HARTFORD — The Connecticut Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case involving a private boarding school student who contracted a tick-borne disease during a school trip to China and was left brain-damaged.
A federal jury in Bridgeport issued a $41.5 million award in 2013 to the student’s family against the Hotchkiss School in Salisbury. The jury found the school negligent in failing to warn student Cara Munn about the risk of insect-borne illnesses in China and in failing to take protective measures. She contracted encephalitis in 2007 and is unable to speak.
The school appealed to a federal appeals court, which asked the Connecticut Supreme Court to decide whether state policy requires schools to warn and protect against insect-borne diseases for trips abroad.
Arguments are scheduled for Monday, March 27.
