Advance Release Opinions – December 15

Connecticut Appellate Court

The Appellate Court advance released opinions about breach of contract, child custody, civil procedure, conversion, and employment law, which I review below. The Appellate Court also advance released two decisions in criminal cases and one decision in a habeas matter. I don’t review those decisions and don’t provide the syllabuses (or syllabi if you prefer) because I’m concerned about the length.

Breach of Contract

Isenburg v. Isenburg – Despite the title, this is not a matrimonial case. Plaintiff and defendant lived together but never married. Plaintiff took defendant’s last name through a legal name change. Plaintiff was self-represented and displayed a fair amount of creativity in her claims after the relationship went bad. Both the trial court and Appellate Court rejected all of the claims, but the decision is relatively short (12 pages) and worth a quick read, if only for the true flavor of the claims. The gist of the complaint was that defendant had promised plaintiff a share of his property and business income. The trial court rejected plaintiff’s claims. On appeal, plaintiff claimed that the trial court erred by: (1) excluding certain exhibits; (2) not recusing itself; (3) finding that there was no contract; (4) finding that the defendant did not owe or breach any fiduciary duty to her; and (5) failing to award her certain specific damages and property. The Appellate Court affirmed, finding as follows with respect to plaintiff’s claims: (1) the trial court did not exclude any exhibits; (2) that the trial court was a married man and the case involved unmarried persons living together was not a basis for recusal; (3) the evidence confirmed there was no contract; (4) the parties’ relationship was social, not fiduciary; and (5) there was no basis to award plaintiff the specific damages or property.

Child Custody

Baronio v. Stubbs – Trial court ordered joint legal custody and shared physical custody. Defendant-mother appealed, claiming that joint custody was not in the child’s best interests where one parent objected to it and she objected to it. Appellate Court affirmed. It found that the record showed that the parties had in fact agreed to joint custody. The Appellate Court also rejected defendant’s claim that the trial court was biased in favor of plaintiff or against defendant for the same reason – the record did not show any bias or predetermination.

Civil Procedure (Foreclosure)

Chase Home Finance, LLC v. Scroggin – This case is significant, not necessarily because of the procedural issue involved, but because it was resolved for the borrower in a foreclosure case. I think if this case was decided five or six years ago, borrower would have lost. In any event, on to the decision. Bank filed a motion for default for failure to plead and a motion for judgment of foreclosure. Borrower was defaulted for failure to plead. Before judgment entered, bank amended its complaint to add a new defendant and five new counts. The only amendment to the original count was to identify the new defendant as a subsequent encumbrancer. Three of the new counts addressed a priority issue between bank and new defendant. The other two new counts alleged that borrower’s interaction with new defendant had injured bank. Bank filed a new motion for judgment. Before the court considered that motion, borrower filed an answer to the amended complaint. The trial court granted the motion for judgment because the case was five years old, borrower never moved to open a default, and borrower could not file an answer after a motion for judgment had been filed. The Appellate Court reversed, noting that amending the complaint after a default extinguishes the default and gives the defendant the right to plead if the amendments reflected a substantial change in the pleading. Here, the new counts reflected new facts and legal theories that were substantive, not technical, changes. Judge Bear dissented, noting that the court’s focus should not have been on whether the amended complaint as a whole reflected substantive changes but on whether the foreclosure count reflected substantive changes. The borrower had not appealed the judgment as to the two new counts alleged against him and the other three new counts involved only the bank and the new defendant. Since the original count was really the only count under review and that count didn’t substantially change, the trial court’s decision should have been affirmed.

Conversion

Wiederman v. Halpert – Plaintiff sued for breach of fiduciary, fraud, conversion, bad faith and CUTPA violations arising from real estate investments she made with the defendants. Trial court defaulted defendants for failure to attend a trial management conference and awarded plaintiff compensatory for all but the CUTPA count and punitive damages for the fraud count. The trial court also separately awarded plaintiff her attorney’s fees and costs. Defendants moved to open the judgment on the ground that plaintiff, as an LLC member, lacked standing to pursue the claims she asserted as an individual. The trial court denied the motion. Defendants appealed. The Appellate Court rejected the lack of standing claim because plaintiff had alleged injuries that were direct, not remote, indirect or derivative. Defendants also claimed that the trial court’s decision “is rife with errors, and those errors are so plain that they resulted in manifest injustice.” The Appellate Court concluded that the only plain error claims that had any traction related to the the award of damages for conversion against one defendant and the punitive damages award. As to conversion, the Appellate Court reversed the judgment as to that one defendant because the conversion count did not contain any allegations against her. The Appellate Court also reversed the punitive damages award because punitive damages for common law fraud are limited to attorney’s fees and the trial court had separately awarded attorney’s fees.

Employment

Heyward v. Judicial Branch – Trial court struck plaintiff’s hostile work environment and racial discrimination claims because the complaint did not allege sufficient facts to support them. Appellate Court affirmed. As to the hostile work environment claim, the Appellate Court found that the facts alleged “are not sufficiently severe or pervasive so as to alter the conditions of [plaintiff’s] employment and to create a hostile work environment.” In fact, plaintiff alleged only two instances of racial remarks and only one of those remarks was directed at plaintiff. As to the racial discrimination claim, the Appellate Court found that plaintiff did not allege any facts showing that she was subjected to an adverse employment action.