Opinion
KNLCV196039331S
12-05-2019
Lebanon Historical Society, Inc. v. Attorney General of the State of Connecticut et al.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
Judge (with first initial, no space for Sullivan, Dorsey, and Walsh): Calmar, Harry E., J.
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION RE MOTION TO DISMISS (#109)
Calmar, J.
The defendant church moves to dismiss on the grounds that the plaintiff lacks standing to bring a quiet title action on the property on which the church sits.
The plaintiff, the Lebanon Historical Society (the society), commenced this action to quiet title and impose certain conservation and preservation restrictions on properties surrounding the Lebanon town green (the green) by way of a complaint filed on February 11, 2019. This complaint named as defendants the Attorney General of the State of Connecticut; the town of Lebanon (the town); the Hugh Leander Adams, Mary Trumbull Adams, and Hugh Trumbull Adams Town Memorial Fund; the First Congregational Church of Lebanon (the church); the Sons of the American Revolution; the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation; and several other adjoining property owners to the green. The plaintiff sought to quiet title and impose certain conservation and preservation restrictions on the several parcels of land abutting the green.
On May 30, 2019, following an agreement between the plaintiff, the town, and the neighboring property owners, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint, which narrowed its claims to only those relating to the church parcel, the only remaining property on the green on which the plaintiff does not hold a conservation or preservation restriction. The amended complaint contains two counts. The first count is a claim to quiet title in the church parcel to the church pursuant to General Statutes § 47-31 and, in doing so, to impose certain conservation and preservation restrictions, which would be held by the plaintiff. The second count is a common-law quiet title claim seeking the same remedy as the first count, but through the court’s equitable powers rather than through any statutory remedy. It is undisputed that the last known conveyance of the church parcel was in 1692 to the proprietors of the town and, as such, there currently is no known owner of the parcel. Accordingly, the plaintiff alleges in both counts of the amended complaint that a quiet title action is necessary to settle the ownership of the parcel and to impose restrictions to protect the historic character of the church parcel for the benefit of the general public.
This agreement resulted in a stipulated judgment between the plaintiff, the town, and the neighboring property owners, which was entered on September 3, 2019. Following the stipulated judgment, the only defendant remaining with a unique claim to disputed property is the church.
The defendant church filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiff’s statutory claims, with an accompanying memorandum of law, on the grounds that the plaintiff lacks standing to bring a quiet title action on the church parcel. The defendant further moves to dismiss the plaintiff’s common-law claims on the grounds that § 47-31 supersedes any common-law quiet title actions. The plaintiff filed an opposition to the defendant’s motion to dismiss, alleging that it has standing because the conservation and preservation restrictions it seeks to impose upon the church parcel constitute an interest in land under the quiet title statute sufficient to confer standing upon the plaintiff. The plaintiff further argues it has standing by virtue of the conservation and preservation restrictions it has on the parcels of land adjacent to the church parcel, which gives the plaintiff an interest in quieting title to and imposing the same restrictions upon the church parcel. On October 28, 2019, the plaintiff filed a supplemental memorandum of law in opposition to the defendant’s motion to dismiss in which the plaintiff argues that its claim of standing is further bolstered by the fact that the plaintiff has since acquired conservation and preservation restrictions on 95 percent of the property on the green. The plaintiff argues that, because it holds conservation and preservation restrictions on all of the property surrounding the green except the church parcel, it has an interest in the green as a whole that grants the plaintiff standing to bring a quiet title action and to impose conservation and preservation restrictions upon any property on the green, including the church parcel. On October 28, 2019, the defendant Attorney General filed a memorandum in support of the plaintiff’s opposition to the motion to dismiss. The motion and the objections thereto were heard by the court at short calendar on October 29, 2019.
The Attorney General of the State of Connecticut; the town; the Hugh Leander Adams, Mary Trumbull Adams, and Hugh Trumbull Adams Town Memorial Fund; and the Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation also remain as defendants in this action but are not parties to this motion to dismiss. Therefore, for convenience, all references to the defendant herein are to the First Congregational Church of Lebanon unless otherwise stated.
These adjacent parcels, the town hall parcel and the library parcel, were subject to a quiet title action brought by the town, which granted title to the town and imposed conservation and preservation restrictions in favor of the society. Lebanon v. Attorney General of the State of Connecticut, Superior Court, judicial district of New London, Docket No. CV-18-6032888-S (March 28, 2019, Calmar, J.).
DISCUSSION
"[A] motion to dismiss pursuant to Practice Book § 10-30(a)(1) is the appropriate procedure for challenging subject matter jurisdiction." Machado v. Taylor, 326 Conn. 396, 401, 163 A.3d 558 (2017). "[B]ecause the issue of standing implicates subject matter jurisdiction, it may be a proper basis for granting a motion to dismiss." Electrical Contractors, Inc. v. Dept. of Education, 303 Conn. 402, 413, 35 A.3d 188 (2012). "If ... the plaintiff’s standing does not adequately appear from all materials of record, the complaint must be dismissed." (Footnote omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Burton v. Dominion Nuclear Connecticut, Inc., 300 Conn. 542, 550, 23 A.3d 1176 (2011).
General Statutes § 47-31 grants interested parties the right to quiet title in disputed land. The statute provides in relevant part: "(a) An action may be brought by any person claiming title to, or any interest in, real or personal property ... (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 ..." "One obvious purpose of [§ 47-31] is to make certain that a plaintiff has, within the purview of the allegations of his complaint, not a mere groundless claim but an actual interest in the property sufficient to justify his instituting an action concerning it and asking the court to adjudicate his rights and those of the parties defendant. Unless a plaintiff has such an interest, he obviously has no right to maintain an action under the statute for the adjudication of any claims concerning the property." Lowenberg v. Wallace, 147 Conn. 689, 692, 166 A.2d 150 (1960).
"[L]egal title is not required to invoke the provisions of § 47-31." Castro v. Mortgage Lenders Network USA, Inc., 158 Conn.App. 371, 377, 119 A.3d 639 (2015). Instead, the plaintiff need only have an "actual interest" in the property. Lowenberg v. Wallace, supra, 147 Conn. 692. General Statutes § 47-42c provides in relevant part: "[C]onservation and preservation restrictions are interests in land and may be acquired by any governmental body or any charitable corporation or trust which has the power to acquire interests in land in the same manner as it may acquire other interests in land." (Emphasis added.) Conservation and preservation restrictions are forms of negative easements that are described as "interest[s] in land in the possession of another ..." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Kepple v. Dohrman, 141 Conn.App. 238, 246, 60 A.3d 1031 (2013); see also Harris v. Pease, 135 Conn. 535, 539 40, 66 A.2d 590 (1949) (stating that a deed provision creating a restriction upon land constitutes a property interest in that land, even though the beneficiaries of the restriction have no ownership interest in the land).
Nevertheless, for a conservation or preservation restriction to create an enforceable interest in land, it must first be acquired. See General Statutes § 47-42c (stating in relevant part: "conservation and preservation restrictions are interests in land and may be acquired by any governmental body or any charitable corporation or trust which has the power to acquire interests in land ..." [emphasis added] ). "A preservation easement is created by a deed executed with all the legal formalities associated with other forms of real estate conveyances." 11B T. Boasberg et al., Real Estate Transactions (1986) § 15.02[2], p. 15-8. Conservation and preservation restrictions under § 47-42c are analyzed through the "language of the declaration that created [the] restriction." (Emphasis added.) Lyme Land Conservation Trust, Inc. v. Platner, 325 Conn. 737, 747, 159 A.3d 666 (2017). Before the creation of the conservation or preservation restriction, the prospective holder of the restriction does not have an interest in the land.
Furthermore, the holder of a conservation or preservation restriction has an interest only in the specific property upon which their restriction is imposed. A plaintiff "who does not hold [a] conservation restriction [on a neighboring property] ... has no standing to bring [an] action [relating to the restriction]." McEvoy v. Palumbo, Superior Court, judicial district of Litchfield, Docket No. CV-10-6002253-S (November 15, 2011, Danaher, J.) (52 Conn.L.Rptr. 745). In McEvoy, the Superior Court held that the plaintiff lacked standing to bring an action to enforce a conservation restriction on her neighbor’s property, despite the fact that the same restriction was in place on the plaintiff’s own property. Id. Accordingly, in order to provide an interest that confers standing under the quiet title statute, a plaintiff must actually possess the conservation or preservation restriction on the property at the time she makes a claim to quiet title; the possession of a restriction on neighboring property is not sufficient.
In the present case, the plaintiff does not currently hold a conservation or preservation restriction on the church parcel, yet seeks to quiet its title. Indeed, the plaintiff’s objective in quieting title in the church parcel is to impose a conservation and preservation restriction on the parcel, which the plaintiff argues is an interest under the quiet title statute. That interest, however, would only come into existence were the plaintiff successful in its claims to quiet title. At present, the plaintiff has no actual interest in the church parcel because it currently holds no restrictions on the parcel.
The plaintiff argues, in the alternative, that its possession of conservation and preservation restrictions on the properties making up the other 95 percent of the green on which the church parcel sits confers on the plaintiff an interest in the church parcel, because its interest in the majority of the green is a "bona fide real property interest in the entire town green." Although these restrictions confer in the plaintiff an interest in those other parcels, in order to have standing to quiet title plaintiff is required to have an interest in the specific property at issue. See Lowenberg v. Wallace, supra, 147 Conn. 692 (stating that § 47-31 requires the plaintiff to have actual interest in a property, otherwise "he obviously has no right to maintain an action ... concerning the property"). The plaintiff’s interest in any or all parcels that neighbor the church parcel does not confer on it an interest in the church parcel itself. See McEvoy v. Palumbo, supra, Docket No. CV-10-6002253-S. Accordingly, the plaintiff does not have an interest in the church parcel and therefore lacks standing under § 47-31, regardless of its interest in the remainder of the properties on the green.
Although it does not impact the outcome of the plaintiff’s claims, it bears noting that the plaintiff came to possess its conservation and preservation interests in the majority of the green, only very recently as a result of the present action and pursuant to an agreement. In contrast, it is undisputed that the defendant has operated a church on the church parcel since at least the early eighteenth century.
Finally, count two of the plaintiff’s complaint alleges a common-law quiet title claim to the church parcel; however, no such common-law right to quiet title exists. "In all actions to quiet title, there is a single statute, [§ ]47-31, which is applicable to a plaintiff’s claims ... and which, in fact, supersedes any common law actions brought to determine record title or to claim any interest in real property." (Citation omitted.) DeVita v. Esposito, 13 Conn.App. 101, 103-04, 535 A.2d 364 (1987), cert. denied, 207 Conn. 807, 540 A.2d 375 (1988).
Accordingly, this court grants the defendant’s motion to dismiss.