BayBank Connecticut, N.A. v. Thumlert, No. 14392

• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Writing for the Court: Before PETERS; PETERS
• Citation: 222 Conn. 784,610 A.2d 658
• Parties: BAYBANK CONNECTICUT, N.A. v. H. Donald THUMLERT et al.
• Docket Number: No. 14392
• Decision Date: 14 July 1992

Page 658

610 A.2d 658 222 Conn. 784 BAYBANK CONNECTICUT, N.A.
v.
H. Donald THUMLERT et al. No. 14392. Supreme Court of Connecticut. Argued April 29, 1992.
Decided July 14, 1992.

Page 659

Richard M. Leibert, Hartford, for appellant (plaintiff).

[222 Conn. 785] D. Jefferson Blackwell, Jr., Glastonbury, for appellees (named defendant et al.).

Before [222 Conn. 784] PETERS, C.J., and CALLAHAN, GLASS, BORDEN and BERDON, JJ.

[222 Conn. 785] PETERS, Chief Justice.

The principal issue in this appeal is whether the thirty day time limit specified in General Statutes § 49-14(a) ¹ for filing a motion for a deficiency judgment in a mortgage foreclosure action is applicable to a judgment of foreclosure by sale. Concluding that the time limitation contained in § 49-14(a) governs a motion for a deficiency judgment following a foreclosure by sale, the trial court, Goldberg, J., denied as untimely the motion for a deficiency judgment filed by the plaintiff, BayBank Connecticut, N.A., against the named defendant, H. Donald Thumlert (defendant). The plaintiff appealed the denial of its motion to the Appellate Court and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to Practice Book § 4023 and General Statutes § 51-199(c). We reverse.

On March 14, 1989, the defendant granted a mortgage to the plaintiff on a parcel of land in Glastonbury to secure a promissory note in the amount of $500,000. The defendant defaulted on the payment of the note and on August 1, 1990, the plaintiff commenced a foreclosure action against the defendant in Superior Court. ² [222 Conn. 786] The trial court, Allen, J., granted the plaintiff's motion for judgment of strict foreclosure on December 31, 1990. Thereafter, on January 22, 1991, the trial court opened its judgment of strict foreclosure and, on March 4, 1991, granted the motion for judgment of foreclosure by sale filed by the United Bank and Trust Company, a subsequent lienholder. On April 13, 1991, a committee appointed by the trial court sold the property to the plaintiff, the only bidder, for the sum of $500,000. The trial court ratified the sale on April 29, 1991, and rendered a supplemental judgment confirming the sale on June 24, 1991.

Alleging a deficiency of $72,390.88, representing the difference between the approved sale price and the debt plus expenses, the plaintiff filed a motion for a deficiency judgment with the trial court on June 10, 1991. The defendant objected to the motion on the ground that it had been filed more than thirty days after the court had approved the sale and thus was untimely under § 49-14(a). The plaintiff countered that the time limit of § 49-14(a) applies solely to a motion for a deficiency judgment following a judgment of strict foreclosure.

Page 660

Relying upon the Appellate Court's decision in Central Bank for Savings v. Heggelund, 23 Conn.App. 266, 268 n. 1, 579 A.2d 598 (1990), the trial court, Goldberg, J., applied the thirty day time limit of § 49-14(a) to the plaintiff's motion for a deficiency judgment and concluded that it had been untimely filed. In Heggelund, the Appellate Court, in a footnote, addressing an alternate ground raised by the defendant for affirming the trial court's judgment, stated that the plaintiff's motion for a deficiency judgment following a judgment of foreclosure by sale had been timely. The Appellate Court stated that "[t]he thirty day time limit for moving for a deficiency judgment pursuant to General Statutes § 49-14 begins to run from the day the title transfer [222 Conn. 787] becomes absolute, which ... was ... the day the court approved the sale of the property to the mortgagee." Id. On the basis of the Appellate Court's "unequivocal expression" in Heggelund that the thirty day time limit of § 49-14(a) applies to a motion for a deficiency judgment following a judgment of foreclosure by sale, the trial court in the present case denied the plaintiff's motion.

The plaintiff raises three issues on appeal to this court. First, relying upon the plain language of § 49-14(a), it reasserts its claim that the thirty day time limit does not apply to a motion for a deficiency judgment following a judgment of foreclosure by sale. Second, the plaintiff claims that, if we should conclude that the thirty day time limit of § 49-14(a) applies to a motion for a deficiency judgment following a judgment of foreclosure by sale, the statute is unconstitutionally vague. Third, the plaintiff claims that, if § 49-14(a) applies and is constitutional, its thirty day time period begins to run from the date the supplemental judgment is approved, or from the date of the conveyance of title, and not, as the trial court concluded, from the date the court approved the sale of the property. We agree with the plaintiff that the thirty day time limitation of § 49-14(a) is inapplicable to a motion for a deficiency judgment following a judgment of foreclosure by sale and, accordingly, do not address the plaintiff's remaining two claims.

Section 49-14(a) provides in part: "At any time within thirty days after the time limited for redemption has expired, any party to a mortgage foreclosure may file a motion seeking a deficiency judgment." The defendant emphasizes that the statute does not distinguish between a strict foreclosure and a foreclosure by sale. He maintains that, if the legislature had intended the time limitation of § 49-14(a) to apply solely to strict foreclosure actions, it would have so indicated expressly.

[222 Conn. 788] We do not, however, view this sentence in isolation from the remainder of the statute. "The process by which legislation becomes binding law is not a piecemeal one; statutes are not passed sentence by sentence, or clause by clause. It follows that a court's interpretation of a single provision necessitates consideration of the statute in its entirety, deriving the meaning of a part from the whole of the words and...