Opinion
No. HHD-CV-06-5003862S
July 7, 2009
MEMORANDUM ORDER RE MOTION TO STRIKE COUNT EIGHTEEN OF FIFTH AMENDED COMPLAINT
Upon reviewing the briefs and considering the arguments of counsel in support of and in opposition to the defendants' Motion to Strike Count Eighteen of Plaintiffs' Fifth Amended Complaint ("Motion"), in which the defendants have claimed that the challenged Count is legally insufficient because the plaintiffs have failed to join an entity known as Stork Club, Inc. ("Stork Club") as a party to the claim to quiet title set forth therein, Court concludes, for the following reasons, that
A. Said Motion to Strike should be DENIED because Stork Club, Inc. is not a "necessary party," within the meaning of Practice Book § 10-39(a)(3), to the claim to quiet title set forth in Count Eighteen; but that
B. The defendants' alternative request for a discretionary order from this Court adding Stork Club, Inc. as a party to this action should be treated as a request for relief under Practice Book § 9-21, and as such should be GRANTED, with the defendants causing Stork Club both to be served, with this Order and the operative pleadings in this action and to be summoned to appear herein, at the time and in the manner specified below.
1. This case concerns, inter alia, a claim of ownership by the plaintiffs to a parcel of real property ("the subject property") located at 186 Pomeroy Avenue, Meriden, Connecticut.
2. The plaintiffs are 186 Pomeroy Ave., LLC, a Connecticut limited liability company located in Cheshire, Connecticut which claims to own the subject property; Gancor, Incorporated ("Gancor"), a Connecticut corporation which is the sole member of 186 Pomeroy Ave., LLC; Merle Gandolfo, a principal and 50% owner of Gancor; and Jeffrey Gandolfo, the other principal and 50% owner of Gancor, as well as the sole owner of Stork Club, which operates a child care center on the subject property an premises leased from plaintiff Gancor. The defendants are: Michael Barker of West Hartford, Connecticut and Lisa Rosenfield of Bloomfield, Connecticut, the brother and sister of plaintiff Merle Gandolfo; Charles Martell of Orange, Connecticut, an attorney who represented Michael Barker, Lisa Rosenfield and the Merle Barker Bosler Trust in the sale of the subject property to Jeffrey Gandolfo; the Barker Family Limited Liability Company, a Connecticut limited liability company located in Meriden, Connecticut; Barker Realty, LLC, a Connecticut limited liability company located in Meriden, Connecticut; Meriden Self-Storage, LLC, a Connecticut limited liability company located at 210 Pomeroy Avenue and 51 Prestige Drive, Meriden, Connecticut; and 210 Pomeroy Avenue, LLC, a Connecticut limited liability company which owns the premises at 210 Pomeroy Avenue, Meriden, Connecticut.
3. In Count Eighteen of the plaintiffs' Fifth Amended Complaint, plaintiff 186 Pomeroy Ave., LLC claims a judgment against all defendants determining their rights to the subject property and settling the title thereto. It states the basis for its own claim of title to the subject property as follows:
81. 186 Pomeroy Ave., LLC is the absolute owner and in possession of 186 Pomeroy, which is bounded and described as set forth in Exhibit A, attached hereto.
Section 10-39(a)(3) provides as follows:
(a) Whenever any party wishes to contest . . . (3) the legal sufficiency of any complaint, . . . or count thereof, because of the absence of any necessary party . . . that party may do so by filing a motion to strike the contested pleading or part thereof.
82. 186 Pomeroy Ave., LLC acquired title interest in 186 Pomeroy from Jeffrey Gandolfo and Merle Gandolfo by quitclaim deeds dated January 31, 2006, and recorded in the Meriden land records, Volume 3769, Page 288 and Volume 3769, Page 289, respectively. True and correct copies of the aforementioned deeds are attached hereto, collectively as Exhibit B.
Editor's note: Exhibits A, B and C have not been reproduced herein.
83. Jeffrey Gandolfo and Merle Gandolfo acquired title interest in 186 Pomeroy from Baker Realty, LLC by statutory form warranty deeds dated January 31, 2006, and recorded in the Meriden land records, Volume 3769, Pages 284-85 and Volume 3769, Pages 286-87, respectively. True and accurate copies of the aforementioned deeds attached hereto, collectively, as Exhibit C.fn_
Fifth Amended Complaint, Count XVIII, ¶¶ 81-83. (Exhibits omitted.)
4. The defendants have now moved this Court, under Practice Book § 10-39(a)(3), fn1 to strike Count Eighteen on the ground that the plaintiffs have failed to join Stork Club as a necessary party to this action.
5. Under our law, necessary parties are defined 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, [58 U.S. (17 How.) 130, 139, 15 L.Ed. 158 (1854)]. . ." In short, a party is "necessary" if its presence is "absolutely required in order to assure a fair and equitable trial." Biro v. Hill, 214 Conn. 1, 6-7, 570 A.2d 182 (1990).
6. The defendants claim that Stork Club is a "necessary party" to the plaintiffs' quiet title claim because its current leasehold interest in the subject property would be adversely affected by any judgment in their favor on that claim. If, they argue, Stork Club is not made a party to this action, it will not be bound by any judgment of this Court vesting title to the subject property in them. In that event, they assert, any judgment rendered in their favor would be incomplete and ineffectual against Stork Club, requiring them to re-establish their claim of title to the subject property in a subsequent action against he Stork Club.
7. The plaintiffs oppose the defendants' Motion on two grounds. First, they claim that, under controlling provisions of General Statutes § 47-31 — the statute authorizing suits to quiet title in Connecticut — Stork Club is not a proper party to this action because its leasehold interest in the subject property and the plaintiffs' own alleged interest in that property are not adverse. Second, they assert, under established Connecticut case law, that since the only persons bound by the judgment in a quiet title action are the parties to that action, a plaintiff bringing such an action is entitled by law to decide for himself whose adverse claims of title to or other interest in the property he wishes to contest, and on that basis to determine whom to sue. The Court finds these arguments persuasive for the following reasons.
8. The plaintiffs are correct in their assertion that the only proper defendants to a quiet title action under General Statutes § 47-31 are those who claim interests in the subject property which are adverse to the plaintiffs' own alleged interest therein. On this score, the first subsection of Section 47-31 provides as follows:
(a) An action may be brought by any person claiming title to, or any interest in, real . . . property . . . against any person who may claim to own the property, or any part of it, or to have any estate in it . . . or to have any interest in the property, or any lien or encumbrance on it, adverse to the plaintiff, or against any person in whom the land records disclose any interest, lien, claim or title conflicting with the plaintiff's claim, title or interest, for the purpose of determining such adverse estate, interest or claim , and to clean up all doubts and disputes and to quiet and settle the title to the property.
General Statutes § 47-31 (emphasis added by the underscored and bolded language, the drafters of this statute plainly established that the only persons "against" whom actions to quiet title may be brought are those whose claims of ownership to, lien or encumbrance on or estate or other interest in the subject property are somehow "adverse to the plaintiff." Hence the statute expressly provides that the purpose of an action thereunder is to "determin[e] such adverse claim, title or interest." Id. (Emphasis added.)
9. In subsection (b) of the statute, moreover, the foregoing conclusion is buttressed by the following description of the plaintiff's pleading obligations thereunder:
(b) The complaint in such action shall describe the property in question and state the plaintiff's claim, interest or title and the manner in which the plaintiff acquired the claim, interest or title and shall name the person or persons who may claim the adverse estate or interest . In any such action the plaintiff may join as defendants any unknown person or persons who claim or may claim any rights, title, estate or interest in or lien or encumbrance on the property described in the complaint, adverse to that of the plaintiff , whether the claim or possible claim be vested or contingent.
(Emphasis added.) Importantly, nothing in this provision even suggests, much less requires, that the plaintiff identify any interest in the subject property, or join as a defendant any persons who claim an interest in the property, that is not adverse to the plaintiff's own alleged interest therein. Furthermore, even as to persons who do or may have such adverse claims or interests, nothing in the statute requires that all such persons be joined as defendants in a single action.
10. The evident intent of the foregoing provisions is to afford persons claiming particular interests in disputed property a vehicle by which to resolve disputes with others whose actual or potential claims to the property may conflict with, and thus cast a cloud on, their own. To obtain such a resolution in an action under Section 47-31, a plaintiff need only name as defendants those particular persons whose adverse claims to the subject property he wishes to dispute and resolve at the time. Accordingly, since a plaintiff cannot enforce any judgment in his favor in a quiet title action against any person who was not a party to the action, our case law has long established that the plaintiff may decide for himself whom to sue in such an action. See, e.g., Swenson v. Dittner, 183 Conn. 289, 292 (1981).
11. To prevail in a quiet title action by "obtain[ing] an adjudication of title or another interest in property in himself [a plaintiff must establish] the strength of his own title or other interest [in the property] as distinguished from the weakness of the title or interest of his adversaries." Loewenberg v. Wallace, 147 Conn. 689, 698 (1960). If he fails to meet this burden, however, none of his adversaries will necessarily prevail on any conflicting claims of title or interest they may have made, for their right to an adjudication of title or other interest in the property, no less than his, depends upon proof of the strength of their own title or interest rather than upon the weakness of the plaintiff's conflicting claims. Id.
12. Under the pleading provisions of Section 47-31(b), the plaintiff in a quiet title action need not make detailed allegations concerning the nature, extent or source of any defendant's conflicting claims or interest in or to the subject property unless he seeks to bring the action against one or more unknown persons who may have claims to the property adverse to his own. When, by contrast, all persons known or believed to have conflicting claims to the property are individually named as defendants, they must affirmatively allege all relevant details concerning such claims in their answers, as required by Section 47-31(d).
13. Section 47-31(d) provides as follows:
(d) Each defendant shall, in his answer, state whether or not he claims any estate or interest in, or encumbrance on, the property, or any part of it, and, if so, the nature and extent of the estate, interest or encumbrance which he claims, and he shall set out the manner in which the estate, interest or encumbrance is claimed to be derived.
Where a defendant duly pleads such allegations in his answer and proves them at trial, he may seek and the court may grant affirmative relief in his favor, quieting title to the subject property in his favor. Loewenberg v. Wallace, supra, 147 Conn. at 698 n. 2.
14. Against this background, Count Eighteen of the plaintiffs' Fifth Amended Complaint is not legally deficient for failure to name Stork Club as a party defendant for three reasons. First, Stork Club is not a proper party to the plaintiff's claim to quiet title under Section 47-31 because its leasehold interest in the subject property is not adverse to the alleged ownership interest of the plaintiffs in that property. In fact, the validity of Stork Club's leasehold interest in the property is wholly derivative of, and thus completely dependent upon and consistent with, the alleged, ownership interest of 186 Pomeroy Ave., LLC. See Caswell Cove Condominium Ass'n v. Milford Partners, 58 Conn.App. 217, 225 (2000) (holding that condominium unit owners' mortgagees were not necessary parties to a quiet title action by the plaintiff owners association because "their interest is derivative of that of the unit owners").
Second, since the plaintiffs have not chosen to sue Stork Club in this action, their decision to limit the scope of this controversy to themselves and the defendants must be honored by this Court under the authority of Swenson v. Dittner, supra, 183 Conn. at 292. By so doing, the plaintiffs have made it clear that, from their perspective, Stork Club is not necessary to resolve the only dispute they sought to resolve by bringing their quiet title claim.
Third, since the only issue now framed for decision by Count Eighteen of the plaintiff's Fifth Amended Complaint is the 186 Pomeroy Ave., LLC's own claim of ownership to the subject property, not any conflicting claims of ownership which the defendants may later make in their answers to that claim, there is simply no basis for arguing that the challenged Count is legally insufficient for failure to name a party whose leasehold interest may be adverse to the defendants' as-yet unpleaded claimed interests in the property. The defendants' possible interests in the property, to reiterate, will not be known until such time as the defendants frame and file their answers.
15. Notwithstanding the foregoing analysis and conclusions, the fact remains that once the defendants file their answers and special defenses to the plaintiffs' Fifth Amended Complaint, they will almost certainly plead, as they have argued, that they have good title to at least part of the subject property. In that event, Stork Club would inexorably be exposed to the risk that this Court might enter judgment for the defendants on their own claims for affirmative relief. Although such a judgment would not be binding upon Stork Club unless it were a party to this action, it would destroy their landlord's claim of title to the property, and thus cast a cloud on Stork Club's leasehold interest in the subject property. If, then, Stork Club held over in the property despite this Court's judgment against its landlord, the defendants would be required to return to court to re-establish their claim of title to the property in a separate ejectment or quiet title action.
16. If, then, the defendants plead such adverse claims of ownership to the subject property in their answers and seek affirmative relief from this Court, their answers should be treated as de facto counterclaims to quiet title. See 74 C.J.S Quieting Title § 69 ("Where the defendant asserts title and seeks affirmative relief, the pleading is a counterclaim, even if designated an answer"). Loewenberg v. Wallace, supra, 147 Conn. at 698 n. 2. For that reason, because such answer/counterclaims would raise issues affecting the interests of Stork Club, a third party to this action, the Court concludes that Stork Club should be summoned as a party to this action under the authority of Practice Book § 9-21. To that end, the Court concludes, and hereby ORDERS, that upon the filing of their answers/counterclaims to the Fifth Amended Complaint, the defendants must cause Stork Club both to be served with such pleadings, together with copies of the Complaint to which they are responsive and of this Order, and to be summoned to appear in this action by a return day not later than four weeks after the date of such service, in order that it might protect and be heard on its affected interests.
Section 9-21 provides as follows:
When a counterclaim raises issues affecting the interests of third parties, the defendant may, and if required by the judicial authority shall, cause such parties to be summoned in as parties to such suit.
IT IS SO ORDERED this 7th day of July 2009.