Opinion
FBTCV186076399S
02-15-2019
Desta GRANT v. Angie LUNA-PIQUAVE et al.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
OPINION
Elizabeth Stewart, J.
Defendants Angie Luna-Piquave and Edison Luna have moved to strike count two (statutory recklessness), count three (common-law negligence), count five (negligent entrustment), and the portions of the prayer for relief that seek double or treble damages and punitive damages in the second amended complaint filed by Plaintiff Desta Grant. This action arose out of a rear-end collision on Glenbrook Road in Stamford, Connecticut. Previously, the defendants moved to strike counts two and three of the amended complaint, and the court (Truglia, J.) granted that motion, holding that the plaintiff had not alleged facts sufficient to state claims for statutory or common-law recklessness. (Nos. 108.00 and 109.10). After that motion was granted, the plaintiff filed a second amended complaint, and the defendants once again argue in this motion that the plaintiff has not alleged sufficient facts to support claims for and prayers for relief based on statutory or common-law recklessness. The defendants also argue that the plaintiff has not stated a claim for negligent entrustment, which is a new claim. For the reasons that follow, the court grants the motion to strike in its entirety.
LEGAL ANALYSIS
"The purpose of a motion to strike is to contest ... the legal sufficiency of the allegations of any complaint ... to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." (Internal quotation marks omitted). Fort Trumbull Conservancy, LLC v. Alves, 262 Conn. 480, 498, 815 A.2d 1188 (2003). This court must construe the complaint "in the manner most favorable to sustaining its legal sufficiency ... Thus, [i]f facts provable in the complaint would support a cause of action, the motion to strike must be denied ..." Coppola Construction Co. v. Hoffman Enterprises Ltd. Partnership, 309 Conn. 342, 350, 71 A.3d 480 (2013). If, however, the plaintiff has failed to allege a valid cause of action, the motion to strike is properly granted. See Sturm v. Harb Dev., LLC, 298 Conn. 124, 127, 2 A.3d 859 (2010).
I. STATUTORY RECKLESSNESS UNDER CONN. GEN. STAT. § 14-295
Count two purports to state a claim for statutory recklessness under General Statutes § 14-295, which states: "[i]n any civil action to recover damages from personal injury ... the trier of fact may award double or treble damages if the injured party has specifically pleaded that another party has deliberately or with reckless disregard operated a motor vehicle in violation of section 14-218a, ... 14-219, ... [or] 14-222 ... and that such violation was a substantial factor in causing such injury ..."
Neither the Supreme Court nor the Appellate Court have addressed what is required for a statutory recklessness claim to survive a motion under the current version of General Statutes § 14-295. Numerous Superior Courts have considered motions to strike these claims. They all agree that, at a minimum, a plaintiff must allege three elements: (1) that the defendant deliberately or with reckless disregard operated his motor vehicle, (2) in violation of one of the predicate statutes, and (3) that the violation was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff’s injury. See General Statutes § 14-295. The first question is whether the plaintiff has alleged these three elements.
In count two, the plaintiff repeats the first seven paragraphs of her negligence count and then adds paragraphs 8 and 9, which read:
The violent collision and resulting injuries sustained by the Plaintiff, Desta Grant, were caused by the wanton and reckless disregard of Defendant Edison Luna in violation of one of more of the following statutes enumerated in § 14-295 of the Connecticut General Statutes and that such violations are a substantial factor in causing the injuries to the Plaintiff in that:
(a) The Defendant operator was deliberately, or with reckless disregard, traveling too fast for road and traffic conditions then and there existing in violation of Connecticut General Statutes Section 14-218a;
(b) The Defendant operator was deliberately, or with reckless disregard, driving her car at an excessive rate of speed in violation of Connecticut General Statutes Section 14-219; and
(c) The Defendant operated was deliberately, or with reckless disregard, operating her vehicle in a reckless manner in violation of Connecticut General Statutes, Section 14-222.
All the aforementioned violations were engaged in by the Defendant-driver either deliberately or with reckless disregard as to the consequences and were a substantial factor in causing injury to the Plaintiff, Desta Grant.
The court holds that these paragraphs state that the defendant deliberately or with reckless disregard operated the co-defendant’s vehicle in violation of three of the enumerated statutes in Section 14-295 and that this violation was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff’s injuries.
The next question is whether the law requires a plaintiff alleging a § 14-295 violation to plead more than the bare elements of the statute. This court holds that a plaintiff must allege specific facts. Those facts must be sufficient to establish that the predicate statutes (§ § 142-18a, 14-219, and 14-222) were violated with the required mental state (deliberately or with reckless disregard) and that these violations were a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff’s injury.
The court is aware that there is a split of Superior Court decisions on this question. After considering a number of decisions, the court concludes that the better-reasoned position is the so-called minority view that requires the allegation of specific facts in addition to the bare elements to state a violation of § 14-295. The split comes down to a dispute over whether that statute’s "specifically pleaded" language supplants the requirement of fact pleading.
The proponents of the majority view hold that the statute’s language is not ambiguous. See, e.g., Sears v. Brooks, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. CV-15-6060624 (December 14, 2015, Noble, J.) (finding that § 14-295 unambiguously sets the minimum threshold for pleading cause of action); Ogletree v. Brown, judicial district of Stamford-Norwalk, Docket No. CV-93-0134778 (July 29, 1994, Lewis, J.) (finding that § 14-295 is a "very clear and explicit statute"). They also argue that legislative history supports their position. In an early decision, Judge Sheldon analyzed the legislative history of the 1988 amendment and concluded that the legislature "eliminated all speculation as to what the appropriate dividing line should be between conduct which does and does not fall within its proscription." Armstrong v. Smith, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. CV- 94-0533947 (December 2, 1994, Sheldon, J.) (13 Conn.L.Rptr. 120). The court discussed the legislature’s narrowing of the predicate offenses to serious motor vehicle statutes and the legislature’s explicit requirement that a defendant must "deliberately or in reckless disregard" operate a motor vehicle in violation of those statutes. Based on this, the court concluded that alleging the three elements of the statute was enough to survive a motion to strike.
This court agrees with the decision in Armstrong that the legislature has clearly laid out the three elements that must be alleged, but this court holds that that does not lead to the conclusion that specific facts supporting these elements do not need to be alleged. Indeed, neither the language nor the legislative history of the statute suggests that the plaintiff does not have to plead facts that, if true, would establish these three elements.
Connecticut is a fact pleading state. See Practice Book § 10-1. The fact pleading requirement applies to all complaints, not just those claiming common-law recklessness. Therefore, the court disagrees that the conclusion that fact pleading is not required necessarily flows from the predicate for some majority view decisions that "[t]he specific pleading requirements for pleading common-law recklessness do not apply to pleading a case of statutory recklessness under § 14-295 ..." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Biro v. Singh, Superior Court, judicial district of Stamford-Norwalk, Docket No. CV-11-6010146 (September 6, 2012, Genuario, J.); Hand v. Moore, Superior Court, judicial district of Stamford-Norwalk, Docket No. CV-05-2BJ-4003873 (September 26, 2005, Jennings, J.) (40 Conn.L.Rptr. 83). These decisions have argued that the legislature needed to specifically state in § 14-295 that it was requiring fact pleading. The proper analysis is the reverse— the legislature enacted and amended this statute against a backdrop of fact pleading in Connecticut’s common law and rules of procedure, and thus we should presume from its silence that it requires fact pleading.
The court agrees with the analysis in Kallaugher v. Basile, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. CV-01-0804191-S (October 31, 2001, Beach, J.), that the legislature did not eliminate fact pleading when it enacted § 14-295:
The language of the statute does not specifically say anything at all about fact pleading or notice pleading-only that the trier of fact may award punitive damages when specific violations of certain statutes, and their causal effects, have been alleged. In the absence of any express language changing pleading requirements, and in the absence of any apparent or implied need to eliminate fact pleading in order to accomplish legislative intent, I think it unlikely that the legislature intended to change the procedural requirements of our practice. I have not been alerted to the existence of any statutorily created causes of action which, in the language creating the right, also require factual pleading, yet we require factual pleading. It would be incongruous for the legislature to have intended to create a marked exception to our practice without expressly saying so.Kallaugher v. Basile, supra, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. CV-010804191 (October 31, 2001, Beach, J.).
In another decision that concluded that fact pleading is required to allege a violation of § 14-295, Judge Lager analyzed a long line of pre-1988 amendment Supreme Court decisions and determined that they all required fact pleading for violations of previous versions of that statute. Hopwood v. Sciarretta, Superior Court, judicial district of Ansonia-Milford, Docket No. CV-01-0075934 (July 11, 2002, Lager, J.) . Turning to the present language of § 14-295, the court held that it "does not provide a basis to obviate the well-established rule that the complaint must clearly state those facts which would establish statutory liability for double or treble damages ..." She ultimately concluded:
Merely alleging a deliberate or reckless violation of one of the predicate statutes does not suffice to describe the conduct which would entitle a plaintiff to the extraordinary remedy available under § 14-295. To state a cause of action under § 14-295, a plaintiff must allege sufficient facts establishing that the predicate statute was violated with the requisite mental state, that is, deliberately or with reckless disregard, and that such violation was a substantial factor in producing the plaintiff’s injury.(Citations omitted.) Id. This court agrees with that standard and will apply it to this case.
Before applying this standard to the facts alleged in the complaint, this court makes it clear that it will examine whether the facts alleged could support a conclusion that the defendant deliberately or with reckless disregard operated his motor vehicle in violation of any of the three predicate statutes alleged and that this violation was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff’s injury. This is the approach taken by the other courts that have held that specific facts must be alleged. See, e.g., Ruiz v. Lewinson, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. CV-15-6056683 (April 16, 2015, Wahla, J.) (holding that there were no allegations that would indicate that a defendant who backed her car out of a driveway and into the plaintiff’s car "recognized a substantial risk of harm to others and consciously chose to act despite such knowledge"); Hopwood v. Sciarretta, supra, Superior Court, Docket No. CV-01-0075934 (holding that allegations that the defendant knowingly operated a wrecker vehicle with defective brakes and at an excessive rate of speed in a highly congested area sufficed for a claim under the statute); Kallaugher v. Basile, supra, Superior Court, Docket No. CV-01-0804191 (striking the statutory claim because "all that is pleaded is that the defendant saw the plaintiff stopped ahead of him, tried to stop and was unable to do so in time"). Notably, a number of the majority view decisions also looked at the supporting factual allegations. See, e.g., Biro v. Singh, supra, Superior Court, Docket No. CV-11-6010146 (holding that the plaintiff in a rear-end crash on the Merritt Parkway had set out specific allegations that were distinct from mere negligence); Armstrong v. Smith, supra, Superior Court, Docket No. CV-94-0533947 (refusing to strike an allegation that the defendant abruptly drove his vehicle across traffic, without looking, into the car in which the plaintiff was traveling, in violation of a stop sign and in disregard of the right of way of the plaintiff’s car).
This case-specific analysis of the facts alleged is consistent with the Supreme Court’s approach when it addressed a motion to strike a common-law reckless infliction of emotional distress claim in Craig v. Driscoll, supra, 262 Conn. 312, 342, 824 A.2d 1003. In Craig, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant bar had a policy to continue to serve alcohol to a patron known to drink to excess, and that the defendant’s employees had served alcohol to that patron before the accident. Id., 314-16, 813 A.2d at 1006-08. Because this conduct was sufficient to establish recklessness, the court rejected the defendant’s argument that the only difference between the allegations in the negligence and recklessness counts was the mere addition of the words "willful, wanton and/or reckless actions." Id., 343, 813 A.2d at 1022-23.
Against this backdrop, the court has reviewed the complaint. There is nothing in count two to support the allegations that the defendant Edison Luna deliberately or with reckless disregard violated either § 14-218a or § 14-219. As to the final allegation that he deliberately or with reckless disregard violated the reckless driving statute, § 14-222, the court will consider the factual allegations in paragraphs 3 and 5 of count two. The allegations of paragraph 5 on their face do not rise to the level of deliberateness or reckless disregard. That paragraph alleges that defendant Edison Luna "was looking down and was not looking at or paying attention to the road at all and, as a result, did not realize that traffic had slowed down in front of him." As discussed in more detail below, although a state of mind amounting to recklessness may be inferred from conduct, "in order to infer it, there must be something more than a failure to exercise a reasonable degree of watchfulness to avoid danger to others or to take reasonable precautions to avoid injury to them." Matthiessen v. Vanech, 266 Conn. 822, 832, 836 A.2d 394 (2003). The conduct must be "more than mere thoughtlessness or inadvertence, or simply inattention." Craig v. Driscoll, 262 Conn. 312, 343, 824 A.2d 1003 (2003), superseded on other grounds by statute. Paragraph 5 alleges nothing more than "thoughtlessness, inadvertence or simply inattention" and therefore it does not suffice to state a violation of Section 14-222, and by extension, Section 14-295.
Paragraph 3 alleges that defendant Edison Luna "was an unlicensed driver and did not have the proper skills and training to operate a motor vehicle." At oral argument, the court inquired as to whether there was any Connecticut authority for the proposition that driving without holding a driver’s license renders the driver reckless or incompetent. Plaintiff’s counsel indicated that he was not aware of any such authority and volunteered that he was aware that operating without a license is not negligence per se. The court’s own research has revealed one Superior Court decision that held that "a driver’s lack of a license, his incompetence or inexperience are insufficient, without more, to support an allegation of negligence, [and as such] are equally insufficient to support an allegation of recklessness which requires ‘intentional conduct designed to injure or for which there is no just cause or excuse.’" (Citations omitted.) Skerpan v. Gonzalez, Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, Docket No. CV-08-5016527-S (Nov. 30, 2009, Lager, J.). In reaching this conclusion, the court pointed out that the Supreme Court has held that inexperience or incompetence alone does not support a claim of negligence without specific allegations of some negligent conduct. Id. (citing Kurtz v. Morse Oil Co., 114 Conn. 336, 341, 158 A. 906 (1932); Carlson v. Connecticut Co., 94 Conn. 131, 136, 108 A. 531 (1919)). This court agrees and holds that the allegations that defendant Edison Luna did not have a driver’s license and did not have the skills to operate a motor vehicle do not suffice to allege a violation of the reckless driving statute, Section 14-222, or statutory recklessness under Section 14-295. Accordingly, the court grants the motion to strike count two.
II. COMMON-LAW RECKLESSNESS
The defendants also have moved to strike count three. To determine whether count three states a cause of action for common-law recklessness, this court should first look at the definition of recklessness. Craig, 262 Conn. at 342, 824 A.2d 1003. When defining recklessness, our Supreme Court has focused on state of mind. "Recklessness requires a conscious choice of a course of action either with knowledge of the serious danger to others involved in it or with knowledge of facts which would disclose this danger to any reasonable man, and the actor must recognize that his conduct involves a risk substantially greater ... than that which is necessary to make his conduct negligent." Matthiessen, 266 Conn. at 832, 836 A.2d 394. "Recklessness is a state of consciousness with reference to the consequences of one’s acts ... It is more than negligence, more than gross negligence ..." Id., 836 A.2d 394; Craig, 262 Conn. at 342, 824 A.2d 1003.
While a state of mind amounting to recklessness may be inferred from conduct, "in order to infer it, there must be something more than a failure to exercise a reasonable degree of watchfulness to avoid danger to others or to take reasonable precautions to avoid injury to them." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Matthiessen, 266 Conn. at 832, 836 A.2d 394. The conduct must be "more than mere thoughtlessness or inadvertence, or simply inattention." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Craig, 262 Conn. at 343, 813 A.2d 1003. Our Supreme Court has defined reckless, willful and wanton conduct as meaning the same thing: "highly unreasonable conduct, involving an extreme departure from ordinary care, in a situation where a high degree of danger is apparent." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Matthiessen, 266 Conn. at 833, 836 A.2d 394.
To allege a claim of common-law recklessness in count three, the plaintiff needs to plead sufficient facts to meet the pleading standards for state of mind or conduct set forth above. Judge Truglia struck the previous version of count three for failure to meet this standard:
Here, the plaintiff’s allegations of common-law recklessness are merely a recasting of the allegations of common-law negligence cited in count one with the addition of the words "wanton and reckless disregard" and addition of statutory violations asserted in count two. It is insufficient to merely recite statutory violations and have them suffice for common-law allegations. The plaintiff must also allege the relevant state of mind of the defendant. The plaintiff has failed to assert any allegations as to the defendant’s state of mind or any common-law reckless conduct sufficient to maintain a claim of common-law recklessness. Accordingly, the defendant’s motion to strike count three is granted.
Memorandum of Decision at 4 (No. 108.00).
The second amended complaint amends the version of count three that was ordered stricken by Judge Truglia by adding the following two paragraphs:
3. At all times, herein, the Defendant, Edison Luna, was an unlicensed driver and did not have the proper skills and training to operate a motor vehicle.
5. At said time and place, the Defendant, Edison Luna, was looking down and was not looking at or paying attention to the road at all and, as a result, did not realize that traffic had slowed down in front of him.
Count three also was amended by repeating verbatim Paragraphs 8 and 9 that are recited above in the discussion of statutory recklessness, except that Paragraph 8 in the third count also adds two new subparagraphs:
(d) The defendant deliberately, or with reckless disregard, chose to operate a motor vehicle while looking down and/or chose to not pay any attention to the road at all while operating a motor vehicle despite knowing and appreciated the risks of doing so; and
(e) The defendant knew that she did not have the proper skills or training to operate a motor vehicle, and although she knew and appreciated that there was a risk of causing an accident without the proper training and skill, and yet she deliberately, or with reckless disregard, ignored these risks and she willfully chose to operate a motor vehicle and engage in such risk-taking behavior.
As set forth above, this court requires the allegation of sufficient facts to support a claim of common-law recklessness under the standards set forth above. The court agrees with other Superior Courts that have found that it is appropriate "to examine ... whether the facts alleged could, under any set of facts admissible under the pleadings, support a conclusion of recklessness." O’Brien v. Daly, Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, Docket No. CV-04-4000580 (Feb. 10, 2005, Zoarski, J.T.R.); Knapp v. Michaels, Superior Court, judicial district of Stamford-Norwalk, Docket No. CV-03-0193487 (Sept. 8, 2004, Lewis, J.T.R.). The court will now apply the Supreme Court’s definitions of reckless state of mind and reckless conduct to the new allegations in count three.
New paragraph 3 alleges that defendant Edison Luna was an unlicensed driver and did not have the proper skills and training to operate a motor vehicle. New subparagraph 8(e) further alleges that this defendant knew that he did not have the proper skills or training to operate a motor vehicle, knew or appreciated the risk that this could cause an accident, and willfully chose to ignore those risks and operate a motor vehicle. For the reasons set forth above regarding the identical paragraph 3 of count two for statutory recklessness, the court holds that paragraph 3 and subparagraph 8(e) do not suffice to allege common-law recklessness.
New paragraph 5 alleges that defendant Edison Luna was "looking down and was not looking at or paying attention to the road at all and, as a result, did not realize that traffic had slowed down in front of him." New subparagraph 8(d) alleges that he did this "deliberately or with reckless disregard." The court holds that these allegations fail to set forth sufficient facts to allege common-law recklessness. While a state of mind amounting to recklessness may be inferred from conduct, "in order to infer it, there must be something more than a failure to exercise a reasonable degree of watchfulness to avoid danger to others or to take reasonable precautions to avoid injury to them." Matthiessen, 266 Conn. at 832, 836 A.2d 394. The conduct must be "more than mere thoughtlessness or inadvertence, or simply inattention." Craig, 262 Conn. at 343, 813 A.2d 1003. That is all that paragraph 5 and subparagraph 8(d) allege— thoughtlessness, inadvertence or simply inattention.
Finally, new subparagraphs 8(a), (b) and (c) repeat the bare-bones allegations from Count Two for statutory recklessness. Simply stating that there were statutory violations, with no supporting facts, is not enough to state a claim for common-law recklessness. In O’Brien, the complaint at issue alleged that the defendant "drove with deliberate or reckless disregard of the rights of others then using said public highway; she was traveling at an unreasonable and dangerous speed; she operated her vehicle at a rate of speed as to endanger the life of others then upon the highway, including the plaintiff in violation of § 14-222." Superior Court, Docket No. 04-4000580. The court held that these were not sufficient facts to sustain a cause of action for common-law recklessness. The allegations in subparagraphs 8(a), (b) and (c) are virtually identical to the allegations that were stricken in O’Brien . The plaintiff cannot sustain a claim for common-law recklessness on these grounds. For all of the foregoing reasons, the court grants the motion to strike count three.
III. NEGLIGENT ENTRUSTMENT
Count five of the second amended complaint is new. It purports to allege a claim of negligent entrustment against defendant Angie Luna-Piquave. The only allegations referring to her are paragraph 2, which states: "[a]t said time and place, the Defendant, Edison Luna, was operating a 2012 Hyundai Veracruz, owned by defendant Angie Luna-Piquave, eastbound on Glenbrook Road near the intersection of Cowing Place in Stamford, Connecticut"; and in paragraph 12, which states: "The Defendant, Defendant Angie Luna-Piquave, is liable for negligently entrusting said vehicle to the Defendant Edison Luna under one or more of the following ways: (a) Entrusting his vehicle to a person who is incompetent to drive; and (b) Entrusting his vehicle to a person who is inexperienced or has demonstrated a degree of negligence/recklessness in the past." For the reasons that follow, these allegations do not suffice to state a claim of negligent entrustment against defendant Angie Luna-Piquave.
The Connecticut Supreme Court first recognized a cause of action for negligent entrustment of an automobile in Greeley v. Cunningham, 116 Conn. 515, 165 A. 678 (1933). The court ultimately set aside a verdict against the defendant owner, but it set out the terms for negligent entrustment of an automobile: "[w]hen the evidence proves that the owner of an automobile knows or ought reasonably to know that one to whom he entrusts it is so incompetent to operate it upon the highways that the former ought reasonably to anticipate the likelihood of injury to others by reason of that incompetence, and such incompetence does result in such injury, a basis of recovery by the person injured is established. That recovery rests primarily upon the negligence of the owner in entrusting the automobile to the incompetent driver." Id., at 520.
Since Greeley was decided, Superior Courts have summarized the "essential elements" of the tort of negligent entrustment of an automobile as follows: "the entrustor knows or ought reasonably to know that one to whom he entrusts it is so incompetent to operate it upon the highways that the former ought to reasonably anticipate the likelihood of injury to others by reasons of that incompetence, and such incompetence does result in injury ... Liability cannot be imposed on a defendant under a theory of negligent entrustment simply because the defendant permitted another person to operate the motor vehicle ... Liability can only be imposed if (1) there is actual or constructive knowledge that the person to whom the automobile is loaned is incompetent to operate the motor vehicle; and (2) the injury resulted from that incompetence." (Citations omitted.) Delprete v. Senibaldi, Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, Docket No. CV-11-6024795 (Sept. 16, 2014, Wilson, J.). Significantly, "the negligence of the incompetent driver is not the determinative factor in a negligent entrustment action, rather, the core of a negligent entrustment action is whether the entrustor was negligent in supplying a vehicle to the incompetent driver." (Emphasis in original.) Delprete, Superior Court, Docket No. CV-11-6024795.
Count five does not meet these standards. Preliminarily, its focus is on the negligence of defendant Edison Luna in operating the car, not on the purported negligence of defendant Angie Luna-Piquave in loaning the car to him. Second, there is no allegation at all to support the first required element: actual or constructive knowledge that the person to whom the automobile is loaned is incompetent to operate the motor vehicle. This is a fatal flaw because the "principal feature of a cause of action for negligent entrustment is the knowledge of the entrustor with respect to the dangerous propensities and incompetency of the entrustee." Kaminsky v. Scoopo, Superior Court, judicial district of New Haven, Docket No. CV-08-6002084 (July 30, 2008, Bellis, J.) (collecting cases granting motions to strike for failure to adequately allege actual or constructive knowledge). The court strikes count five for failure to allege that defendant Angie Luna-Piquave had any actual or constructive knowledge of defendant Edison Luna’s incompetence.
IV. THE PRAYERS FOR RELIEF
The defendants also have moved to strike the demands for relief that accompany statutory recklessness and common-law recklessness: double or treble damages and punitive damages. Since the court has stricken the counts for statutory recklessness and common-law recklessness, the associated demands for relief also should be stricken. Practice Book § 10-39(2); Pamela B. v. Ment, 244 Conn. 296, 325, 709 A.2d 1089 (1998); Bush v. Lainetta Construction Co., Superior Court, judicial district of Stamford-Norwalk, Docket No. CV-07-5005709 (striking punitive damages demand along with recklessness claim).
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the court grants the motion to strike count two, count three, count five and the accompanying demands for relief.