A high-stakes corporate feud returned to center stage this week as the co-founder of a capital firm urged the Connecticut Supreme Court to reject an investment bank’s push to preserve a $10.4 million judgment, arguing that the case belongs before a jury—not a judge.
Founder Says Appeals Court Got It Right
In a blistering filing Wednesday, Dean S. Barr, co-founder of Foundation Capital Partners LLC, told the state’s justices that the intermediate appellate court correctly scrapped the bench verdict and restored the case to the jury docket.
Barr argued that investment bank FIH LLC had already given “binding” written consent to a jury trial—even if both sides filed their jury claims late. He accused FIH of inflating a mundane procedural extension into what it called a matter of “statewide importance.”
“Stripped of its mischaracterizations, the petition identifies no question warranting this court’s review,” Barr wrote, insisting the appellate panel had merely applied long-settled law.
The now-disputed judgment stems from a ruling by Stamford Superior Court Judge Sheila A. Ozalis, who pulled the case from the jury list after determining both parties had missed the filing deadline. She tried the case herself and delivered the $10.4 million verdict.
