1 Conn. App. 1 | Conn. App. Ct. | 1983
The plaintiff, Connecticut Natural Gas Corporation (CNG), appeals1 from the trial court's dismissal on the basis of untimeliness of part of its appeal taken under General Statutes
General Statutes
The timing of CNG's appeal complied with the language of the statute. "[A] rehearing [was] requested," and the appeal was filed "within forty-five days after the decision thereon." General Statutes
The purposes of General Statutes
It is equally axiomatic that a statute must be construed to avoid difficult and bizarre results. State v. Campbell,
We do not fear the horrors paraded before us by the defendants as the likely results of this ruling. If, as suggested by them, an appeal is delayed for many months following a petition for rehearing, that could only be by the agency's inaction on the petition and of no doing by the petitioner. Even though a litigant could secure an additional thirty days in which to decide to appeal by filing a request for rehearing on a trivial issue, the agency is unlikely to give the request serious consideration and can give it the prompt and summary disposition it deserves. Moreover, we do not so lightly presume that any lawyer will contravene his ethical duty to avoid asserting a frivolous position in litigation. See Code of Professional Responsibility, EC
There is error, the judgment of dismissal is set aside and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.