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Judge Chase T. Rogers (Retired)
Chief Justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court
Arbitrator, Mediator, Mock Trials, Corporate Investigation
Hon. Chase Rogers spent twenty years on the bench, with the last ten as Chief Justice Connecticut Supreme Court. She brings her vast knowledge and experience as a litigator, trial judge and Chief Justice to assist parties and their counsel to resolve disputes through mediation and arbitration and to conduct mock arbitrations and mock trials. As a trial judge, she presided over hundreds of bench and jury trials, including years mediating and ruling on complex commercial disputes. She has also been a panel member on over a thousand appellate cases and the author of hundreds of decisions for the Connecticut Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Rogers serves on the State Justice Institute’s (SJI) Board of Directors, which she was appointed to by President Barack Obama in December 2010. In 2012, she was appointed to the Federal-State Jurisdiction Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, where she served until January 2018. She also served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Conference of Chief Justices until January 2018.
In private practice, before she went on the bench, she represented plaintiffs and defendants in both state and federal court in commercial and employment cases. Since retiring from the bench, she has worked with companies on appellate cases around the U.S., including insurance/ reinsurance, contract, negligence and employment matters.
ADR EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS:
- Twenty years on the judiciary, with ten as Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court and eight years as a trial judge with over half the time on the complex litigation docket. Responsibilities included managing dockets and conducting mediations and settlement conferences in hundreds of civil matters, including insurance, commercial, civil rights, products liability, employment, and real estate cases.
- Consulted on approximately twenty-five appellate matters this year.
- Recipient of numerous awards, including the Henry J. Naruk Judiciary Award for Integrity from the Connecticut Bar Association.
REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS:
Chief Justice Rogers authored hundreds of opinions and was on the panel of over one thousand cases. The civil matters listed below are representative of just a few of those cases.
Insurance and Reinsurance Cases:
- Capstone Bldg. Corp. v. American Motorists Ins. Co. 308 Conn. 760 (June 11, 2013). Multiple coverage issues, including whether absent resulting damage to other, nondefective property, faulty workmanship is physical injury to tangible property under CGL policy, as well as consideration of duty to defend issues.
- Lexington Ins. Co. v. Lexington Healthcare Group, Inc. 311 Conn. 29 (January 28, 2014). Insurance issues included whether individual claims arising from same fire at nursing home were related medical incidents in order to determine proper amount of coverage.
Contracts Cases:
- Town of New Hartford et al. v. Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority et al. 291 Conn. 433 Supreme Court of Connecticut (Decided May 19, 2009). Class action suit where municipalities served by operator of solid waste disposal project filed suit against operator asserting claims for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing, and unjust enrichment, and sought permanent injunction.
Civil Rights Cases:
- Broadnax v. City of New Haven 294 Conn. 280 (December 15, 2009). The primary issue was whether a Department’s practice violated employees’ equal protection rights.
- Mueller v. Tepler 312 Conn. 631 (July 16, 2007). Supreme Court held same sex partner could assert loss of consortium against physicians even though she was not married at the time of alleged malpractice.
- Patino v. Birken Mfg. Co. 304 Conn. 679 (May 15, 2012). The primary issue was whether a Connecticut statute authorizes hostile work environment claims based on sexual orientation.
- State v. AFSCME, Council 4, Local 391 309 Conn. 642 (August 6, 2013). The primary issue was whether policy against sexual harassment in the workplace required dismissal of corrections officer who sexually harassed complainant.
- Feliciano v. Auto Zone, Inc. 316 Conn. 65 (2015). Dispositive issue was whether there was evidence of a pattern of disparate treatment on basis of race, religion, or national origin.
Employment Cases:
- Dos v. Boy Scouts of America , 323 Conn. 942 (2016). Dispositive issue was whether defendant could be held responsible for the sexual abuse of the plaintiff by one if its patrol leaders.
- Wall Systems v. Pompa, 324 Conn. 718. Case involved breach of duty of loyalty of employee and proper remedies.
Real Property Cases:
- Lynne Land Conservation Trust v. Platner, 325 Conn. 737 (2017). Issues included whether landowners violated conservation restrictions and if so, what were proper remedies.
- McBurney v. Paquin 302 Conn. 359 (October 4, 2011). The primary issue was determining the scope of an implied easement in an oceanfront development.
Negligence Cases:
- Munn v. Hotchkiss School, 326 Conn. 540 (2017). Issues included scope of duty for schools to warn and review of damages award.
- Doe v. Boy scouts of America, 323 Conn. 942 (2016)
FORMER POSITIONS:
- Chief Justice Connecticut Supreme Court, 2007-2018
- Connecticut Appellate Court Judge, 2006-2007
- Connecticut Superior Court Judge, 1998-2006
- Partner, Cummings & Lockwood, 1983-1998
Education:
- Boston University School of Law, J.D.
- Stanford University, B.A.
Recognitions:
- Recipient of the Henry J. Naruk Judiciary Award for Integrity from the Connecticut Bar Association, 2018
- Recipient of the John M. Bailey Award for Public Service from the Hartford Country Bar Association, 2018
- Recipient of Bice Clemow Award from the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information, 2018
- Recognized as the “Best Officiator” by the Connecticut Law Tribune , 2018
FACULTY:
- New York University School of Law, New Appellate Judges Seminar, Faculty, July 2018
- University of Connecticut School of Law, Adjunct Professor