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Beck v. Heintz

Appellate Court of Connecticut
Jan 9, 1990
20 Conn. App. 470 (Conn. App. Ct. 1990)

Opinion

(7719)

The plaintiff appealed to the trial court from the decision of the department of income maintenance refusing his request for a fair hearing to review its award of assistance paid on behalf of the plaintiffs minor child. Prior to the plaintiffs request for a hearing, the department of human resources had, pursuant to statute (17-31b), brought an action to recover from the plaintiff the amount of those assistance payments, and the trial court had rendered judgment against him. The plaintiff did not appeal from that judgment, but sought a hearing before the department of income maintenance. The trial court dismissed the plaintiffs appeal from the denial of his request for a hearing, finding that he was not an applicant for or beneficiary of assistance entitled by statute (17-82f to request a fair hearing, and that he had not met the statutory (17-2a) requirement of filing that request within sixty days of the decision to grant assistance. On the plaintiff's appeal to this court, held that, because the decision that the plaintiff sought to relitigate in a hearing before the department of income maintenance was a Superior Court judgment, that department was without jurisdiction and properly refused to hear the matter; moreover, the trial court correctly determined that the plaintiff had failed to meet the requirements of 17-82f and 17-2a concerning the right to a fair hearing.

Argued October 17, 1989

Decision released January 9, 1990

Appeal from the denial by the defendant of the plaintiff's request for a hearing, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Fairfield, where the court, Thompson, J., granted the defendant's motion to dismiss and rendered judgment thereon, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. No error.

Michael E. Paris, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Martin Rosenfeld, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, was Clarine Nardi Riddle, attorney general, for the appellee (defendant).


The plaintiff is appealing from the judgment of the trial court dismissing his administrative appeal from the defendant's decision not to grant the plaintiff a hearing. The plaintiff claims that the trial court erred in deciding that he was not entitled to a hearing because he was not aggrieved by a decision of the defendant. We find no error.

The trial court found the following facts. On May 11, 1988, the department of human resources (DHR) obtained a money judgment, after a plenary hearing in Superior Court, against William Beck, the plaintiff in the present case. Rivera v. Beck, Superior Court, judicial district of Fairfield, docket no. 87-0242914S (May 11, 1988). The judgment was for an arrearage that Beck owed to the department of income maintenance (DIM) for support of and lying-in expenses paid by DIM, on the behalf of Beck's minor child, from February 3, 987, to December, 1987, pursuant to General Statutes 17-82d. General Statutes 17-83e makes parents liable for public assistance paid by DIM on behalf of a minor child. The authority to recover these funds, however, is vested not in DIM but in DHR, pursuant to General Statutes 17-31b. Thus, it was DHR, not DIM, that brought this action against Beck that resulted in the May 11 judgment. Beck did not appeal the Superior Court's judgment of May 11, 1988.

On June 1, 1988, Beck petitioned for a hearing with DIM, pursuant to General Statutes 17-82f, to review the judgment. Section 17-82f allows applicants for or beneficiaries of DIM assistance who are aggrieved by a decision of the commissioner of DIM made without a hearing to request a hearing. Section 17-2a requires the petitioner to be aggrieved and requires the request for a hearing to be made within sixty days of the commissioner's decision. DIM refused to grant the hearing.

General Statutes 17-82f provides: "Any applicant or beneficiary aggrieved by a decision of the commissioner made without a fair hearing may request a hearing in accordance with the provisions of section 17-2a."

Beck appealed DIM's refusal to grant a hearing to the Superior Court. Beck's complaint and petition stated: "(1) On or about May 11, 1988 the defendant commissioner (of DIM] assessed a money judgment of $2,487.85 against the plaintiff father . . . . (4) On or about June 1, 1988 the plaintiff father, pursuant to Connecticut General Statutes 17-82f and 17-2a, duly requested a fair hearing to review the defendant commissioner's assessment of the above-mentioned money judgment against the plaintiff father." (Emphasis added.) The judgment described in Beck's complaint, however, was not a ruling by DIM, but the Superior Court judgment obtained by DHR against Beck. The trial court dismissed the appeal, finding that Beck was not an applicant for or beneficiary of DIM assistance, as required by 17-82f, and that his request was not filed within sixty days of a decision by the commissioner of DIM to grant assistance. The court further found that since the decision in question was a judgment of the Superior Court, Beck failed to meet the statutory requirement of aggrievement by a decision of the commissioner of income maintenance. Beck appealed to this court.

The plaintiff claims that the trial court erred in finding that he was not entitled to a hearing pursuant to 17-82f. We disagree.

"Appeals from final judgments or actions of the superior court shall be taken to the appellate court General Statutes 51-197a. The only exceptions to this statutory mandate involve appeals in those cases that are either appealable directly to the Supreme Court; id.; General Statutes 51-199 (b); or not appealable at all. See, e.g., General Statutes 51-197a (small claims judgments not appealable). Just as the judicial department lacks the power to perform administrative or nonjudicial functions; Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. Dahm, 159 Conn. 563, 568271 A.2d 55 (1970); so do administrative agencies within the executive branch lack the power to exercise appellate jurisdiction, which is vested in this court by the constitution. Conn. Const., art. V, 1. Although Beck's complaint in this case mischaracterized the Superior Court's earlier judgment in favor of DHR in Rivera v. Beck, supra, as a decision of the commissioner of DIM, the trial court correctly found that the decision Beck was attempting to relitigate was in fact a judgment of the Superior Court. Furthermore, the complaint stated explicitly that the purpose of the requested hearing was "to review the defendant commissioner's assessment of the above-mentioned money judgment . . . ." (Emphasis added.) Thus, from the facts found by the trial court and the allegations in the complaint, the procedural posture of this case emerges unmistakably as an attempt to appeal a judgment of the Superior Court to DIM.

DIM had no jurisdiction to hear such an appeal, and the agency properly refused to hear Beck. Beck failed to take a proper appeal from the judgment in Rivera v. Beck, supra, and thus he is not entitled to any review of that decision. In addition, the trial court correctly found that the plaintiff was neither an applicant nor a beneficiary pursuant to 17-82f, supra, and that he did not file a petition for a fair hearing within sixty days of the decision of the commissioner of DIM as required by 17-2a.

General Statutes 17-82 defines beneficiary as "any adult or minor child receiving assistance under the provisions of this chapter."

General Statutes 17-2a provides in pertinent part: "An aggrieved person authorized by law to request a fair hearing on a decision of the commissioner of income maintenance . . . may make application for such hearing in writing over his signature to the commissioner and shall state in such application in simple language the reasons why he claims to be aggrieved. Such application shall be mailed to the commissioner within sixty days after the rendition of such decision."


Summaries of

Beck v. Heintz

Appellate Court of Connecticut
Jan 9, 1990
20 Conn. App. 470 (Conn. App. Ct. 1990)
Case details for

Beck v. Heintz

Case Details

Full title:WILLIAM J. BECK v. STEPHEN B. HEINTZ, COMMISSIONER OF INCOME MAINTENANCE

Court:Appellate Court of Connecticut

Date published: Jan 9, 1990

Citations

20 Conn. App. 470 (Conn. App. Ct. 1990)
568 A.2d 466