Benvenuto v. Mahajan, 15927

• Decision Date: 21 July 1998
• Docket Number: No. 15927,15927
• Citation: 715 A.2d 743,245 Conn. 495
• Parties: Emil V. BENVENUTO v. Ramesh MAHAJAN et al.
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

Page 743

715 A.2d 743

245 Conn. 495

Emil V. BENVENUTO v. Ramesh MAHAJAN et al.

No. 15927.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued June 2, 1998.

Decided July 21, 1998.

Kenneth R. Davis, Stamford, for appellants (named defendant et al.).

Peter R. Stark, Milford, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before CALLAHAN, C.J., and BORDEN, NORCOTT, KATZ and PALMER, JJ.

BORDEN, Associate Justice.

This case is before this court on our own order to show cause, if any, why the appeal should not be dismissed for lack of a final judgment. The question posed by the order is whether, in an action for strict foreclosure, the lack of a determination by the trial court of attorney's fees deprives this court of subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal because the trial court decision appealed from was not a final judgment. We answer the question in the negative.

The facts are not in dispute. In 1995, the defendants, Ramesh Mahajan and Rupila Mahajan, ¹ executed a note in the amount of $1,000,000 in favor of the plaintiff, Emil Benvenuto, secured by a mortgage on property located in the town of Orange. After the defendants defaulted on the note in 1997, the plaintiff brought this foreclosure action. On February 20, 1988, the trial court, Curran, J., found that the note had not been paid, that the amount of the debt was $1,038,369, and that the plaintiff was entitled to attorney's fees of an undetermined amount. The court noted that it was reserving a decision on the amount of the attorney's fees until the plaintiffs filed a motion for attorney's fees. The trial court also set law days to begin on March 29, 1998. On March 6, 1998, the plaintiff filed a motion for attorney's fees in the amount of $17,729.75.

On March 11, 1998, however, before the trial court had acted on the motion for attorney's fees, ² the defendants filed this appeal in the Appellate Court. We subsequently transferred the appeal to this court, pursuant to Practice Book § 65-1 and General Statutes § 51-199c, in order to resolve the final judgment question resulting from the tension between our decision in Paranteau v. DeVita, 208 Conn. 515, 544 A.2d 634 (1988), and certain decisions of the Appellate Court; see, e.g., Connecticut National Bank v. L & R Realty, 40 Conn.App. 492, 671 A.2d 1315 (1996); Essex Savings Bank v. Frimberger, 26 Conn.App. 80, 597 A.2d 1289 (1991); regarding the finality of a judgment on the merits where a determination of attorney's fees is yet to be made.

In Paranteau, on May 27, 1987, the trial court rendered a judgment on the merits in favor of the plaintiffs on their claim under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA). General Statutes §§ 42-110a through 42-110q. In connection with that judgment, the court granted the plaintiffs an award of attorney's fees under § 42-110g (d), but delayed the determination of the amount of the fees. On June 18, 1987, the trial court awarded attorney's fees in the amount of $2580, and on June 26, 1987, the defendant appealed to the Appellate Court from both the judgment on the merits and the award of attorney's fees. Paranteau v. DeVita, supra, 208 Conn. at 517-18, 544 A.2d 634. On July 1, 1987, the plaintiffs moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the final judgment, for purposes of appeal, had been rendered on May 27, 1987, notwithstanding the absence on that date of a determination of the amount of the attorney's fees, and that, therefore, the appeal was untimely under Practice Book § 4009, ³ now § 63-1.

The Appellate Court agreed with the plaintiffs, and dismissed the appeal without issuing an opinion. Upon our grant of certification, the defendant appealed to this court from the judgment of dismissal by the Appellate Court.

We agreed with the Appellate Court. We 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." Paranteau v. DeVita, supra, 208 Conn. at 523, 544 A.2d 634. In arriving at that conclusion, we surveyed the decisions of the federal Courts of Appeals, which had been divided between two approaches. The minority view was to analyze "each case individually to determine whether attorney's fees were 'collateral' to the main cause of action, in which case they would not preclude the finality and appealability of a judgment on the merits...." Id., at 520, 544 A.2d 634. The majority view was to adopt "a bright-line approach ... through the implementation of a uniform rule stating that an unresolved issue of attorney's fees does not prevent a judgment on the merits from being final and immediately appealable." Id.

We then noted that the United States Supreme Court had recently resolved the federal conflict of authority in favor of the bright line approach, in the case of Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., 486 U.S. 196, 108 S.Ct. 1717, 100 L.Ed.2d 178 (1988). Paranteau v. DeVita, supra, 208 Conn. at 520, 544 A.2d 634. "[T]he Budinich court emphasized that the time of appealability, because of its jurisdictional consequences, should above all be clear, and that courts and litigants were best served by a bright-line rule that a decision on the merits is a final judgment for purposes of appeal even though the recoverability or amount of attorney's fees for the litigation remains to be determined." Id., at 522, 544 A.2d 634.

We opted for a bright line rule as well, stating: "From the standpoint of efficient judicial administration, we conclude that a bright-line rule is far superior to the case-by-case approach. We agree with the United States Supreme Court that, because it has jurisdictional consequences, the time of appealability should above all be clear. Budinich v. Becton Dickinson & Co., [supra, 486 U.S. at 202-203, 108 S.Ct. 1717]. A bright-line rule provides notice that decisions on the merits and those on attorney's fees will be treated separately, giving clear guidance as to when an appeal on the merits must be taken. We do not believe the timeliness of an appeal should 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. Such a case-by-case approach promotes, rather than eliminates, uncertainty as to when an appeal on the merits must be taken." Paranteau v. DeVita, supra, 208 Conn. at 522-23, 544 A.2d 634. We determined, therefore, that the judgment on the merits had been final for purposes of appeal, despite the outstanding issue of the attorney's fees, and, accordingly, we concluded that "that portion of the defendant's June 26, 1987 appeal challenging the trial court's May 27, 1987 judgment on the merits was properly dismissed by the Appellate Court as untimely in violation of Practice Book § 4009...." Id., at 523, 544 A.2d 634.

We then turned to "the separate question of the timeliness of the defendant's appeal of the trial court's supplemental postjudgment order determining the amount of attorney's fees to be awarded the plaintiffs under their CUTPA claim." Id. We concluded "that such an order may raise a collateral and independent claim that is separately appealable as a final judgment." Id.

The Appellate Court, however, has apparently taken the position that, without a determination of the amount of the attorney's fees, a judgment of strict foreclosure does not constitute a final appealable judgment. In Connecticut National Bank v. L & R Realty, supra, 40 Conn.App. at 495, 671 A.2d 1315, the trial court had rendered a judgment of strict foreclosure, had determined the amount of the debt, and had awarded attorney's fees and appraisal fees, but had not set the law days. The Appellate Court dismissed the defendants' appeal for lack of a final judgment, based on the lack of law days. Id. In the course of its decision, the court stated: "In a foreclosure action, the judgment must either find the issues for the defendant or determine the amount of the debt, direct a foreclosure and fix the law days. See Zinman v. Maislen, [89 Conn. 413, 416, 94 A. 285 (1915) ]. Morici v. Jarvie, 137 Conn. 97, 103, 75 A.2d 47 (1950). A strict foreclosure judgment must also determine the issue of attorney's fees as they are included as part of the total debt. See Federal Deposit Ins. Corp. v. Voll, 38 Conn.App. 198, 201, 660 A.2d 358, cert. denied, 235 Conn. 903, 665 A.2d 901 (1995); D. Caron, Connecticut Foreclosures (2d Ed.1989) § 14.08, p. 225." (Internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added.) Connecticut National Bank v. L & R Realty, supra, at 494-95, 671 A.2d 1315; see also Midstates Resources Corp. v. Collum, Appellate Court, Docket No. AC 16307 (January 15, 1997) (dismissal, without opinion by Appellate Court of appeal from judgment of strict foreclosure for lack of determination of attorney's fees).

We acknowledge the analytical appeal of the position of the Appellate Court. In a strict foreclosure case, until the amount of attorney's fees is set by the court, the total amount of the debt is not fully determined, and any party wishing to redeem on his or her law day will not know precisely how much to pay in order to do so. That reasoning argues with considerable persuasiveness for a conclusion that, in such a case, there is no final judgment for purposes of appeal until attorney's fees are determined. Thus, a judgment of strict foreclosure that does not contain a determination of attorney's fees does not fit comfortably with traditional notions of finality.

We conclude, nonetheless, that the bright line rule that we articulated in Paranteau applies as well to a strict foreclosure case. First, that is ordinarily what having a bright line test means: it applies across the board, even to cases that might not seem particularly apt for it. Thus, it attempts to relieve the parties who must live under it from the task of determining on a case-by-case basis when it applies and when it does not.

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