The Connecticut Appellate Court’s November 2021 opinion in City of Hartford Police Department v. Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, 208 Conn. App. 755 (2021), perpetuated an error that quietly plagues post-verdict review of Connecticut discrimination cases. We urge our Supreme Court to correct the law.

Neither the facts of this case nor its outcome are especially remarkable (except of course to the litigants). Officer Khoa Phan alleged that one of his sergeants made racist statements about his national origin (including laughing at his accent and suggesting that all east Asians are “the same”); that when Phan opposed those statements, the sergeant threatened his job and wrote him up; and that he ultimately was terminated—albeit at the instigation of other sergeants—because of his heritage.