JPMorgan Chase Bank, Nat'l Ass'n v. Essaghof

• Decision Date: 20 December 2022
• Docket Number: AC 45109
• Citation: 217 Conn.App. 93,287 A.3d 1124
• Parties: JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION v. Roger ESSAGHOF et al.
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals

217 Conn.App. 93

287 A.3d 1124

JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION

v.Roger ESSAGHOF et al.

AC 45109

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued October 6, 2022

Officially Released December 20, 2022

Ridgely Whitmore Brown, for the appellants (named defendant et al.).

Brian D. Rich, New Haven, for the appellee (plaintiff).

Elgo, Suarez and Bear, Js.

ELGO, J.

In this foreclosure action, the defendants Roger Essaghof and Katherine Marr-Essaghof¹ appeal from the judgment of the trial court granting the motion of the plaintiff, JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association, to reset the law days in accordance with a remand order of our Supreme Court. See JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Assn. v. Essaghof , 336 Conn. 633, 653, 249 A.3d 327 (2020). On appeal, the defendants claim that the court improperly (1) construed that remand order in a narrow manner and (2) denied their motion to dismiss predicated on the plaintiff's alleged noncompliance with the Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program (EMAP) notice requirements set forth in General Statutes § 8-265ee (a).² We affirm the judgment of the trial court.

The relevant facts are not in dispute. In May, 2006, the defendants executed an adjustable rate promissory note in favor of Washington Mutual Bank, F.A. (Washington Mutual) in the amount of $1.92 million.³ The loan was secured by a mortgage deed executed by the defendants on residential property in Weston. On June 24, 2008, the defendants executed a loan modification; they defaulted on the loan shortly thereafter. In September, 2008, the plaintiff acquired Washington Mutual and its assets, including the defendants’ loan.

The plaintiff commenced this foreclosure action in March, 2009. Following a bench trial in 2015, the court rendered a judgment of strict foreclosure in favor of the plaintiff. The court found that the total debt was more than $3.2 million, while the fair market value of the property was $1.65 million, and set the law days. From that judgment, the defendants appealed to this court.

While that appeal was pending, the plaintiff filed a motion for equitable relief in the trial court, seeking reimbursement from the defendants for property taxes and homeowners insurance premiums paid during the pendency of the appeal. After hearing argument and receiving supplemental briefing from the parties, the court granted the plaintiff's motion. The defendants then amended their appeal to include a challenge to that determination. As a result, two distinct claims were presented to this court in the defendants’ prior appeal: (1) whether the trial court improperly rejected their special defenses of fraudulent inducement and unclean hands; and (2) whether the trial court abused its discretion in ordering them to reimburse the plaintiff for property taxes and homeowners insurance premiums paid by the plaintiff during the pendency of the appeal. See JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Assn. v. Essaghof , 177 Conn. App. 144, 146, 171 A.3d 494 (2017), rev'd in part, 336 Conn. 633, 249 A.3d 327 (2020). This court rejected those claims and affirmed the judgment of the trial court in all respects. See id., at 163, 171 A.3d 494.

Our Supreme Court subsequently granted the defendants’ petition for certification to appeal from that judgment, limited to the issue of whether this court properly had affirmed "the judgment of the trial court ordering the defendants to reimburse the plaintiff for property taxes and homeowners insurance premiums in violation of the provisions of General Statutes § 49-14 ...." JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Assn. v. Essaghof , 328 Conn. 915, 915, 180 A.3d 962 (2018). Although that court certified a single question for further review; see JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Assn. v. Essaghof , supra, 336 Conn. at 638, 249 A.3d 327 ("we granted the defendants’ petition limited to the one issue"); the defendants nonetheless raised two claims before the Supreme Court: (1) whether this court improperly had affirmed the trial court's order to reimburse the plaintiff for taxes and insurance premiums; and (2) whether the Supreme Court "should vacate the judgment in its entirety and order a new trial before a different judge because certain statements the trial court made at a hearing ... call into question the trial court's impartiality ...." Id., at 638–39, 249 A.3d 327.

With respect to the certified issue, the Supreme Court concluded that "the trial court abused its discretion because the relief it ordered is inconsistent with the remedial scheme available to a mortgagee in a strict foreclosure."⁴ Id., at 635, 249 A.3d 327. With respect to the defendants’ claim of judicial bias, the court refused to consider the merits of that contention, stating: "We decline to consider the merits of the defendants’ second claim because the defendants did not raise the disqualification issue before the trial court or the Appellate Court, and because it is outside the scope of the certified question." Id., at 639, 249 A.3d 327. The Supreme Court thus reversed in part the judgment of this court and ordered as follows: "[T]he case is remanded to that court with direction to reverse the trial court's order directing the defendants to reimburse the plaintiff for property taxes and homeowners insurance premiums and to remand the case to that court for the purpose of setting a new law day; the judgment of the Appellate Court is affirmed in all other respects." Id., at 653, 249 A.3d 327.

On August 13, 2021, the plaintiff filed a motion in the trial court to reset the law days in accordance with that remand order. In response, the defendants filed an objection to that motion as well as a motion to dismiss, in which they argued that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the foreclosure action due to the plaintiff's alleged failure to comply with the EMAP notice requirements.⁵ The court held a hearing on those motions on October 8, 2021. It thereafter issued a memorandum of decision in which it denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss and set new law days in accordance with the remand order from the Supreme Court. From that judgment, the defendants now appeal.

I

We first address the defendants’ contention that the trial court improperly construed the remand order from the Supreme Court in a narrow manner. A determination as to the scope of a remand order presents a question of law, over which our review is plenary. See State v. Brundage , 320 Conn. 740, 747, 135 A.3d 697 (2016). As the Supreme Court has explained, "[i]t is the duty of the trial court on remand to comply strictly with the mandate of [an] appellate court according to its true intent and meaning. No judgment other than that directed or permitted by the reviewing court may be rendered ...." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Rizzo Pool Co. v. Del Grosso, 240 Conn. 58, 65, 689 A.2d 1097 (1997). The remand order from the Supreme Court in this case could not be more clear—this court was ordered to "remand the case to [the trial] court for the purpose of setting a new law day ...." JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Assn. v. Essaghof , supra, 336 Conn. at 653, 249 A.3d 327. This is not a case in which our Supreme Court remanded the matter for further proceedings in accordance with law. See, e.g., Allstate Life Ins. Co . v. BFA Ltd. Partnership , 287 Conn. 307, 323, 948 A.2d 318 (2008). Here, the directive was specific in nature and limited in scope. We, therefore, reject the defendants’ claim that the trial court narrowly construed the remand order from the Supreme Court when it granted the plaintiff's motion to set new law days.

II

The defendants also argue that, because the EMAP notice requirements, when applicable, operate as a "condition precedent" to a court's exercise of jurisdiction over a foreclosure action, the court improperly denied their motion to dismiss. This court has held that noncompliance with the EMAP notice requirements deprives a trial court of subject matter jurisdiction over a foreclosure proceeding. See Pennymac Corp. v. Tarzia , 215 Conn. App. 190, 202, 281 A.3d 469 (2022) ; MTGLQ Investors, L.P. v. Hammons , 196 Conn. App. 636, 646, 230 A.3d 882, cert. denied, 335 Conn. 950, 238 A.3d 21 (2020). Relying on the precept that an issue of subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time; see, e.g., Oxford House at Yale v. Gilligan , 125 Conn. App. 464, 473, 10 A.3d 52 (2010) ; the defendants claim that the court improperly concluded that their motion to dismiss constituted an impermissible collateral attack on the judgment of strict foreclosure rendered in 2015. We do not agree.

As this court has observed, "[o]ur jurisprudence ... has recognized limits to raising a collateral attack setting forth a claim of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. ... Although challenges to subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time, it is well settled that [f]inal judgments are ... presumptively valid ... and collateral attacks on their validity are disfavored. ... [U]nless a litigant can show an absence of subject matter jurisdiction that makes the prior judgment of a tribunal entirely invalid, he or she must resort to direct proceedings to correct perceived wrongs .... A collateral attack on a judgment is a procedurally impermissible substitute for an appeal. ... [A]t least where the lack of jurisdiction is not entirely obvious, the critical considerations are whether the complaining party had the opportunity to litigate the question of jurisdiction in the original action, and, if he did have such an opportunity, whether there are strong policy reasons for giving him a second opportunity to do so. ... Our Supreme Court [has] explained that such a collateral attack is permissible only in rare instances when the lack of jurisdiction is entirely obvious so as to amount to a fundamental mistake that is so plainly beyond the court's jurisdiction that its entertaining the action was a manifest abuse of authority ... [or] the exceptional case in which the court that...