An employee at the claimant's roofing company was injured after falling off a roof. (Credit: MargJohnsonVA/Adobe Stock)
After seven years of litigation, a business owner whose workers’ compensation insurance policy was wrongfully canceled was granted an additional $98,000 in post-judgment interest, adding to the $313,000 already awarded.
Thomas Napolitano, the owner of the business Napolitano Roofing, claimed Ace American Insurance Co. canceled his workers' compensation insurance policy, but because the notice of cancellation was not "unambiguous and unequivocal," it was invalid.
An employee at Napolitano's roofing company was injured after falling off a roof. When a claim was filed under the insurance policy, Ace denied it and said the policy had been canceled. According to the plaintiff's attorney, Kristen Greene of Feldman, Perlstein & Greene, Napolitano was on the hook to pay out of pocket for a settlement with the injured worker while the ongoing legal battle with Ace ensued.
The trial court agreed with Napolitano's stance in the case against Ace and granted his motion for summary judgment. After a hearing on damages, the trial court awarded Napolitano $313,264 on April 22, 2021.
When Ace challenged the summary judgment ruling, the Appellate Court reversed the decision and held that Ace had complied with Connecticut General Statutes § 31-348, a section of the Workers' Compensation Act detailing policy cancellation requirements. After the Supreme Court took up the case, it determined Ace must comply with §31-348 and applicable contract law. The high court affirmed the trial court's decision.
Under § 37-3a, the court can grant up to 10% in post-judgment interest, Greene said.
Ace argued the court should not grant post-judgment interest because it had acted in good faith throughout the litigation, but the court opined that whether a party acted in good faith did not apply to a court's discretion to award post-judgment interest.
The defendant additionally argued the time period relating to the interest calculation should not include between when the trial court's judgment and when the Supreme Court reversed the Appellate Court decision, over 3.5 years.
Hartford Superior Judge Elizabeth Jane Stewart said Ace provided "no authority for its position," but "tried to argue at oral arguments that no court had held to the contrary." The court disagreed and said case law from the Supreme and Appellate Courts showed otherwise.
In the end, the trial court chose to award 8% in post-judgment interest, totaling $98,095.
"We get interest from the date of the trial court's decision in April of 2021 through the present," Greene said. "The reason behind that is the interest is designed to compensate parties who have not had the use of the money that they should have had. The issue is, they were wrong legally, that's what the Supreme Court said, and he should have been entitled to that money in 2021, and the fact that they had the money all that time means they pay interest now."
Greene said she is not sure if Ace plans to file an appeal, but she's unsure what argument against the ruling would be successful because the statute gives the court full discretion to award interest up to 10%.
Counsel for Ace, Brian Paice of Conway Stoughton, did not respond to a request for comment.
"When the Supreme Court, back in December, said: reinstate the trial court's decision, Ace could have paid at least the trial court decision at that point, but still we haven't received any money," Greene said. "I don't know what the plan is, but hopefully, after the seven years, we'll get the money that he's he's entitled to, and had to fight all the way to the Supreme Court to get."
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