Emerald Ridge Property Owners Ass'n v. Thornton
This text of 732 A.2d 804 (Emerald Ridge Property Owners Ass'n v. Thornton) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Connecticut Appellate Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
Opinion
The plaintiff appeals from the judgment rendered in favor of the defendants following the granting by the trial court, Holzberg, J, of the defendants’ motions for summary judgment. Indirectly, the appeal relates to the prior denial by the court, Stengel, J., of the plaintiffs motion for summary judgment. The following facts are relevant to this appeal. The plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment, which was opposed by the defendants, submitting therewith affidavits and certain supporting documents that are the crux of this dispute. After the court denied that motion, the defendants filed motions for summary judgment with an affidavit that incorporated by reference the same documents, together with a copy of the memorandum of decision denying the plaintiffs motion for summary judgment. Both parties agreed that there are no facts in dispute and that the sole issue is whether the supporting documents that were duly recorded in the Southington land records satisfied the statutory requirements of the Common Interest Ownership Act, General Statutes § 47-200 et seq.
During the hearing before Judge Stengel on the plaintiffs motion for summary judgment, the following colloquy took place:
[8]*8“[Plaintiffs Attorney]: Your Honor, I don’t think there are any facts in dispute. I think the only question . . . is one of law. I think appropriately the defendants could have filed a cross motion, for a summary judgment. . . . [T]he facts are, the subdivision map was recorded, I don’t think that’s in dispute. The question is, what is the legal effect of recording . . . does [the Common Interest Ownership Act] apply or does it not—I think that’s perfectly appropriate for summary judgment.
“The Court: Are you—are you also conceding that if summary judgment is denied, that ends your cause of action?
“[Plaintiffs Attorney]: Yes, Your Honor.”
“Our standard of review of a trial court’s decision to grant a motion for summary judgment is well established. Zichichi v. Middlesex Memorial Hospital, 204 Conn. 399, 402, 528 A.2d 805 (1987). Practice Book § 17-49, formerly § 384, requires that [t]he judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if the pleadings, affidavits and any other proof submitted show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Hryniewicz v. Wilson, 51 Conn. App. 440, 443, 722 A.2d 288 (1999).
Although Judge Holzberg neither filed a memorandum of decision nor signed a transcript of an oral recitation as to the basis for granting the motions for summary judgment, we may exercise our discretion to review the plaintiffs claim if the unsigned transcript is sufficient to establish the basis of the trial court’s factual conclusions. See State v. Sandra O., 51 Conn. App. 463, 465, 724 A.2d 1127 (1999). That transcript reveals the following statement by one of the defense attorneys: “Well, the posture of the case is that the plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment in its favor and Judge Stengel [9]*9issued a written decision [and] ... in the course of [argument on the plaintiffs motion] it was agreed that that decision was going to be dispositive of the plaintiffs case. Judge Stengel ruled against the plaintiff, so the defendants have just, for a procedural matter, filed motions which ought to be granted.”
The defendants, in moving for summary judgment, put before Judge Holzberg the memorandum of decision of Judge Stengel denying the plaintiffs motion for summary judgment, together with an affidavit. The affidavit recited what the transcript discloses, that counsel for the plaintiff had conceded that, if the denial of the plaintiffs motion for summary judgment was legally correct, the defendants were entitled to judgment. We conclude, therefore, that the transcripts are sufficient to place before us a proper record on which we may review this appeal. In this light, we examine the provisions of the Common Interest Ownership Act and the documents placed before the court to ascertain whether those documents were sufficient to meet the statutory requirements to create a community interest thus giving the plaintiff standing to pursue those claims set forth in its complaint.
The heart of the Common Interest Ownership Act relates to the declaration as defined in General Statutes § 47-202 (13) and the data that it must contain as set forth in General Statutes § 47-224 (a) (1) through (14).1 [10]*10Judge Stengel found that the recorded documents in the Southington land records identified as (1) “Revised [11]*11Subdivision Map Emerald Ridge,” (2) “Declaration of Protective Covenants and Easements” and (3) “Declaration of Reciprocal Easements, Easements and Maintenance Arrangement” lacked the required information to create a common interest community under the provisions of the Common Interest Ownership Act. Specifically, neither the restrictive covenants nor the reciprocal easement document contained any elements to satisfy § 47-224 (a) (1), (5), (6), (11), (13) and (14),2 which “ [t]he declaration shall contain . . . .’’(Emphasis added.) General Statutes § 47-224 (a). We conclude, therefore, that after an examination of the data set forth in the aforementioned recorded documents, together with the many admissions by the plaintiff made in response to the defendants’ December 12,1997 requests for admissions, these documents clearly establish that many of the essential provisions required by the Common Interest Ownership Act to be included in a recorded declaration are lacking. See footnote 1.
The trial court correctly found that the lack of the data required by statute was the basis for the denial of the plaintiffs motion for summary judgment and the basis for granting the defendants’ motions.
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI
Related
Cite This Page — Counsel Stack
732 A.2d 804, 54 Conn. App. 6, 1999 Conn. App. LEXIS 264, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/emerald-ridge-property-owners-assn-v-thornton-connappct-1999.