Foisie v. Foisie

• Decision Date: 27 April 2020
• Docket Number: SC 20384
• Citation: 239 A.3d 1198,335 Conn. 525
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Janet H. FOISIE v. Robert A. FOISIE

335 Conn. 525

239 A.3d 1198

Janet H. FOISIE

v.Robert A. FOISIE

SC 20384

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued January 22, 2020

Officially released April 27, 2020^*

Campbell D. Barrett, with whom were Johanna S. Katz and, on the brief, Jon T. Kukucka, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Janet A. Battey and Aidan R. Welsh filed a brief for the Connecticut Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers as amicus curiae.

D'Auria, Mullins, Kahn, Ecker and Vertefeuille, Js.

D'AURIA, J.

In this appeal, we are asked to decide for the first time whether a party to a dissolution of marriage action may substitute the executor or administrator of the estate of a deceased party in the place of the decedent under General Statutes § 52-599 when the pending civil proceeding seeks to open a judgment of dissolution on the basis of financial fraud. The plaintiff, Janet H. Foisie, claims that the trial court improperly denied her motion to substitute the coexecutors of the estate of the defendant, Robert A. Foisie,¹ her former husband, in his place. Specifically, she argues that the trial court incorrectly determined that, pursuant to § 52-599 (c), the defendant's death defeated and rendered useless her underlying motion to open the judgment of dissolution, thereby prohibiting substitution under § 52-599 (b). The trial court ruled that granting the motion to open would reinstate the parties’ marriage, the reinstated marriage automatically would be dissolved under General Statutes § 46b-40 due to the defendant's death, and, thus, the reopened action for dissolution would abate, preventing the court from granting the plaintiff any relief. We disagree and therefore reverse in part the judgment of the trial court.

The following procedural history is relevant to our review of the plaintiff's claim. The trial court dissolved the parties’ marriage in 2011. The judgment of dissolution incorporated a separation agreement entered into by the parties, which included financial orders. Approximately four years later, the plaintiff moved to open and set aside the judgment of dissolution on the ground of fraud or, alternatively, on the ground of mutual mistake. Specifically, the plaintiff alleged that the defendant had failed to disclose assets totaling several million dollars held in bank accounts in Switzerland.² The plaintiff requested that the court open and set aside the judgment of dissolution and hold a new trial on all financial issues. In her supporting memorandum of law, she argued that ‘‘[t]he defendant wilfully and purposefully misrepresented the value of marital assets by failing to disclose the existence and value of his offshore holdings and thereby secured the stipulated dissolution judgment by means of direct and calculated fraud.... Law and equity require that the stipulated dissolution judgment be opened and vacated on such grounds, so that a fair division of the parties’ assets may be had.’’

The parties stipulated that the judgment of dissolution could be opened for the limited purpose of conducting discovery regarding the plaintiff's allegations of fraud.³ Despite this stipulation, the defendant failed to produce any discovery and failed to comply with the trial court's discovery orders, leading the court to hold him in contempt and to issue multiple financial sanctions. Prior to complying with the discovery orders, the defendant died, nearly seven years after the judgment of dissolution was rendered, while the motion to open was pending and the dissolution judgment remained open for the limited purpose of conducting discovery.

After the defendant's death, the plaintiff moved to substitute the coexecutors of the defendant's estate in place of the defendant pursuant to § 52-599.⁴ The trial court denied the plaintiff's motion to substitute. The court explained that, pursuant to § 52-599 (c), to substitute the executors of the estate of a deceased party in place of the party, the pending civil action or proceeding must not be defeated or rendered useless by the death of the party. The trial court determined that, if the plaintiff's motion to open the dissolution judgment were granted, the parties’ marriage would be reinstated. Because the parties’ reinstated marriage would have automatically dissolved on the date of the defendant's death, pursuant to § 46b-40,⁵ nearly seven years after the dissolution judgment had been rendered, the court reasoned that it could not again dissolve the parties’ marriage and redistribute the financial assets, as the plaintiff requested in her motion to open. Thus, the trial court concluded that the motion to open was defeated or rendered useless, and, therefore, it had to deny the motion to substitute.

The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court from the trial court's denial of the motion to substitute. The appeal was transferred to this court pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199 (c) and Practice Book § 65-2.

The plaintiff argues that the trial court incorrectly concluded that opening the dissolution judgment would reinstate the parties’ marriage, thereby defeating the underlying motion to open and prohibiting substitution. She argues that the granting of a motion to open a judgment of dissolution for purposes of reconsidering the financial orders does not reinstate the parties’ marriage and, thus, does not abate upon the death of a party. As a result, she contends, the exceptions enumerated in § 52-599 (c) do not apply, but, rather, § 52-599 (b) permits substitution in the present case.⁶

We agree that when a motion to open a dissolution judgment on the basis of financial fraud seeks to open the judgment only for the limited purpose of reconsideration of the financial orders, granting the motion does not reinstate the party's marriage and, thus, does not defeat or render useless the underlying civil proceeding so that substitution is permitted under § 52-599. We also agree with the plaintiff that her motion to open the dissolution judgment in the present case sought to open the judgment only for the limited purpose of reconsideration of the financial orders. Therefore, we conclude that the underlying civil proceeding was not defeated or rendered useless by the defendant's death, and, thus, the trial court improperly denied the plaintiff's motion to substitute.

Although we generally review a trial court's decision whether to grant a motion for substitution of a party for abuse of discretion, in the present case, because the plaintiff's claim requires us both to consider the trial court's legal authority to grant the motion to substitute—whether there was a viable underlying civil proceeding—and to construe and gauge the applicability of statutes, our review is plenary. See In re David B ., 167 Conn. App. 428, 439, 142 A.3d 1277 (2016).

Substitution of a deceased party in a civil action or proceeding, including a dissolution action; see Charles v. Charles , 243 Conn. 255, 257, 701 A.2d 650 (1997) (‘‘[a]n action for dissolution of a marriage ‘obviously is a civil action’ ’’), cert. denied, 523 U.S. 1136, 118 S. Ct. 1838, 140 L. Ed. 2d 1089 (1998) ; is governed by § 52-599. Subsection (a) of § 52-599 provides that ‘‘[a] cause or right of action shall not be lost or destroyed by the death of any person, but shall survive in favor of or against the executor or administrator of the deceased person.’’ Subsection (b) of § 52-599 specifies that ‘‘[a] civil action or proceeding shall not abate by reason of the death of any party thereto, but may be continued by or against the executor or administrator of the decedent.... If a party defendant dies, the plaintiff, within one year after receiving written notification of the defendant's death, may apply to the court in which the action is pending for an order to substitute the decedent's executor or administrator in the place of the decedent, and, upon due service and return of the order, the action may proceed.’’ Subsection (c) of § 52-599, however, prohibits substitution in three limited circumstances: ‘‘The provisions of this section shall not apply: (1) To any cause or right of action or to any civil action or proceeding the purpose or object of which is defeated or rendered useless by the death of any party thereto, (2) to any civil action or proceeding whose prosecution or defense depends upon the continued existence of the persons who are plaintiffs or defendants, or (3) to any civil action upon a penal statute.’’ General Statutes § 52-599 (c).

In interpreting § 52-599, we are guided by our well established legal principles regarding statutory construction: ‘‘Because the issue presents a question of statutory interpretation, our analysis is guided by General Statutes § 1-2z, the plain meaning rule. In seeking to determine the meaning of a statute, § 1-2z directs us first to consider the text of the statute itself and its relationship to the broader statutory scheme. If, after examining such text and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text is plain and unambiguous and does not yield absurd or unworkable results, extratextual evidence of the meaning of the statute shall not be considered. General Statutes § 1-2z. The test to determine ambiguity is whether the statute, when read in context, is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Dudley , 332 Conn. 639, 645, 212 A.3d 1268 (2019).

The language of subsections (a) and (b) of § 52-599 is broad. Subsection (a) permits any ‘‘cause or right of action’’ to survive in the event of a party's death. Subsection (b) specifies the procedure for seeking substitution and explicitly allows substitution in any ‘‘civil action or proceeding....’’ Under subsection (b), when a plaintiff seeks to substitute the executor of the estate for the deceased defendant, the plaintiff must file the motion in the court in which the action is pending within one year of receiving notice of the defendant's death. We infer from this language that, to permit...