## Facts

- Plaintiffs, carpenters employed by DeLuca Construction Company, used platform staging attached to roof brackets while working on a roof.
- The roof brackets were designed/manufactured by Quality Steel Products, Inc. and sold/distributed to DeLuca by Ring’s End, Inc.
- The staging platform collapsed, causing plaintiffs to fall and suffer serious injuries.
- Plaintiffs sued under the Connecticut Product Liability Act, alleging the roof brackets were defective and unreasonably dangerous and that the defect caused the collapse.
- Defendants asserted the collapse was caused by third-party conduct, including improper installation of brackets (including use of undersized nails) and DeLuca’s failure to provide fall protection and compliance with OSHA requirements.
- DeLuca intervened to recover workers’ compensation benefits it had paid.
- Defendants filed a counterclaim against DeLuca seeking recovery based on DeLuca’s alleged installation and safety failures; the trial court granted summary judgment for DeLuca on that counterclaim.
- At trial, the court instructed the jury on superseding cause and submitted interrogatories on defect and causation.
- The jury found the brackets were defective and unreasonably dangerous and that the defect was a proximate cause of the injuries, but returned a general verdict for defendants after the superseding-cause instruction.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court improperly instructed the jury on superseding cause in a product-liability case involving multiple potentially negligent actors, permitting third-party negligence to fully exonerate the product-liability defendants.
2. Whether summary judgment was properly granted to the employer, DeLuca, on defendants’ counterclaim seeking indemnification or related recovery despite workers’ compensation exclusivity.

## Decision

- The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed the judgment for defendants and remanded for a new trial on the product-liability claims.
- The Court held the superseding-cause instruction was improper and harmful because it risked confusing the proximate-cause inquiry and could lead the jury to treat other actors’ negligence as fully cutting off defendants’ liability.
- The Court directed that causation be determined on retrial without reference to superseding cause, within ordinary proximate-cause analysis and comparative responsibility/apportionment rules.
- The Court affirmed summary judgment for DeLuca on defendants’ counterclaim, concluding defendants failed to show an independent legal duty from DeLuca to defendants that could support indemnification in light of workers’ compensation exclusivity.

## Legal Principles

- In Connecticut negligence and product-liability cases involving multiple acts of negligence, superseding cause “no longer serves a useful purpose” and should not be charged as a separate doctrine.
- Claims that a later third party’s negligence should cut off a defendant’s liability are addressed through proximate-cause analysis rather than an all-or-nothing superseding-cause instruction.
- Connecticut’s comparative responsibility and product-liability apportionment scheme permits allocation of responsibility among responsible actors without using superseding cause to exonerate a defendant found to be a proximate cause.
- An employer’s negligence may be relevant to factual causation and allocation, but workers’ compensation exclusivity bars indemnification claims absent an independent duty owed by the employer to the third-party defendants.

## Conclusion

The court ordered a new trial because a superseding-cause instruction improperly allowed the jury to treat third-party negligence as cutting off liability even after finding a product defect was a proximate cause, and it upheld dismissal of defendants’ counterclaim against the employer due to lack of an independent duty and workers’ compensation exclusivity.


Barry v. Quality Steel Prods., Inc., 263 Conn. 424, 820 A.2d 258 (Conn. 2003)