Connecticut General Statutes 4-184a – Award of reasonable fees and expenses to certain prevailing parties in appeals of agency decisions
(a) For the purposes of this section:
Terms Used In Connecticut General Statutes 4-184a
- Agency: means each state board, commission, department or officer authorized by law to make regulations or to determine contested cases, but does not include either house or any committee of the General Assembly, the courts, the Council on Probate Judicial Conduct, the Governor, Lieutenant Governor or Attorney General, or town or regional boards of education, or automobile dispute settlement panels established pursuant to section 42-181. See Connecticut General Statutes 4-166
- Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
- Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
- Party: means each person (A) whose legal rights, duties or privileges are required by statute to be determined by an agency proceeding and who is named or admitted as a party, (B) who is required by law to be a party in an agency proceeding, or (C) who is granted status as a party under subsection (a) of section 4-177a. See Connecticut General Statutes 4-166
- Person: means any individual, partnership, corporation, limited liability company, association, governmental subdivision, agency or public or private organization of any character, but does not include the agency conducting the proceeding. See Connecticut General Statutes 4-166
(1) “Person” means a person as defined in section 4-166, but excludes (A) an individual with a net worth in excess of five hundred thousand dollars, (B) a business whose gross revenues for the most recently completed fiscal year exceeded one million five hundred thousand dollars, (C) a business with more than twenty-five employees and (D) an agency as defined in section 4-166.
(2) “Reasonable fees and expenses” means any expenses not in excess of seven thousand five hundred dollars which the court finds were reasonably incurred in opposing the agency action, including court costs, expenses incurred in administrative proceedings, attorney’s fees, witness fees of all necessary witnesses, and such other expenses as were reasonably incurred.
(b) In any appeal by an aggrieved person of an agency decision taken in accordance with section 4-183 and in any appeal of the final judgment of the Superior Court under said section taken in accordance with section 51-197b, the court may, in its discretion, award to the prevailing party, other than the agency, reasonable fees and expenses in addition to other costs if such prevailing party files a request for an award of reasonable fees and expenses within thirty days of the issuance of the court’s decision and the court determines that the action of the agency was undertaken without any substantial justification.