CADLE COMPANY v. D'ADDARIO

• Decision Date: 13 April 2004
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: CADLE COMPANY, v. DAVID D'ADDARIO, EXECUTOR (ESTATE OF F. FRANCIS D'ADDARIO), ET AL.

268 Conn. 441

844 A.2d 836

CADLE COMPANY, v. DAVID D'ADDARIO, EXECUTOR (ESTATE OF F. FRANCIS D'ADDARIO), ET AL.

(SC 16997), (SC 16998).

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued November 25, 2003.

Officially released April 13, 2004.

Sullivan, C. J., and Norcott, Palmer, Zarella and Caruso, Js.

Gary S. Klein, with whom was Stephanie A. McLaughlin, for the appellants in Docket No. SC 16997, appellees in Docket No. SC 16998 (defendants).

Michael G. Albano, for the appellee in Docket No. SC 16997, appellant in Docket No. SC 16998 (plaintiff).

Opinion

SULLIVAN, C. J.

The plaintiff, Cadle Company, is an unsecured creditor of the estate of F. Francis D'Addario (decedent). The decedent was an entrepreneur with extensive real estate and business holdings. The defendants are the decedent's sons and the current coexecutors of the estate, David D'Addario and Lawrence D'Addario. The plaintiff filed a motion for order in the Probate Court seeking both the removal of the coexecutors and an accounting and liquidation of the estate. The Probate Court denied the motion for order and the plaintiff appealed to the trial court. The trial court dismissed the appeal sua sponte at the conclusion of the plaintiff's case-in-chief. This appeal followed.¹

On appeal, the plaintiff claims that the court improperly: (1) failed to shift the burden of proof to the defendants to show that they acted fairly with regard to the transactions once the court had determined that a fiduciary relationship existed; (2) determined that the plaintiff had not established a prima facie case; and (3) failed to view the evidence in a light most favorable to the plaintiff. The defendants also appealed, claiming that the court improperly denied their motion for summary judgment, which was made prior to the trial, on the ground that the plaintiff lacked standing to bring the motion for order in the Probate Court. We dismiss the defendants' appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. We consider the issue raised by the defendants, however, as an alternate ground to affirm the trial court's judgment. With respect to the plaintiff's appeal, we affirm the trial court's judgment of dismissal.

I

We first address the defendants' appeal challenging the plaintiff's standing to bring the motion for order in the Probate Court. As a preliminary matter, we note that the defendants were not aggrieved by the judgment of the trial court, which was rendered in their favor. "Ordinarily, a party that prevails in the trial court is not aggrieved." Seymour v. Seymour, 262 Conn. 107, 110-11, 809 A.2d 1114 (2002). Because aggrievement is a prerequisite to this court's subject matter jurisdiction; General Statutes § 52-263;² Practice Book § 61-1;³ Seymour v. Seymour, supra, 110-11; we dismiss the defendants' appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Despite our dismissal of the defendants' appeal, however, we consider the issue raised by the defendants as an alternate ground to affirm the judgment in the plaintiff's appeal.

"Ordinarily, we would consider the defendant's alternate grounds for affirmance only after finding merit in at least one of the claims raised on appeal. [O]nce the question of lack of jurisdiction of a court is raised, [however, it] must be disposed of no matter in what form it is presented . . . and the court must fully resolve it before proceeding further with the case." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Dow & Condon, Inc. v. Brookfield Development Corp., 266 Conn. 572, 578-79, 833 A.2d 908 (2003). Here, as in Dow & Condon, Inc., we consider as a preliminary matter whether the plaintiff had standing to bring this action.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to our resolution of this issue. The decedent gave the Bank of New Haven (bank) a demand note in the amount of $1 million on May 31, 1985. After the decedent's death, the defendants published a notice in local newspapers announcing September 11, 1986, as the bar date for creditors' claims. On July 30, 1986, the bank sent the estate's attorney a letter demanding payment on the note.⁴ The estate's attorney twice replied to the bank's letter, seeking further information about the debt, but the bank did not respond. The bank sold the note to the plaintiff on September 23, 1994. The plaintiff subsequently filed a motion for order in the Probate Court for the removal of the executors and an accounting of the estate. The defendants then filed a motion to dismiss contesting the plaintiff's standing to participate in the estate.

The Probate Court denied both the defendants' motion to dismiss and the plaintiff's motion for order and the plaintiff appealed to the Superior Court. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, again contesting the plaintiff's standing.⁵ The defendants argued that the plaintiff had no standing because the plaintiff's assignor, the bank, had not filed a proper claim with the estate pursuant to General Statutes §§ 45a-391⁶ and 45a-395.⁷

The trial court determined that the estate had received the bank's letter prior to the bar date and that the letter was sufficient to meet the statutory notice requirements. The court also noted that the defendants: (1) had failed to disallow the claim during earlier proceedings; (2) repeatedly had listed the claim on the estate's return of claims; and (3) had received the benefits of a deduction based on the debt in the estate's federal estate tax return and its state succession tax return. Accordingly, the court denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment.⁸ These appeals followed.

The defendants argue on appeal that (1) the bank's letter was not sufficient to give the estate notice of the claim before the bar date and (2) the defendants' actions after the bar date did not cure the improper notice of the claim. We disagree.

The trial court's subject matter jurisdiction is a matter of law and, therefore, our review is plenary. "If a party is found to lack standing, the court is without subject matter jurisdiction to determine the cause. . . . A determination regarding a trial court's subject matter jurisdiction is a question of law. When . . . the trial court draws conclusions of law, our review is plenary and we must decide whether its conclusions are legally and logically correct and find support in the facts that appear in the record." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Connecticut Coalition Against Millstone v. Rocque, 267 Conn. 116, 127-28, 836 A.2d 414 (2003).

Section 45a-395 requires a decedent's creditors to give notice of their claims to the estate prior to a date set by the Probate Court. "The purpose of the statute is to enable the administrator to perform his duties by assuring that he is informed as to what claims there are which must be paid out of the estate and allowing him the opportunity to pass on them. . . . Its meaning is that if a creditor fails to present his claim within the time limited, and no extension of time is granted, that omission is an effectual bar to any further demand against the estate. . . . Thus, the statute imposes a condition precedent to the enforcement of a right of action, the nonfulfilment of which extinguishes the right of action, in contrast to a statute of limitation which merely bars the remedy and is to be pleaded as a special defense." (Citations omitted.) State v. Goldfarb, 160 Conn. 320, 325, 278 A.2d 818 (1971).

In Roth v. Ravich, 111 Conn. 649, 151 A. 179 (1930), this court considered the question of what constitutes proper statutory notice.⁹ In Roth, a representative of an estate inquired by letter as to the nature of a claim. Id., 651. The claimant responded by handwritten answers to the estate's specific questions in the margin of the estate's letter. Id. The writing included: "the amount of the original mortgage note . . . the amount then due on the principal; the date of the note; rate of interest with the dates of payment thereof, and the dates to which the interest had been paid; the amount of principal instalments; [and] dates on which instalments were due . . . ." Id. This court concluded that the writing was sufficient to give the statutorily required notice. Id., 655. This court stated that "[t]he form of the writing is of little importance so long as it furnishes information to the executor of the extent of the demand and the character of the transaction out of which it grew." Id., 654.

The more recent case of Schwarzschild v. Binsse, 170 Conn. 212, 217, 365 A.2d 1195 (1976), further explained that "the purpose of the statute is to expedite the settlement of estates and is not to furnish a vehicle by which executors or administrators may refuse to apply the assets of an estate to the payment of debts." (Internal quotation marks omitted.)

We conclude that the bank's letter to the defendants was sufficient to give notice pursuant to § 45a-395. As the trial judge noted, the letter described both the amount of the note and its origin. Thus, the estate was aware of both "the extent of the demand and the character of the transaction out of which it grew." Roth v. Ravich, supra, 111 Conn. 654. We need not reach the defendants' remaining claim that their actions allegedly acknowledging the debt after the bar date should not have been considered by the court because, even in the absence of those actions, the writing received by the estate was sufficient to satisfy the statutory notice requirement.

The defendants argue, however, that § 45a-395 (e), which provides that "[t]he amount of a claim may not be increased after the time for the presentation of such claim has expired," implies that the exact amount of the claim must be known to the executors before the date set by the Probate Court. This argument lacks merit. The letter stated the principal amount of the debt, which under Roth was sufficient to satisfy statutory notice requirements because it apprised the coexecutors of the extent of the claim. Nothing in § 45a-391 or § 45a-395...