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TEDESCO v. DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION11/22/1994
ks omitted.) Id., 356. "The plaintiff is not required to be a cartographer in order to be able to describe adequately to the commissioner the location of the defect." Id., 358.
As long as notice provides "reasonable definiteness," it is not patently insufficient and the adequacy of the notice becomes an issue for the jury. Id., 354. In this case, the notice provided by the plaintiff both informed the defendant of the plaintiff's intent to file a claim and furnished the defendant with a guide as to how to conduct further inquiries to protect its interests. Accordingly, the complaint should not have been dismissed.
Urging us to sustain the dismissal of the complaint, the defendant first notes that § 13a-144 "created a cause of action `wholly unauthorized by the common law.'. . . Thus, the statutorily required notice is a `condition precedent to the cause of action.'" (Citation omitted.) Warkentin v. Burns, supra, 223 Conn. 17-18. The defendant further notes that, as a statute in derogation of sovereign immunity, § 13a-144 should be strictly construed. White v. Burns, 213 Conn. 307, 312, 567 A.2d 1195 (1990). The defendant argues that Connecticut courts> have strictly construed the notice requirement of § 13a-144, and cites Schaap v. Meriden, 139 Conn. 254, 93 A.2d 152 (1952), Ozmun v. Burns, 18 Conn. App. 677, 559 A.2d 1143 (1989), and Collins v. Meriden, 41 Conn. Sup. 425, 580 A.2d 549 (1990). Our review of these cases finds them inapposite to the present case.
In Schaap v. Meriden, supra, 139 Conn. 254, our Supreme Court found that the notice was defective because it specified only that the injury took place near the edge of a manhole cover, without identifying a particular manhole. In Ozman [Ozmun] v. Burns, supra, 18 Conn. App. 677, this court held that the notice was defective because the detailed description in the notice was incorrect, stating south instead of north. Thus, while the notice was specific, it directed the commissioner to an erroneous location. In Collins v. Meriden, supra, 41 Conn. Sup. 425, the Superior Court found that the descriptions of the cause and place of the injury were vague in that the notice provided merely that the injury occurred due to a "defective and improper condition of the sidewalk . . . `adjacent to the front of the premises known as 243 West Main Street, Meriden, Connecticut.'" Id., 427.
It is quite clear why the notices in Schaap, Ozmun, and Collins were defective. Lack of specificity, misdirection, and vagueness as to the location and cause of the injury undermine the purpose of the statute. In each case, insufficient notice denied the defendant the opportunity to gather information to protect itself in the event of a lawsuit. In the present case, there are no such defects; the notice sent by the plaintiff provided sufficient information about the alleged injury, its cause, and the time and place where it occurred to allow the defendant to gather information about the case and thereby to protect its interests.
The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
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