Mark I Enterprises, Inc. v. Sendele

• Citation: 427 A.2d 1352,37 Conn.Supp. 569
• Decision Date: 06 February 1981
• Docket Number: No. 976,976
• Court: Superior Court of Connecticut
• Parties: MARK I ENTERPRISES, INC. v. Karl Roman SENDELE.

Page 1352

427 A.2d 1352

37 Conn.Supp. 569

MARK I ENTERPRISES, INC. v. Karl Roman SENDELE.

No. 976.

Superior Court of Connecticut.

Argued Sept. 10, 1980.

Decided Feb. 6, 1981.

Patrick A. Cosgrove, West Hartford, for appellant (defendant).

Howard C. Kaplan, Stamford, for appellee (plaintiff).

DAVID M. SHEA, Judge.

The defendant has appealed from the judgment of possession rendered in this summary process action. He claims that the court erred (1) in entertaining jurisdiction of the action and in awarding possession to the plaintiff while other actions seeking a determination of the ownership of the premises were pending, and (2) in finding that the plaintiff was entitled to possession.

The trial court filed a memorandum of decision which made the following findings: The plaintiff corporation was the lessee of a restaurant on Long Ridge Road, Stamford, which contained an upstairs apartment. The defendant had been employed by the plaintiff as manager of the restaurant, and he occupied the apartment as part of his employment arrangement. On January 5, 1980, the plaintiff caused a notice to quit possession of the premises no later than February 4, 1980, to be served on the defendant. On January 8, 1980, the plaintiff discharged the defendant from his employment as restaurant manager. The defendant refused to surrender possession of the apartment. The court concluded that the defendant's privilege of occupying the apartment under his employment arrangement had terminated, and that the plaintiff, as lessee of the premises, including the apartment which it had subleased to the defendant, was entitled to possession. The court rendered judgment for the defendant upon a second count of the complaint seeking to evict him upon the ground of nuisance.

The defendant raised four special defenses in his answer to the complaint: (1) that the defendant was a party to two other pending lawsuits, one testing his right to occupy the premises, and one raising the issue of title to the property in which the apartment was situated; (2) that the defendant was the equitable owner of the apartment, a matter to be determined in one of the pending suits; (3) that he did not occupy the apartment under his employment relationship with the plaintiff but by virtue of his ownership interest and an arrangement with his former wife, the record owner of the property; and (4) that the plaintiff had no standing to question his occupancy of the apartment.

The defendant's claim that the court should not have proceeded with the summary process action until his claim of equitable ownership of the apartment was decided in other pending litigation was originally raised by a motion to dismiss which was denied. The documents filed in connection with that motion, which are included in the record, indicate that one suit was pending between the parties in which the plaintiff was seeking an injunction to prevent the defendant from interfering with its business. A claim in that action for an injunction to compel the defendant to vacate the apartment had been withdrawn by amendment before the hearing on the motion to dismiss. The defendant has not briefed any claim that the fact that this injunction action was pending between the parties after the amendment would constitute a valid defense and is deemed to have abandoned any such claim. Rowland v. Maher, 176 Conn. 57, 61n, 404 A.2d 894 (1978).

In the other suit referred to in the special defenses the defendant sought various relief against his former wife, who held title to the real estate where the restaurant and the apartment were located and to all of the stock in the plaintiff corporation.

We have recently broadened the scope of the issues which may be raised in a summary process action by ruling that an equitable defense of estoppel might properly be considered. Steinegger v. Fields, 37 Conn.Sup. 534, 425 A.2d 597 (1980). The special defenses filed by the defendant involve complex equitable issues which previously had been unavailable in such actions. Rosa v. Cristina, 135 Conn. 364, 365, 64 A.2d 680 (1949); Atlantic Refining Co. v. O'Keefe, 131 Conn. 528, 531, 41 A.2d 109 (1945); Davidson v. Poli, 102 Conn. 692, 695, 129 A. 716 (1925). It had been deemed necessary for a defendant to bring a separate suit to enjoin the prosecution of the eviction action upon equitable grounds in order to have the benefit of such defenses. Winestine v. Rose Cloak & Suit Co., 93 Conn. 633, 638, 107 A. 500 (1919); Fort Orange Barbering Co. v. New Haven Hotel Co., 92 Conn. 144, 150, 101 A. 505 (1917); see Dreifuss v. World Art Group, Inc., 6 Conn.Cir.Ct. 309, 312n, 272 A.2d 144 (1970).

The trial court may have anticipated this procedural modification which the advent of the single-tier trial court system and other statutory changes have warranted. General Statutes § 47a-68(i); Steinegger v. Fields, supra. Although the record is not entirely clear, the special defenses appear to have been rejected because they had insufficient merit to defeat the plaintiff's right to possession. The...