SC20660 - Strazza Building & Construction, Inc. v. Harris ("In Girolametti v. Michael Horton Associates, Inc., 332 Conn. 67, 87, 208 A.3d 1223 (2019), this court held that, when a property owner and a general contractor have resolved disputes arising from a construction project by way of binding arbitration, there arises a rebuttable presumption that the general contractor and its subcontractors are in privity for purposes of res judicata in any subsequent litigation. In this certified appeal, we must determine whether the Appellate Court correctly applied Girolametti to the facts of the present case, in which a general contractor had sued
the property owner to foreclose two mechanic's liens it served on the owner,
claiming unpaid balances for labor and materials stemming from renovations it
began on the owner's home. In particular, we consider whether the Appellate
Court properly upheld the trial court's denial of the property owner's motion
for summary judgment, declining to give preclusive effect to the findings of the
trial court in a prior action between the owner and one of the general contractor's
subcontractors. We agree with the Appellate Court that the presumption of
privity that we held to apply in Girolametti does not apply in the
present case, in which a property owner seeks to bind a general contractor to a
prior judgment against a subcontractor. We also agree that the trial court
correctly denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment because there
remains an issue of material fact as to whether the doctrine of res judicata
applies to the facts of this case.
. . . The judgment of the Appellate Court
is affirmed.")