Background
On August 24, 2019, Rebecca Kirpas presented to Griffin Hospital’s emergency department with abdominal pain, nausea, and related symptoms. She was evaluated by Dr. Krithika Srinivasan, a third-year resident, who ordered laboratory tests and a CT scan. The scan failed to visualize the appendix, but Srinivasan documented the results as largely negative and discharged Kirpas the same day. The attending physician, Dr. Joseph Felice, never examined or spoke with Kirpas; he reviewed and approved the chart the following day. Two weeks later, Kirpas was diagnosed at Yale-New Haven Hospital with a perforated appendix requiring emergency surgery, resulting in a prolonged hospitalization and scarring.
Kirpas filed a medical malpractice action in August 2021 against Griffin Hospital, Felice, Srinivasan, and Connecticut Emergency Medicine Specialists, LLC. Her amended complaint alleged that Felice failed to adequately supervise Srinivasan, that Srinivasan failed to adequately examine her, that Griffin Hospital was vicariously liable for the physicians’ negligence under an apparent agency theory, and that the hospital was directly negligent in its supervision and training of the physicians.
The trial court granted Griffin Hospital’s motion for summary judgment on both the vicarious liability and direct negligence counts, finding that Kirpas had not disclosed an expert to testify to causation and damages and that no genuine issue of material fact existed as to the physicians’ agency relationship with the hospital. Kirpas appealed only the vicarious liability ruling. After oral argument, the appellate court learned that Kirpas had executed releases in favor of Felice and Srinivasan on June 2, 2024 — before the appeal was argued — and ordered the plaintiff to supplement the record with copies of those agreements.
The Court’s Holding
The Connecticut Appellate Court dismissed the appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, holding that the appeal was moot. Under settled Connecticut law, a valid release of an agent operates as a matter of law to release the principal whose liability is premised solely on respondeat superior. Because Kirpas had released both physicians from all claims arising out of the conduct underlying the malpractice action, Griffin Hospital was simultaneously released from any vicarious liability for that same conduct. No practical relief could therefore flow from a merits ruling in Kirpas’s favor.
The court rejected Kirpas’s argument that the releases could not be considered because they were not part of the trial court record. Invoking its supervisory authority under Practice Book § 60-2, the court ordered the record augmented and relied on the releases — as well as counsel’s concession at oral argument — to resolve the jurisdictional question. The court noted that appellate courts may consider extra-record facts, particularly undisputed ones, when necessary to determine mootness without remanding to the trial court.
Because Kirpas had also abandoned her direct negligence claim on appeal, no independent basis for liability against the hospital remained. With both claims extinguished, the court dismissed the appeal without reaching the merits of the agency and causation arguments Kirpas had raised.
Key Takeaways
- Releasing an agent from liability — even as part of a separate settlement during a pending appeal — extinguishes a vicarious liability claim against the principal as a matter of Connecticut law, rendering any such appeal moot.
- Connecticut appellate courts may augment the record sua sponte under Practice Book § 60-2 to resolve mootness, and may rely on counsel’s oral argument concessions as well as documents not before the trial court when the underlying facts are undisputed.
- Plaintiffs pursuing both direct negligence and vicarious liability theories against a hospital should be careful not to abandon either claim on appeal; here, the unchallenged summary judgment on direct negligence left no fallback theory once the vicarious liability claim became moot.
- Settlement timing matters: executing releases in favor of individual defendant-agents before an appeal of a vicarious liability claim against the principal hospital is resolved will ordinarily doom that appeal.
Why It Matters
This decision is a practical reminder for plaintiffs’ counsel in Connecticut medical malpractice cases that settling with individual physicians — even for strategic or financial reasons — can torpedo a pending appeal against the hospital if vicarious liability is the only remaining theory. The ruling reaffirms the bright-line rule from Alvarez v. New Haven Register, Inc., 249 Conn. 709 (1999): a release of the agent is a release of the vicariously liable principal, full stop, regardless of when the release is signed.
For defense counsel, the case illustrates the value of monitoring settlement activity involving co-defendants during a live appeal and promptly raising mootness. The court’s willingness to supplement the appellate record to resolve jurisdiction — rather than remanding for an evidentiary hearing — also signals that Connecticut appellate courts will not permit procedural gaps in the record to shield a moot appeal from dismissal.