Gennarini Construction Co. v. Messina Painting & Decorating Co.

545 A.2d 579, 15 Conn. App. 504, 1988 Conn. App. LEXIS 297
CourtConnecticut Appellate Court
DecidedAugust 16, 1988
Docket5106
StatusPublished
Cited by19 cases

This text of 545 A.2d 579 (Gennarini Construction Co. v. Messina Painting & Decorating Co.) 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.

Bluebook
Gennarini Construction Co. v. Messina Painting & Decorating Co., 545 A.2d 579, 15 Conn. App. 504, 1988 Conn. App. LEXIS 297 (Colo. Ct. App. 1988).

Opinion

Spallone, J.

The defendant appeals from the trial court’s denial of its postjudgment motion for supplemental interest and attorney’s fees, filed pursuant to General Statutes § 49-41a.1 We find no error.

The facts pertinent to this appeal, and a recounting of the procedural maze this case has traversed, are as follows. The plaintiff, Gennarini Construction Company, Inc., and the defendant, Messina Painting & Decorating Company, were, respectively, the general [506]*506contractor and a painting subcontractor performing work on a public works project in Danbury. A dispute arose between the parties over amounts the defendant claimed due under the subcontract. In November of 1983, pursuant to the contract, the dispute was submitted to arbitration.

The defendant prevailed in the arbitration proceedings and, in conformity with the submission,2 was accorded the appropriate awards3 on February 3, 1984.

On March 5, 1984, the plaintiff filed an application in the Superior Court to vacate the award. On the next day, the defendant filed a motion to confirm the award. Incorporated in the defendant’s motion was a proposed order which read in pertinent part: “Upon the foregoing application seeking confirmation of the Arbitrator’s award referred to therein, it is hereby ordered that said award be confirmed and a supplemental award of interest and attorney’s fees be granted in the amount of $__”

[507]*507On June 1, 1984, the defendant filed a separate motion for order, again seeking supplemental interest and attorney’s fees for its defense of the application to vacate the arbitrator’s award.4

On September 20,1984, the court, Meadow, J., filed a memorandum of decision and judgment entered thereon.5 On that same date, the court signed the order annexed to the March 6, 1984 motion to confirm, but the portion which ordered that “a supplemental award of interest and attorney’s fees be granted” was stricken. The judgment, therefore, denied the plaintiff’s application to vacate and confirmed the existing award in favor of the defendant.

On October 8, 1984, the plaintiff filed an appeal of that judgment to this court. On October 9, 1984, the defendant, not knowing that an appeal had been taken by the plaintiff, filed yet another motion for an order of supplemental interest and attorney’s fees for its successful defense of the plaintiff’s motion to vacate the arbitrator’s award. The trial court, Zoarski, J., concluding that the taking of an appeal by the plaintiff precluded it from addressing the defendant’s postjudgment motion, withheld decision and recommended that the defendant reclaim the motion after the conclusion of the appeal. The defendant seemingly acquiesced to the court’s refusal to rule on the motion.

During the presentation of the plaintiff’s appeal to this court, the defendant filed a preliminary statement of issues; see Practice Book § 4013; raising the claim that the trial court erred in its failure to award it the supplemental monies it sought. By decision issued in August, 1985, this court found no error in the affir[508]*508manee of the arbitration award by the trial court. Gennarini Construction Co. v. Messina Painting & Decorating Co., 5 Conn. App. 61, 496 A.2d 539 (1985) (Gennarini I). This court, however, declined to address the defendant’s claim of error concerning the supplementary award on the ground that the issue was not properly raised.6

Soon after the release of Gennarini I, the defendant returned to the trial court and reclaimed the October 9, 1984 motion for order which had been passed. Oral argument was held before the trial court, Maiocco, J., on October 7,1985. Not having received any response concerning the outcome of this argument, the defendant again reclaimed the motion on April 11,1986. Four days later, the defendant was notified, via a notation on the claim slip, that the motion for order had been [509]*509denied by the court, Maiocco, J., on February 3, 1986. The defendant filed this appeal from the denial of its motion on May 2, 1986.

On March 26, 1987, in response to a directive from this court, the trial court issued a memorandum of decision articulating the basis for its denial of the motion for order. In the memorandum, the court expressly stated that it was “satisfied that the subject matter of fees and interest, whether prior to or subsequent to the arbitrator’s decision, was fully before the trial court, [Meadow, J.,] and that the trial court, in effect, rejected the defendant’s request to supplement the arbitrator’s award, by confining its determination to a confirmation of the particular award itself.”

This decision clearly indicates that Judge Maiocco, on the basis of the record before him, determined that the issue of supplemental fees had been fully presented to and decided by Judge Meadow, and thus, the defendant was barred under the doctrine of res judicata from raising this claim once again.

The dispositive issue of this appeal, therefore, is whether Judge Maiocco properly decided that the defendant was foreclosed from litigating its claim that it was entitled to supplemental fees. We conclude that he did.

“The doctrine of res judicata holds that an existing final judgment rendered upon the merits without fraud or collusion, by a court of competent jurisdiction, is conclusive of causes of action and of facts or issues thereby litigated as to the parties and their privies in all other actions in the same or any other judicial tribunal of concurrent jurisdiction. State ex rel. Campo v. Osborn, 126 Conn. 214, 218, 10 A.2d 687 (1940); 46 Am. Jur. 2d, Judgments § 394, pp. 558-59. The doctrine is but a manifestation of the recognition that endless litigation leads to confusion or chaos. To prevent multiplicity of [510]*510actions equity will enjoin further litigation of a cause of action which has already been adjudicated. Local 1219 v. Connecticut Labor Relations Board, 171 Conn. 342, 355, 370 A.2d 952 (1976). If the same cause of action is again sued on, the judgment is a bar with respect to any claims relating to the cause of action which were actually made or which might have been made. Bridgeport Hydraulic Co. v. Pearson, 139 Conn. 186, 196, 91 A.2d 778 (1952).” Wade’s Dairy, Inc. v. Fairfield, 181 Conn. 556, 559-60, 436 A.2d 24 (1980).

The first determination to be made is whether this claim was properly raised and decided on its merits before Judge Meadow. We agree with the trial court’s finding that the issue of supplemental attorney’s fees for the defense of the plaintiff’s motion to vacate the arbitration award was raised explicitly in the first action in the Superior Court.

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Bluebook (online)
545 A.2d 579, 15 Conn. App. 504, 1988 Conn. App. LEXIS 297, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gennarini-construction-co-v-messina-painting-decorating-co-connappct-1988.