Balf Co. v. Spera Const. Co., Inc., 14492

• Decision Date: 26 May 1992
• Docket Number: No. 14492,14492
• Citation: 608 A.2d 682,222 Conn. 211
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: The BALF COMPANY v. SPERA CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC., et al.

Page 682

608 A.2d 682

222 Conn. 211

The BALF COMPANY v. SPERA CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC., et al.

No. 14492.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 28, 1992.

Decided May 26, 1992.

Thomas W. Witherington, Hartford, in support of the motion.

James J. Mercier, Hartford, in opposition to the motion.

Before PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, GLASS, BORDEN and BERDON, JJ.

PER CURIAM.

The sole issue in this motion to dismiss an appeal is whether a trial court has rendered a final judgment when it has granted a motion for summary judgment that establishes liability for the principal amount claimed by the plaintiff but has reserved a ruling on a claim for prejudgment interest. The plaintiff, The Balf Company, a subcontractor, brought an action against the defendants Spera Construction Company, Inc., a general contractor, and Insurance Company of North America (INA), the surety under a performance bond, to recover for labor and materials furnished on a construction project in Bloomfield. The plaintiff successfully moved for summary judgment against both defendants. With respect to the plaintiff's claim against INA, however, the trial court, Wagner, J., granted the summary judgment motion only in part. Although the court concluded that there was no factual dispute about the plaintiff's right to recover the principal amount from INA, it determined that the plaintiff's alleged entitlement to prejudgment interest from INA required a further factual inquiry. INA appealed to the Appellate Court from the summary judgment rendered against it, and we transferred its appeal here in accordance with Practice Book § 4023. The plaintiff has moved this court to dismiss INA's appeal. We conclude that the motion must be granted.

The parties do not dispute the proposition that appeals to the Appellate Court or to this court must ordinarily await the rendering of a final judgment in the trial court. General Statutes §§ 51-197a, 52-263; Practice Book § 4000; Stroiney v. Crescent Lake Tax District, 197 Conn. 82, 84, 495 A.2d 1063 (1985). ¹ They do not challenge the well established rule that a summary judgment rendered upon the issue of liability only, without deciding damages, is not a final judgment from which an appeal lies. Stroiney v. Crescent Lake Tax District, supra; Pinnix v. LaMorte, 182 Conn. 342, 343, 438 A.2d 102 (1980). ² Their disagreement centers upon the implication of Paranteau v. DeVita, 208 Conn. 515, 544 A.2d 634 (1988), in which this court concluded that the trial court's determination of liability and damages is a final judgment, for purposes of appeal, even though a supplemental postjudgment claim for statutory attorney's fees has not yet been resolved.

In Paranteau the plaintiff filed a claim against the defendant alleging, inter alia, a violation of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA). General Statutes §§ 42-110a through 42-110q. The plaintiff prevailed on this claim at trial and was awarded damages accordingly. Thereafter, the trial court ordered a supplemental hearing to determine the amount of attorney's fees to which the plaintiff was entitled under § 42-110g(d). The defendant filed an appeal in the Appellate Court, after the rendition of a judgment on the attorney's fee, in which it sought to challenge the merits of the judgment on the CUTPA claim. The timeliness of this appeal depended upon whether there had been a final, appealable judgment in advance of the resolution of the attorney's fee issue. This court held that "a judgment on the merits is final for purposes of appeal even though the recoverability or amount of attorney's fees for the litigation remains to be determined." Id., at 523, 544 A.2d at 634. We therefore agreed with the Appellate Court that the defendant's appeal of the judgment on the merits was properly dismissed because it had been filed too late. Id.

The question raised by the present motion is whether the rule of Paranteau should be extended to include a supplemental determination of prejudgment interest. The plaintiff contends that Paranteau is distinguishable because an award of attorney's fees serves a different function than an award of prejudgment interest. The recovery of attorney's fees permits a plaintiff to defray the costs of litigation, while the recovery of prejudgment interest compensates the plaintiff for the loss suffered by INA's unjustified delay in paying funds to which the plaintiff was entitled. INA maintains, to the contrary, that Paranteau applies to a supplemental claim for prejudgment interest as well as to attorney's fees because we adopted a bright-line rule in that case requiring an immediate appeal after a judgment on the merits regardless of the nature of supplemental postjudgment adjudications. INA reminds us in particular that we held in Paranteau that "the timeliness of an appeal should [not] be based upon retrospective, technical considerations of whether a particular supplemental postjudgment claim for attorney's fees was collateral to, or an integral part of, the judgment on the merits." Id.

The rule we articulated in Paranteau relied on a similar holding by the United States Supreme Court in Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 486 U.S. 196, 108 S.Ct. 1717, 100 L.Ed.2d 178 (1988). That court revisited the subject in Osterneck v Ernst & Whinney, 489 U.S. 169, 109 S.Ct. 987, 103 L.Ed.2d 146 (1989). While the United States Supreme Court had held in Budinich that a request for attorney's fees was not part of the merits...