Opinion
CV085021131S
12-31-2019
BANK OF AMERICA v. CHASE ASSOCIATES, INC. et al.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
OPINION
Cobb, J.
The defendant, Jodie T. Chase, moves to open a decade old judgment on the ground that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enter the judgment as the result of a pleading defect. The plaintiff objects to this motion to open.
TBF Financial, LLC has been substituted for the original plaintiff Bank of America.
The following facts and procedural background are relevant to this motion. In July 2008, the plaintiff, Bank of America, brought a collection action against the defendants, Chase Associates, Inc. (Chase Associates) and Jodie T. Chase (Jodie Chase). The one-count complaint, dated June 20, 2008, alleged that on November 20, 2001, the defendant Chase Associates opened a $100, 000.00 line of credit, which was personally guaranteed by the individual defendant, Jodie Chase. Copies of the note and the personal guaranty were attached to the complaint and "incorporated [t]herein." The note was signed by Jodie Chase, "VP" for Chase Associates and the guaranty was signed by Jodie Chase individually. The complaint alleged that the defendants defaulted on the note and failed to pay the $108, 792.32 that was due and owing as of April 14, 2008, plus interest fees and costs. The plaintiff sought money damages, costs and expenses and such other relief as equity may appertain. Both defendants were served with the complaint on or about June 27, 2008, according to the marshal’s return.
On July 22, 2008, Attorney Glenn Terk appeared for both defendants. Attorney Terk did not file any motions to dismiss based on personal jurisdiction or subject matter jurisdiction. The defendants did not file any pleadings directed at the complaint, and in particular did not request a revision of the complaint to separate the complaint into two counts as to each defendant as permitted by Practice Book § 10-35.
A request to revise is appropriate where a party seeks "(3) separation of causes of action which may be united in one complaint when they are improperly combined in one count." Practice Book § 10-35.
On July 24, 2008, the plaintiff filed a demand for disclosure of defense as to both defendants. The defendants did not file any defenses to the action, did not answer the complaint and did not identify any special defenses to the action. With no defenses having been filed by the defendants, the plaintiff filed, on August 19, 2008, a motion for default for a failure to file a defense. That motion was granted on September 2, 2008.
On October 28, 2008, the plaintiff filed a motion for judgment that was accompanied by an affidavit of debt and a bill of costs. The defendants did not object to the motion for judgment. On November 24, 2008, the court entered judgment in favor of the plaintiff and against the defendants in the amount of $105, 666.06. No timely motion to open the judgment was filed.
Eleven years after the judgment entered, after the plaintiff sought to execute the judgment against the individual defendant Jodie Chase, Jodie Chase filed this motion to open the judgment. The defendant is represented in this case by the law firm Terk & Carlone, LLC. Attorney Terk, who was the defendant’s attorney in the original action, is a named member of the firm now representing the defendant.
DISCUSSION
Pursuant to General Statutes § 52-212a, "[u]nless otherwise provided by law and except in such cases in which the court has continuing jurisdiction, a civil judgment or decree rendered in the Superior Court may not be opened or set aside unless a motion to open or set aside is filed within four months following the date on which it was rendered or passed." Clearly, more than four months has passed since the judgment entered in this case. Although § 52-212a allows the parties to waive this requirement, this has not been done here.
There are two exemptions to the four-month rule contained in § 52-212a. These exceptions require the party seeking to open the judgment to show both that they had a good defense to the action, and that they failed to raise this defense by reason of mistake, accident or other reasonable cause. General Statutes § 52-212(a); Practice Book § 17-43(a). The defendant Jodie Chase does not assert that these exceptions apply.
Rather, the defendant claims that the court should open the judgment pursuant to the court’s "inherent authority to open a judgment rendered without jurisdiction." See Weinstein & Wisser, P.C. v. Cornelius, 151 Conn.App. 174, 94 A.3d 700 (2014). In particular, the defendant claims that the plaintiff’s failure to separate its complaint into two counts, one against the defendant debtor on the note and a second against the individual defendant on the guaranty, was a fatal pleading error that resulted in a defective judgment against the individual defendant Jodie Chase.
The defendant has not provided any legal authority to support this so-called jurisdictional argument under circumstances similar to those at issue here- that is, a single-count collection action against two parties, the debtor and guarantor, who were both properly served and appeared in the action; where the defendants were represented by counsel; where the defendants filed no motions or requests directed at the complaint and did not defend the action in any way, and then were defaulted for failure to identify a proper defense. Additionally, here, since the defendant was represented by counsel, the defendant knew or should have known of the alleged pleading defect in 2008 or 2009, and had ample time seek to cure it considering the statutorily permitted four-month window to open a judgment. Instead, the defendant waited over ten years to raise the issue after the plaintiff sought to execute on the judgment.
"Subject matter jurisdiction involves the authority of the court to adjudicate the type of controversy presented by the action before it." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Keller v. Beckenslein, 305 Conn. 523, 531, 46 A.3d 102 (2012). "A court does not truly lack subject matter jurisdiction if it has competence to entertain the action before it ... Lesser ... irregularities do not make a final judgment void." (Citations omitted, internal quotation marks omitted.) Meinkei v. Levinson, 193 Conn. 110, 115, 474 A.2d 454 (1984). It is well established that, in determining whether a court has subject matter jurisdiction, "every presumption favoring jurisdiction should be indulged." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Financial Consulting, LLC v. Commissioner of Ins., 315 Conn. 196, 226, 105 A.3d 210 (2015). There is no question that the court had subject matter over this case, a collection action with a guaranty, when it entered the judgment.
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 ... The reason for the rule against collateral attack is well stated in these words: The law aims to invest judicial transactions with the utmost permanency consistent with justice ... Public policy requires that a term be put to litigation and that judgments, as solemn records upon which valuable rights rest, should not lightly be disturbed or overthrown ... [T]he law has established appropriate proceedings to which a judgment party may always resort when he deems himself wronged by the court’s decision ... If he omits or neglects to test the soundness of the judgment by these or other direct methods available for that purpose, he is in no position to urge its defective or erroneous character when it is pleaded or produced in evidence against him in subsequent proceedings. Unless it is entirely invalid and that fact is disclosed by an inspection of the record itself the judgment is invulnerable to indirect assaults upon it." (Emphasis added, internal quotation marks omitted.) Federal National Mortgage Assn. v. Farina, 182 Conn.App. 844, 852-53, 191 A.3d 206 (2018).
It is now well settled that, "[u]less 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." (Emphasis added, internal quotation marks omitted.) Gerte v. Logistec Connecticut, Inc., 283 Conn. 60, 63, 924 A.2d 855 (2007). "[T]o be ‘entirely obvious’ and sustain a collateral attack on a judgment under the principles contained within § 12 of the Restatement (Second) of Judgments, a jurisdictional deficiency must 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 ... Indeed, the United States Supreme Court has observed that such collateral attack should be permitted only in ‘rare instance[s], ’ and only for the exceptional case in which the court that rendered judgment lacked even an ‘arguable basis’ for jurisdiction ... [T]he importance of finality in litigation means that the exception to the claim preclusion rule applies in only the most limited circumstances. (Citations omitted, emphasis in original, internal quotation marks omitted)." Sousa v. Sousa, 322 Conn. 757, 773, 143 A.3d 578 (2016).
The defendant has not met this stringent standard to disturb the judgment. The court was competent to hear and decide this collection matter and thus had subject matter jurisdiction over the action. It was not "entirely obvious" that the court lacked jurisdiction to enter the judgment due to the defendant’s asserted pleading error. The defendant appeared through counsel and had a full and fair opportunity to raise any pleading defects, jurisdictional claims or any defenses in the course of the 2008 proceeding. The defendant chose not to do so for whatever reason. The defendant cannot now, eleven years later, complain that a curable pleading defect in the action deprived the court of subject matter jurisdiction over the action sufficient to upend a decade old judgment.
The primary case relied upon by the defendant, Weinstein & Wisser, P.C. v. Cornelius, supra, 151 Conn.App. 174, is inapposite. The defendant there was defaulted for his failure to appear in the breach of contract action and judgment entered against him. Five years later, the defendant moved to open the case for lack of personal jurisdiction for insufficient service of process. Because the motion raised a jurisdictional claim as to service, the court had jurisdiction to consider it. The case did not stand for the proposition that entry of judgment on a one-count complaint against the debtor and the guarantor is jurisdictionally deficient when the defendant has appeared through counsel in the matter and personal jurisdiction was never contested. Other cases cited by the defendant are also inapposite. See e.g., 73-75 Main Avenue, LLC v. PP Door Enterprise, Inc. 120 Conn.App. 150, 165 (2010) (issue of whether plaintiff signed guaranty was a disputed issue not proved at trial); Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Trustee v. Spring Time # 1, LLC, 51 Conn.Supp. 183, 976 A.2d 112 (2008) (defendant disputed that he had signed the guaranty in answer to the complaint, and court considered on reconsideration).
CONCLUSION
Thus, the motion to open the judgment is denied.