New Haven Independent

The firm, Reed Smith, one of the world’s largest law firms, is known for its ability to handle high-stakes disputes, ones like the Tabor case. It also specializes in the area of insurance recovery. The firm will investigate and analyze the contracts the town had with insurers at the time the 77-acre Tabor parcel was taken by eminent domain in 2003. DaRos was first selectman during this time.

Click here, here, and here for some background stories on the controversy that has ensued over the affair.

In an interview DaRos said: “What I am hoping to achieve is to get what we would be covered for during this time. Some parts we know were not covered, but there were some aspects that I felt the insurance company should have covered.

“I don’t want to leave any stone unturned. If the town pays for this insurance then we are entitled to it and we want it.’”

In other Tabor developments this week:

• Superior Court Judge Jonanthan E. Silbert met in chambers yesterday afternoon with Tim Hollister and Jim Bergenn, the attorneys for the developer, New England Estates and with William H. Clendenen, Jr., the town’s attorney. Lawyers for the former owners were not present. The judge began mediation efforts late last month.

• The Board of Selectmen unanimously approved a request from town engineer Janice Plaziak to waive bidding on a $69,000 contract in order to permit Fuss & O’Neill, the town’s outside engineering firm, to test ten acres of recently cleared land, where the town wants to build a new public works building. Fuss and O’Neill knows the Tabor parcel well.

• After conducting a preliminary inquiry, the statewide bar office has sent DaRos’s complaint concerning an infomercial produced by Bergenn and Hollister to a local grievance panel, which will investigate whether there is a probable cause of misconduct to continue or whether the case should be dismissed. DaRos filed the action against Hollister and Bergenn for their use of a promotional video entitled “New England Estates v. the Town of Branford.”

The video went up on the firm’s special Tabor web-site about a month after it was launched. Then Shipman & Goodwin, through Tanya Meck, who appears on the video and has her own public relations firm, had the video sent to public cable television channels in Branford and other nearby towns. The infomercial set off a heated controversy because many residents complained the infomercial pretends to be a news show. DaRos said the video attempted “to influence the outcome” of the Tabor case by false statements, misrepresentations and misleading advertising.

Overall, the decision to pursue a lawsuit against the town’s insurers was the big Tabor news of the week.

“I am looking at everything to defend this town the way it should have been defended in the first place,” DaRos said in an interview. “Don’t forget where we are today is where we should have been in 2004 minus all these lawsuits.”

The 2004 date takes the Tabor case back two administrations, to Republican John Opie’ s first year in office as first selectman. His administration formally took the property in January 2004 after Superior Court Judge Anthony DeMayo ruled in an early phase of the case that the town could go forward. (Bergenn maintains this early ruling did not preclude the later civil rights case against the town.) The Tabor trial jury was barred by the trial judge from learning about the DeMayo decision.

“Nothing was done then,” DaRos said, meaning the town did not dispute the insurance company’s denial. Nor, apparently, was any action taken against the insurance carriers during the subsequent administration of First Selectwoman Cheryl Morris.

Clendenen briefly outlined his views: “It is the town’s position that from the outset the insurance carriers should have provided and paid for the legal defense in this matter.” This would include legal fees paid to outside law firms, presumably the fees paid to Wiggin & Dana, the town’s outside counsel in 2003. The firm kept the case during the Opie administration.

The role of the town’s insurance carriers was first publicly discussed last December when Clendenen told the Representative Town Meeting that in his experience, “in litigation of similar types, insurance carriers have provided defenses. Now I don’t know why our insurance carrier declined to provide that coverage. I also don’t know why the town didn’t do anything about it. We are looking to find that out and to see if there is any possibility to bring insurance coverage to the table to assist the town…”

Clendenen then asked a number of well-known law firms to outline their views, presumably to see if the town had a strong enough case to go forward.

It is widely believed that the town’s insurance carrier did not cover eminent domain per se, but DaRos said there were other legal actions stemming from the taking of the land that he believes should have been covered.
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