Background
Josephine Smalls Miller, an attorney whose Connecticut law license was suspended in 2018, applied for reinstatement to the bar in December 2019. Frustrated by delays she attributed to racial discrimination, she filed a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) in December 2020. After the standing committee chair filed a motion for advice in the Superior Court — asking whether Miller’s pending commission complaint and federal lawsuit should affect the reinstatement proceedings — Miller filed a second CHRO complaint alleging that the motion itself was an act of retaliation. The commission dismissed the first complaint but found reasonable cause on the retaliation complaint and certified it for a public hearing before a human rights referee.
The Judicial Branch moved to dismiss the retaliation complaint, arguing that the commission lacked subject matter jurisdiction because attorney discipline and reinstatement are core judicial functions protected by the separation of powers doctrine, judicial immunity, quasi-judicial immunity, and the litigation privilege. The human rights referee denied the motion without analysis, and the Judicial Branch filed an interlocutory administrative appeal in the Superior Court. The trial court sustained that appeal and directed the commission to dismiss Miller’s complaint, holding that the commission’s exercise of jurisdiction over the Judicial Branch’s internal attorney-regulation proceedings violated the separation of powers doctrine. The commission appealed, and the Connecticut Supreme Court accepted the transfer.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court affirmed on both issues presented. First, it held that the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction over the interlocutory administrative appeal under General Statutes § 4-183(b). Relying on its recent decision in Stamford v. Commission on Human Rights & Opportunities, Office of Public Hearings, 351 Conn. 298 (2025), the court reaffirmed that a colorable claim of immunity from suit — including one derived from the separation of powers doctrine — satisfies § 4-183(b)’s requirement that postponement of an appeal would result in an inadequate remedy. Because an agency’s exercise of jurisdiction that violates the separation of powers doctrine is void ab initio, the interference with the Judicial Branch’s essential functions could not be meaningfully remedied by later review; dismissal of the interlocutory appeal would have worked an irrevocable forfeiture of that immunity.
On the merits, the court held that it would violate the separation of powers doctrine for CHRO — an executive-branch agency — to exercise jurisdiction over a complaint alleging discrimination or retaliation arising from the Judicial Branch’s regulation of the legal profession. The authority to set qualifications for, and to admit persons to, the practice of law in Connecticut has long been an exclusively judicial power, and subjecting the Judicial Branch’s internal reinstatement proceedings to executive-agency review would significantly interfere with the orderly conduct of its essential functions — both in this case and in potential future cases. The court accordingly held that the Judicial Branch possessed immunity from suit in the administrative forum and that the commission was required to dismiss Miller’s complaint.
The court was careful to cabin its holding. It expressly stated that this result does not give the Judicial Branch unlimited license to engage in unlawfully discriminatory conduct under the guise of attorney regulation. Reinstatement decisions remain subject to independent judicial review through the courts, preserving a meaningful check on discriminatory conduct without routing that review through the executive branch.
Key Takeaways
- An executive-branch agency such as CHRO cannot assert jurisdiction over discrimination or retaliation claims that arise directly from the Judicial Branch’s exercise of its exclusive authority to regulate attorneys and govern bar admission and reinstatement.
- A colorable separation-of-powers immunity claim satisfies the “inadequate remedy” prong of Conn. Gen. Stat. § 4-183(b), making a commission’s denial of a motion to dismiss immediately appealable on an interlocutory basis to the Superior Court.
- A forum’s exercise of jurisdiction that violates the separation of powers doctrine is void ab initio, conferring on the aggrieved branch an immunity from suit that must be vindicated through interlocutory judicial review — not waiting for a final agency order.
- The ruling does not immunize the Judicial Branch from all accountability for discriminatory conduct; reinstatement decisions remain subject to review through the courts themselves.
Why It Matters
This decision resolves a structural constitutional question that has practical significance well beyond the facts of one attorney’s reinstatement dispute. By holding that CHRO lacks jurisdiction over discrimination complaints arising from the attorney discipline and licensing process, the Connecticut Supreme Court reinforces the exclusive judicial authority over the legal profession and shields bar admission and reinstatement proceedings from executive-agency second-guessing. The ruling clarifies the interplay between Connecticut’s civil rights enforcement apparatus and separation-of-powers immunity, giving future litigants — and the Judicial Branch itself — a clear procedural pathway to challenge administrative jurisdiction on constitutional grounds before incurring the full burden of agency adjudication.
At the same time, the court’s deliberate disclaimer — that this immunity does not permit the Judicial Branch to discriminate with impunity — signals that the decision should not be read as a blanket shield. Attorneys who believe they have suffered discrimination in reinstatement proceedings retain avenues for relief through the courts, and the ruling invites future consideration of precisely what judicial-branch conduct, if any, remains subject to civil rights oversight outside the commission’s reach.