel 2 stipulate to the fact that I am 3 swearing in the witness remotely? 4 MS. NEVINS: Yes. 5 MR. DUNNE: Yes. 6 THE COURT REPORTER: Thank you. 7 Attorney Nevins, do you wish to order 8 copy of the transcript? 9 MS. NEVINS: Yes, please. 10 THE COURT REPORTER: What format 11 do you prefer? 12 MS. NEVINS: I think I have a 13 profile and I like the little 14 compressed one, soft copy is fine, yes. 15 THE COURT REPORTER: Attorney 16 Dunne, can you let me know what you 17 would like to order? 18 MR. DUNNE: I'll take a PDF and 19 then the original goes to the New York 20 office. 21 THE COURT REPORTER: Mr. Pinheiro, 22 please raise your right hand for the 23 oath. 24 J O H N P I N H E I R O, 25 called as a witness, having first been Page 5 1 duly sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and 2 nothing but the truth, testified as follows: 3 THE COURT REPORTER: Please state 4 your full name and address for the 5 record. 6 THE WITNESS: My name is John 7 Pinheiro, P-i-n-h-e-i-r-o. I live at 8 100 Starr, that's with two rs, 9 S-t-a-r-r, Avenue, Newington, 10 Connecticut 06111. 11 THE COURT REPORTER: Thank you, 12 sir. 13 THE WITNESS: You're welcome. 14 THE COURT REPORTER: All set 15 Attorney Dunne. 16 MR. DUNNE: Thank you so much. 17 DIRECT EXAMINATION 18 BY MR. DUNNE: 19 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Pinheiro. My name 20 is Rob Dunne. 21 A. Yeah. 22 Q. And I represent Northland Pavilions and 23 Atlas Concrete in this matter. Have you ever been 24 through this deposition process before? 25 A. I believe I was with an arbitrator. Page 55 1 MR. DUNNE: All right. I just 2 want to show you this report. Let's 3 mark this as Defendant's D for 4 identification. 5 (Whereupon, Defendants' Exhibit D, 6 Incident report, was marked for 7 identification.) 8 Q. This is the incident report that 9 Northland did fill out. So have you ever seen this 10 report prior to today? 11 A. No, sir. 12 Q. And it looks like it was filled out a 13 couple of days after the incident occurred and the 14 person filling it out -- well, withdrawn -- not 15 withdrawn. But the person says the Community 16 Manager was Cheryl Desmond. Is that a different 17 person than the Sherry you provided the information 18 to? 19 A. I believe that was her. 20 Q. All right. So Cheryl, not Sherry? 21 A. I'm sorry. 22 Q. Okay. No problem. And it says that 23 you did not provide your name to her. Do you 24 recall giving her your name the day that you met 25 with her? Page 116 1 STATE OF CONNECTICUT: : ss: 2 COUNTY OF FAIRFIELD : 3 I, Jolene F. Isdale, Certified 4 Shorthand Reporter and Notary Public for the State 5 of Connecticut, do hereby certify that 6 John Pinheiro was by me first duly sworn, to 7 testify the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but 8 the truth, and that the above deposition was 9 recorded stenographically pursuant to Notice by me 10 and reduced to typewriting by me. 11 I FURTHER CERTIFY taken that the foregoing 12 transcript of the said deposition is a true and 13 correct transcript of the testimony given by the said 14 witness at the time and place specified hereinbefore. 15 I FURTHER CERTIFY that I am not a 16 relative or employee or attorney or counsel of any 17 of the parties, nor a relative or employee of such 18 attorney or counsel, or financially interested 19 directly or indirectly in this action. 20 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set 21 my hand and seal of office at Newtown, Connecticut, 22 this 3rd day of February, 2022. 23 ____________________________ 24 Jolene Isdale, Notary Public 25 My Notary Commission Expires: Page 117 1 I N D E X 2 3 WITNESS: JOHN PINHEIRO 4 EXAMINATIONS PAGE 5 DIRECT EXAMINATION 5 BY MR. DUNNE 6 LIST OF EXHIBITS 7 No. (Marked for Identification) PAGE A Photograph 38 8 B Photograph 40 C Photograph 50 9 D Incident report 55 E Photograph 108 10 11 **REPORTER'S NOTE: All exhibits retained by Attorney Dunne. 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Page 119 1 ERRATA SHEET 2 Please note any corrections on this sheet. Do not mark up the transcript. 3 The ORIGINAL JURAT and ERRATA SHEETS must be 4 NOTARIZED if there are any noted changes and returned within 30 days of receipt to the 5 attorney who took the DIRECT EXAMINATION. All other counsel of record must be sent a copy, 6 along with a copy to our office for our records. 7 Page Line From To 8 9 U 33 MiAAZS 10 2Mb 11 sk Vw Ue 12 $0 12? do amtoVww use 13 10J c Cire 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Date John Pinheiro 23 2- day WVtrCU_______ Sworn to before me this 24 2022 . 25 MAGNA© Legal Services Page 118 1 CERTIFICATE OF DEPONENT 2 3 4 I, P|A/|4f7|(ZB having read the 5 foregoing transcript consisting of my testimony 6 given at the aforementioned time and place, do 7 hereby attest to the correctness and truthfulness 8 of the transcript to the best of my knowledge as 9 originally transcribed and/or with the changes as 10 noted on the attached Errata Sheet. 15 16 Subscribed and sworn to before me 17 18 This c^V\& day of Mmh________________ 19 2022. 20 21 25 Magna® Legal Services IN THE SUPERIOR COURT JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF HARTFORD AT HARTFORD _______________________________ : JOHN PINHEIRO : Plaintiff, : -vs- : NORTHLAND PAVILIONS LIMITED : PARTNERSHIP : Defendant. : FEBRUARY 3, 2022 : _______________________________ DOCKET NO. HHD-CV-20-6124733-S ZOOM VIDEOCONFERENCE DEPOSITION OF JOHN PINHEIRO Pretrial deposition taken before Jolene Isdale, Certified Connecticut Shorthand Reporter and Notary Public in and for the State of Connecticut, pursuant to the Connecticut Practice Book. The witness provided testimony from his home residence located at 100 Starr Avenue, Newington, Connecticut on February 3, 2022, commencing at 2:04 p.m. Magna Legal Services 866-624-6221 www.MagnaLS.com Page 2 1 A P P E A R A N C E S 2 3 4 REPRESENTING THE PLAINTIFF: 5 NEVINS LAW GROUP, LLC 2234 Main Street 6 Glastonbury, Connecticut 06033 BY: KATHLEEN M. NEVINS, ESQ. 7 KNevins@NevinsLaw.com 8 REPRESENTING THE DEFENDANTS: 9 HICKEY SMITH LLP 10 1040 Avenue of the Americas Suite 9C 11 New York, New York 10018 BY: ROBERT J. DUNNE, ESQ. 12 Rdunne@hickeysmith.com 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Page 3 1 STIPULATIONS AS TO TAKING OF DEPOSITION 2 3 IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED by 4 and between counsel representing the respective 5 parties that eac