Town of Ledyard v. WMS Gaming, Inc.
Decision Date | 04 September 2018 |
Docket Number | SC 19917 |
Citation | 191 A.3d 983,330 Conn. 75 |
Court | Connecticut Supreme Court |
Parties | TOWN OF LEDYARD v. WMS GAMING, INC. |
Aaron S. Bayer, Hartford, with whom was David R. Roth, Hartford, for the appellant (defendant).
Lloyd L. Langhammer, Norwich, for the appellee (plaintiff).
Palmer, McDonald, Robinson, Mullins and Kahn, Js.*
The sole issue in this certified appeal is whether the trial court's determination that General Statutes § 12-161a, which requires that a property owner pay the attorney's fees of a municipality in actions brought to collect delinquent personal property taxes, entitled a municipality to an award for the attorney's fees it incurred in a related federal action is an appealable final judgment under our decisions in Hylton v. Gunter , 313 Conn. 472, 97 A.3d 970 (2014), and Paranteau v. DeVita , 208 Conn. 515, 544 A.2d 634 (1988), when the trial court has not yet determined the amount of those fees. The defendant, WMS Gaming, Inc., appeals, upon our granting of its petition for certification,1 from the judgment of the Appellate Court granting the motion to dismiss the defendant's appeal filed by the plaintiff, the town of Ledyard. Ledyard v. WMS Gaming, Inc. , 171 Conn. App. 624, 625, 157 A.3d 1215 (2017). On appeal, the defendant relies on the bright line rule set forth in Paranteau , namely, that "a judgment on the merits is final for purposes of appeal even though the recoverability or amount of attorney's fees for the litigation remains to be determined"; Paranteau v. DeVita , supra, at 523, 544 A.2d 634 ; and contends that the Appellate Court improperly dismissed its appeal for lack of a final judgment by relying on footnote 11 of this court's decision in Paranteau , which states that a Id., at 524, 544 A.2d 634 n.11. Guided by our analysis of Paranteau and Hylton , we agree with the defendant, and, accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court and remand the case to that court for further proceedings.
The opinion of the Appellate Court aptly sets forth the following relevant facts and procedural history. "In 2008, the plaintiff commenced the underlying action to collect unpaid personal property taxes that it had imposed on slot machines that the defendant owned and leased to the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation (Tribal Nation) for use in its gaming facilities. ... [T]he plaintiff sought $18,251.23 in unpaid personal property taxes, plus costs, interest, and penalties. In addition, the plaintiff sought attorney's fees pursuant to ... § 12-161a.
(Footnotes omitted.) Ledyard v. WMS Gaming, Inc. , supra, 171 Conn. App. at 625–28, 157 A.3d 1215.
Relying on "the rationale" of this court's decision in Paranteau , the Appellate Court determined that "a timely appeal taken from a decision conclusively determining the amount of an attorney's fees award may challenge both the amount and recoverability of the attorney's fees awarded."2 Id., at 634–35, 157 A.3d 1215. The Appellate Court rejected the defendant's reliance on Hylton , observing that the Id., at 634, 157 A.3d 1215. The Appellate Court then concluded "that the trial court's ... judgment as to liability only in the plaintiff's favor with respect to the federal action attorney's fees is not an appealable final judgment absent a determination of the amount of the attorney's fees." Id., at 635, 157 A.3d 1215. Consequently, the Appellate Court granted the plaintiff's motion and dismissed the appeal. Id. This certified appeal followed. See footnote 1 of this opinion.
On appeal to this court, the defendant claims that the Appellate Court improperly dismissed its appeal because there was an appealable final judgment. The defendant claims that this conclusion is supported by this court's recent application of Paranteau 's bright line rule in Hylton , which, the defendant argues, stands for the proposition that "when attorney's fees are awarded as punitive damages, a litigant can appeal the legal basis for awarding fees before the trial court has acted on a motion for attorney's fees and determined the amount of recoverable fees." (Emphasis in original.) The defendant further emphasizes that this court stated in Benvenuto v. Mahajan , 245 Conn. 495, 501, 715 A.2d 743 (1998), that this bright line rule "applies across the board, even to cases that might not seem particularly apt for it." To this end, the defendant contends that, in Hylton , this court considered how the bright line rule adopted in Paranteau related to the well established principle that judgments rendered on liability alone are not final for purposes of appeal until the amount of damages is determined and, moreover, that the Appellate Court's reliance on its cases applying footnote 11 of Paranteau as a basis for dismissing the appeal was misplaced because those cases were decided prior to Hylton . The defendant argues that the circumstances of its...
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