In a recent Connecticut Superior Court decision, Cambridge Mut. Fire Ins. Co. v. Michaud, 2008 Conn. Super. LEXIS 2004 (August 9, 2008), the court permitted a homeowner sued by his putative insurer to implead his insurance agent under Connecticut General Statutes Section 52-102a for failing to name him on the homeowners policy. The case involved an unmarried man and woman, who lived together as partners and were in the process of building a personal residence on jointly owned property. The homeowner/defendant is a home contractor by trade and owns his own business, specializing in bathroom renovations. A sub-contractor at the worksite fell through a hole in the floor of the couple’s new personal residence during construction.

The estate of the decedent subcontractor sued Mr. Michaud and Michaud Enterprises LLC, alleging that Mr. Michaud and/or Michaud Enterprises LLC were acting as general contractor for the construction of the couple’s personal residence at the time of the accident. Mr. Michaud made a claim for coverage under the Cambridge Mutual Fire Insurance Company’s homeowners policy, which had been issued in the name of his partner only, although both Michaud and his partner were joint tenant owners of the insured property.

Cambridge Mutual Fire Insurance Company denied coverage but agreed to defend Mr. Michaud under a reservation of rights. Cambridge Mutual then initiated a declaratory judgment action against Mr. Michaud seeking a declaration of no coverage for Mr. Michaud’s claim because he was not a named insured under the policy. Mr. Michaud then moved to implead his insurance agents, Deming and Whitaker, in the declaratory judgment action. Mr. Michaud and his partner claimed that they expressly requested Deming and Whitaker to add Mr. Michaud to the homeowners policy prior to the date of the accident, and that Mr. Michaud should have been added as a named insured in any event as a co-owner of the insured premises and client of Deming.

Whitaker and Deming moved to strike Mr. Michaud’s motion to implead. In their motion to strike, Whitaker and Deming argued that they could not in any way be deemed liable to Cambridge Mutual for Cambridge Mutual’s claim against Michaud since what Cambridge Mutual was seeking was a mere declaration of no coverage under the policy, and did not seek to impose liability. Whitaker and Deming further argued that Michaud’s negligence claim against them was precluded because there was no negligence claim contained in Cambridge Mutual’s declaratory judgment action against Michaud.

The trial court denied the Whitaker and Deming’s motion to strike Michaud’s third-party complaint, noting that Conn. Gen. Stat. § 52-102a, when read in light of Fed. R. Civ. P. 14(a), allowed Michaud to assert a negligence claim in a third party complaint, as it furthered the statute’s purpose to “obviate the multiplicity of actions. . . . [and] to facilitate litigation, to save costs, to bring all of the litigants into one proceeding, and to dispose of an entire matter without the expense of many suits and many trials.” The trial court also noted the court’s “longstanding tradition to avoid the multiplicity of actions and promote the interest of judicial economy,” and stated that “the third-party complaint entails similar and related issues and involves interests that may be affected by the outcome of the declaratory judgment action.”