Sturman v. Socha

• Decision Date: 09 August 1983
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
• Parties: Muriel STURMAN v. Edward SOCHA et al.

Page 527

463 A.2d 527

191 Conn. 1

Muriel STURMAN v. Edward SOCHA et al.

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued May 12, 1983.

Decision Released Aug. 9, 1983.

David M. Abbamonte, Bridgeport, for appellant (named defendant).

Sutherland W. Denlinger, Newtown, for appellee (plaintiff).

Before HEALEY, PARSKEY, SHEA, GRILLO and SPADA, JJ.

ARTHUR H. HEALEY, Associate Justice.

The defendant Edward Socha having been found individually liable to the plaintiff pursuant to a contract between the parties for an unpaid bill in the amount of $4093.60 for services rendered to Michael Socha, the defendant's father, has appealed to this court. On appeal he claims: (1) that the trial court erred in denying the defendant's motion for exemption from the trial list; and (2) that the trial court erred in finding that he was personally liable on the agreement sued upon.

At trial, the following facts were disclosed: Prior to December, 1971, the defendant's father had become a victim of arteriosclerosis which rendered him physically but not mentally disabled and unable to manage his business affairs. Because of this disability the defendant applied for and was appointed conservator of his father's estate by the Probate Court in Bridgeport in December, 1971. ¹ In 1973, the defendant's father had one leg amputated and in July, 1974, his other leg was amputated. The defendant then commenced to search for a facility which would provide skilled nursing care for his father. On August 26, 1974, the defendant contacted the plaintiff's facility, Buckingham Gardens Nursing Home (nursing home), and after consultation with a representative of the nursing home, he signed an "Admission Agreement" with the nursing home on August 26, 1974, which provided for the residential nursing care of the defendant's father at a rate of $33 per day. The defendant's father resided at the nursing home from August 27, 1974, to January 15, 1979, the date of his death.

The defendant filed an application on behalf of his father for benefits under title XIX of the Social Security Act in October, 1975. This application was denied initially by the Connecticut department of social services, but on appeal the court, McGuinness, J., found the defendant's father to be entitled to title XIX benefits in a judgment rendered on June 6, 1977. The state department of income maintenance then proceeded to work out a compromise with the plaintiff for the payment concerning unpaid-for services rendered by the nursing home to the defendant's father. A formula for payment of future services to be rendered by the nursing home to the defendant's father was also proposed and the plaintiff accepted the amount that the state offered toward payment of those services. Because the state payments did not fully cover the cost of the services rendered to the defendant's father by the nursing home, the plaintiff brought suit in 1977 seeking the unpaid balance from the defendant. When the case was reached on the trial list in February, 1980, the defendant moved the court for an exemption from the trial list. In support of this motion the defendant asserted that the Connecticut department of social services was a necessary party ² to the suit, that a previous motion to cite in the state had been granted, but that the state had not yet acted upon the defendant's request for permission to sue the state made pursuant to General Statutes (Rev. to 1979) § 4-147. ³ The motion was denied by the court and the case proceeded to trial on the merits.

At trial, the plaintiff sought to establish that the defendant was personally liable to the nursing home for the unpaid-for services rendered to the defendant's father pursuant to the written admission agreement entered into by the defendant and the nursing home. This agreement, which set forth the conditions of the care to be provided to the defendant's father and the costs for such care, was signed by the defendant. The defendant's signature appears at the bottom of the agreement on a blank line under which the words "Responsible Party" appear. There is nothing anywhere in the agreement itself indicating that the defendant signed this agreement as conservator of his father's estate or in any other representative capacity. The trial court found the defendant personally liable on the admission agreement for the unpaid cost of services rendered ⁴ to his father, rejecting the defendant's contentions that the words "Responsible Party" are ambiguous and have a meaning that can be ascertained only from parol evidence. The defendant then brought this appeal. ⁵

We turn first to the defendant's contention that the trial court erred in denying his motion for an exemption from the trial list. In considering such exemptions, we are guided by Practice Book § 274 which provides: "When a case is reached on the assignment list it shall be tried, defaulted, dismissed pursuant to Sec. 251 or nonsuited, unless for good cause shown the court may order it to be (a) reassigned on a succeeding list; (b) assigned for trial to a future date certain; (c) placed at the end of the trial list; or (d) removed from the trial list. Whenever any privileged or pretried case is ordered placed at the end of the trial list, it shall be placed with the remaining nonprivileged cases. Any case so removed from the trial list or from the pretried or privileged section of the trial list may be reclaimed, but the date on which the reclaim was received shall thereafter be considered as the date it was placed on the trial list." See also Stephenson, Conn.Civ.Proc. (2d Ed.1982 Cum.Sup.) § 167. It is emphasized that by its terms § 274 vests discretion in the trial judge to alter the commencement of a trial in the manner set forth in that section when "good cause" for such action is shown. The defendant asserts that the trial judge's refusal to exempt this case from the trial list and force him to trial was unfair and improper in that the defendant was tried before an "indispensable" party, the Connecticut department of social services, could be joined by the defendant. In his motion for exemption from the trial list as well as in his argument at that time, the defendant's counsel contended that the state was a "necessary" party. He did not refer to it as an "indispensable" party. As indicated above, however, on a previous motion the defendant's counsel contended that the state was an "indispensable" party to the litigation as contended in his brief and argument before this court. We recognize that the misleading nature of these terms has resulted in a blurring of the distinction typically drawn between them and that it has been suggested that this problem led to the abandonment of these terms in the 1966 amendment to the federal rules of civil procedure. Bruce, "Joinder of Claims, Parties and Counterclaims: A Proposal for Revision of the Connecticut Provisions" 51 Conn.B.J. 354, 358. Further, the relevant provisions of the Practice Book and the General Statutes make no specific distinction between the terms. See General Statutes §§ 52-102 through 52-108; Practice Book §§ 99, 100; Bruce, supra, 359. The terms as they have been used, however, are not without definitions. Parties have been characterized as "indispensable" when they " 'not only have an interest in the controversy, but an interest of such a nature that a final decree cannot be made without either affecting that interest, or leaving the controversy in such condition that its final termination may be wholly inconsistent with equity and good conscience.' Shields v. Barrow, 58 U.S. (17 How.) 130, 139 [15 L.Ed. 158 (1855) ]; 3A Moore, Federal Practice § 19.07." Standard Mattress Co. v. Hartford, 31 Conn.Sup. 279, 288, 329 A.2d 613 (1974). Necessary parties, however, have been described as "[p]ersons having an interest in the controversy, and who ought to be made parties, in order that the court may act on that rule which requires it to decide on, and finally determine the entire controversy, and do complete justice, by adjusting all the rights involved in it .... [B]ut if their interests are separable from those of the parties before the court, so that the court can proceed to a decree, and do complete and final justice, without affecting other persons not before the court, the latter are not indispensable parties." Shields v. Barrow, supra; see Lettieri v. American Savings Bank, 182 Conn. 1, 13-14, 437 A.2d 822 (1980); Gill v. Shimelman, 180 Conn. 568, 570-72, 430 A.2d 1292 (1980).

Regardless of the defendant's designation of the state's role as a party, the defendant has made only a bare assertion in his brief that the state is a party whose joinder as a defendant in this controversy prior to trial was absolutely required in order to assure a fair and equitable trial. The defendant has only asserted that he is some type of beneficiary of an agreement made between the state and the plaintiff. He has presented no evidence of the terms of this agreement and has not shown its bearing on the contract between the plaintiff and himself to which the state was not a party. There is nothing in the record before us which indicates that the state is either a necessary or an indispensable party to this case.

In weighing the trial judge's discretion exercised under Practice Book § 274, we first note that discretion "imports something more than leeway in decisionmaking." State v. Onofrio, 179 Conn. 23, 29, 425 A.2d 560 (1979). "Judicial discretion ... is always legal discretion, exercised according to the recognized principles of equity. Hammerberg v. Leinert, 132 Conn. 596, 604, 46 A.2d 420 [1946]. While its exercise will not ordinarily be interfered with on appeal to this court, reversal is required where the abuse is manifest or where injustice appears to have been done. Grievance Committee v. Nevas, 139 Conn. 660, 666, 96 A.2d 802 [1953]." Thomas v. Thomas, 159 Conn. 477, 480, 271 A.2d 62 (1970). In essence, the trial judge's discretion...