Beckish v. Manafort

• Court: Supreme Court of Connecticut
• Writing for the Court: Before COTTER; LONGO
• Citation: 399 A.2d 1274,175 Conn. 415
• Parties: Frances BECKISH v. Paul J. MANAFORT, Commissioner of Public Works, et al.
• Decision Date: 18 July 1978

Page 1274

399 A.2d 1274 175 Conn. 415 Frances BECKISH
v.
Paul J. MANAFORT, Commissioner of Public Works, et al. Supreme Court of Connecticut. Argued April 11, 1978.
Decided July 18, 1978.

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Richard C. Robinson, Hartford, with whom, on the brief, was Milton Sorokin, Hartford, for appellant (plaintiff).

John G. Haines, Asst. Atty. Gen., with whom, on the brief, was Carl R. Ajello, Atty. Gen., for appellees (named defendant and defendant state building code standards committee).

Before COTTER, C. J., and LOISELLE, BOGDANSKI, LONGO and HEALEY, JJ.

[175 Conn. 416] LONGO, Associate Justice.

Pursuant to the provisions of § 19-402 of the General Statutes, the plaintiff, Frances Beckish, appealed to the Court of Common Pleas from a decision of the state building code standards committee, hereinafter the state standards committee, sustaining the appeal of the town of Columbia and its building official, Sam J. Pescetello, who rejected the plaintiff's application for a building permit. The appeal was submitted on the record, which included the pleadings, transcript of the de novo hearing, exhibits, finding and decision of the state standards committee. The plaintiff has appealed to this court from the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas dismissing her appeal for failure to show that she was "aggrieved" within the meaning of § 19-402 of the General Statutes. ¹

The facts underlying the plaintiff's appeal are essentially undisputed, as indicated by the briefs of the parties. The plaintiff is the owner of land and a building located on the corner of routes 87 and 66 in the town of Columbia. The property is used for business purposes in the operation of a beauty parlor, a real estate office and a general store owned and operated by the plaintiff and her husband. In 1962, the plaintiff erected an eight-foot-high, free-standing ground sign on a portion of land facing route 87, advertising the businesses conducted in the Landmark building, so-called. Since 1962, the town of Columbia has levied a property tax upon the plaintiff's property and upon the disputed land where the sign is located. There was testimony before the state standards committee that [175 Conn. 417] at the request of the town of Columbia, the plaintiff made improvements on the property consisting of curbing and shrubbery for the island in front of her store, and paid for the mowing of grass in the area where the sign was located, and the town mowed the adjacent land. In early March, 1973, the plaintiff's sign was blown down in a windstorm. On March 21, the Columbia building official issued a stop work order halting the reerection of the sign, stating as the reason that the plaintiff had not obtained a building permit. The plaintiff's contractor then applied for a permit and attached to the application a consent form signed by the plaintiff as owner of the property. ² Pescetello

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rejected the application because, as he testified, the application was not complete since it did not have a plot plan as required by § 113.6 ³ of the Connecticut basic building code, from which he could determine whether the plaintiff was the owner of the land where the sign was to be located. The underlying basis for the official's action was his personal opinion that the sign was located on the town of Columbia's property.

Upon appeal to the town of Columbia building code board of appeals, the board overruled Pescetello's[175 Conn. 418] order rejecting the plaintiff's application, and decided that the plaintiff did not require a building permit under the provisions of §§ 1406.1 ⁴ and 1406.2 ⁵ of the basic building code. The town and the building official then appealed to the state standards committee and the committee sustained the town's appeal, reversing the Columbia board of appeals. Thereupon, the plaintiff appealed to the Court of Common Pleas. The court concluded, after reviewing the record and relevant statutes, that the plaintiff had failed to prove that she was aggrieved by the action of the state standards committee, since there was insufficient evidence that she was the owner of the land upon which the sign was to be reerected. The court also concluded that the committee's decision was not illegal, unreasonable and in abuse of its discretion. From that judgment the plaintiff has appealed to this court.

The decisive issue for our consideration on this appeal is whether the trial court erred in concluding that the plaintiff failed to prove that she was an "aggrieved" person within the intendment of § 19-402 of the General Statutes and, accordingly, lacked standing to appeal from the decision of the state standards committee. We conclude that the court was not in error.

[175 Conn. 419] The plaintiff assigns as error the trial court's ruling that she was not aggrieved by the decision of the state standards committee. Pleading and proof of aggrievement was, of course, a prerequisite to the trial court's jurisdiction over the subject matter of the plaintiff's appeal. Fletcher v. Planning & Zoning Commission, 158 Conn. 497, 501, 264 A.2d 566; Hughes v. Town Planning & Zoning Commission, 156 Conn. 505, 509, 242 A.2d 705. The question of aggrievement is essentially one of standing; unless the plaintiff could establish that she was aggrieved by the decision of the state standards committee, she had no standing to appeal. General Statutes §§ 19-402 and 4-183(a); Hughes v. Town Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 508, 242 A.2d 705; I. R. Stich Associates, Inc. v. Town Council, 155 Conn. 1, 3, 229 A.2d 545. The trial court must be satisfied,...