U.S. Bank Nat'l Ass'n v. Rothermel

• Decision Date: 23 June 2021
• Docket Number: SC 20463
• Citation: 339 Conn. 366,260 A.3d 1187
• Parties: U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, as Trustee v. Carol J. ROTHERMEL
• Court: Connecticut Supreme Court

339 Conn. 366

260 A.3d 1187

U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, as Trustee

v.Carol J. ROTHERMEL

SC 20463

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued December 9, 2020

Officially released June 23, 2021^*

Christopher G. Brown, for the appellant (defendant).

Geraldine A. Cheverko, for the appellee (plaintiff).

Jeffrey Gentes and J.L. Pottenger, Jr., filed a brief for the Housing Clinic of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization as amicus curiae.

Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, D'Auria, Mullins, Kahn and Ecker, Js.

KAHN, J.

The principal issue in this appeal is whether General Statutes § 49-15 (a) (1), which provides in relevant part that no judgment of strict foreclosure "shall be opened after the title has become absolute in any encumbrancer," deprives the trial and appellate courts of subject matter jurisdiction over a motion to open a judgment that, although filed after the law days have passed, invokes the trial court's continuing equitable authority. The defendant, Carol J. Rothermel, appeals from the judgment of the Appellate Court dismissing her appeal from the trial court's denial of such a motion. In the present appeal, the defendant argues that (1) the Appellate Court's dismissal was improper because § 49-15 did not render her equitable claims moot, and (2) the trial court abused its discretion by denying her motion to open the judgment. The plaintiff, U.S. Bank National Association,¹ argues in response that the prohibition on postvesting motions to open a judgment set forth in § 49-15 implicates the subject matter jurisdiction of our state courts and that, in any event, the defendant is not entitled to equitable relief on the merits. Although we agree with the defendant that the Appellate Court improperly dismissed her appeal in light of the equitable nature of the particular claims at issue, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying the underlying motion to open the judgment.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to our resolution of the present appeal. In 2006, the defendant purchased a parcel of real property improved with a single family home in the town of New Canaan. In order to obtain funds for that transaction, the defendant signed a note promising to pay principal and interest on a loan of one million dollars to the plaintiff's predecessor in interest and then secured that note by mortgaging the property. The defendant defaulted on the note in 2012, and the plaintiff commenced the present action approximately ten months later. Although the defendant initially chose to proceed in a self-represented capacity, she subsequently retained the services of an attorney.

The trial court first rendered a judgment of strict foreclosure on January 13, 2014. Over the next five years, the parties filed a total of seventeen motions to open the judgment prior to the passage of the law day. The court granted fifteen of those motions, each of which was filed by the plaintiff with the defendant's consent.²

The parties used this additional time to engage in a series of discussions relating to modification of the mortgage, short payoff, and other forms of loss mitigation. After opening its judgment the final time, the trial court set the law day for March 12, 2019.³

The equitable claims raised by the defendant stem primarily from a series of communications between her and the plaintiff's loan servicer, Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. (servicer), that occurred shortly before the passage of the law day and the expiration of her right to redemption. Specifically, a letter from the servicer to the defendant dated February 20, 2019, erroneously stated that a "previously scheduled foreclosure sale" of the property had been postponed until March 13, 2019,⁴ and that the plaintiff was "continuing to evaluate [the defendant's] application for foreclosure prevention assistance." The letter then stated: "Please know that if you have submitted a complete application, we will not proceed with a foreclosure sale. If there is a pending foreclosure sale date, we will instruct our attorney to take appropriate steps to postpone such sale [date] including, where necessary, filing a motion with the court." On March 9, 2019, the defendant received a second letter from the servicer stating: "Your request for workout assistance on the above referenced account has expired. This is either because we did not receive the required payment or because we did not receive the signed agreement. We continue to welcome an opportunity to discuss options to resolve this matter so that possible legal action can be avoided." On that same date, the defendant also received an e-mail from her own attorney informing her that the trial court had set the law day for March 12, 2019.

Three days later, on the evening of the law day itself, the defendant called the servicer and was told once again that the "foreclosure sale" was scheduled for the following day.⁵ See footnote 16 of this opinion. Immediately after that call, the defendant contacted a new attorney who filed a motion to open the judgment the next morning, March 13, 2019. That motion claimed that the defendant's reliance on the servicer's misrepresentations had caused her failure to file a motion to open before the passage of the law day. The plaintiff subsequently filed an objection, arguing that, under § 49-15, the trial court was "without jurisdiction to disturb the judgment, but, even if the court did have jurisdiction, it would be inequitable for the court to grant the defendant's motion."

The trial court held an evidentiary hearing on the defendant's motion and requested supplemental briefs from both parties. In a memorandum of decision denying the motion, the trial court concluded that it did not have "jurisdiction or authority" to open the judgment under § 49-15 and that the equities of the case did not warrant granting relief inconsistent with that rule.⁶ In reaching this conclusion, the trial court found, as a matter of fact, that the defendant became aware of her law day no later than March 9, 2019, and that she had not been confused by the letters sent by the servicer.⁷

The trial court also found that, even if there had been some level of confusion, the defendant had acted in a "dilatory and cavalier" manner by unnecessarily delaying the filing of her own motion to open the judgment.

The defendant appealed from the trial court's denial of her motion to open the judgment to the Appellate Court. The plaintiff filed a motion to dismiss that appeal, arguing that, under § 49-15, the passage of the law day precluded the defendant from obtaining any practical relief and, as a result, rendered the appeal moot. The defendant filed no objection, and the Appellate Court summarily dismissed the appeal. The defendant's attorney later filed a motion for reconsideration, indicating that electronic service of the plaintiff's motion to dismiss had accidently been routed to the "spam" folder of his e-mail and that, as a result, the motion had escaped his notice until after it had been ruled on. The motion for reconsideration then continued to address the substance of the plaintiff's jurisdictional claim. The Appellate Court ultimately granted that motion for reconsideration but denied the defendant further relief.

This court granted the defendant's petition for certification to appeal, limited to the following issues: (1) "Did the Appellate Court properly dismiss as moot the defendant's appeal from the trial court's denial of a motion to open the judgment of strict foreclosure, raising equitable grounds involving alleged misrepresentations by the plaintiff relating to the strict foreclosure proceedings, when the motion to open was filed by the defendant one day after title vested in the plaintiff?" And (2) "If the answer to the first question is ‘no,’ did the trial court properly deny the defendant's motion to open the judgment of strict foreclosure ...?" U.S. Bank National Assn. v. Rothermel , 335 Conn. 910, 228 A.3d 95 (2020). We address these certified questions in turn.

I

We begin by addressing the defendant's contention that the Appellate Court improperly dismissed her appeal as moot. The defendant, citing Wells Fargo Bank , N.A. v. Melahn , 148 Conn. App. 1, 85 A.3d 1 (2014), argues that practical relief remained available to her because, notwithstanding the restrictions imposed by § 49-15, courts of this state continue to possess an inherent, equitable authority to open a judgment of strict foreclosure in certain cases after the passage of the law days. For the reasons that follow, we agree with the defendant that the common law of this state does, in fact, support a limited exercise of jurisdiction over a narrow class of equitable claims raised in postvesting motions to open and that, as a result, her appeal was not moot.

We begin by setting forth the standard of review and general principles of law relevant to our discussion of this issue. "Whether an action is moot implicates a court's subject matter jurisdiction and is therefore a question of law over which we exercise plenary review." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Commissioner of Public Safety v. Freedom of Information Commission , 301 Conn. 323, 332, 21 A.3d 737 (2011) ; accord U.S. Bank National Assn. v. Crawford , 333 Conn. 731, 750, 219 A.3d 744 (2019). Our case law firmly establishes that "[a] case is considered moot if [a] court cannot grant the appellant any practical relief through its disposition of the merits ...." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. v. Mendez , 320 Conn. 1, 6, 127 A.3d 994 (2015).

"The law governing strict foreclosure lies at the crossroads between the equitable remedies provided by the judiciary and the statutory remedies provided by the legislature. ... Because foreclosure is peculiarly an equitable action ... the court may entertain such questions as are necessary to be determined in order that complete justice may be done. ... In exercising...