Opinion
No. 21-14820
April 4, 2006
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON MOTION TO REARGUE
Plaintiff, Edwin C. St. Germain, has moved to reargue this court's decision of December 21, 2005, dismissing his summary process action on the basis of lack of standing.
Based upon evidence presented, the court found the plaintiff, Edwin St. Germain, is not the owner of the property. The property is owned by his former business partner, Camilla Ross, and the mortgage on the property is in her name. Since 1977, St. Germain has lived in the property, paying towards the mortgage. He may have, at one time, run his businesses from the property but the businesses are now in bankruptcy.
The plaintiff filed an application for fee waiver. He states that he owns no real estate personally but he lists the mortgage as a monthly expense. In a letter attached to the fee waiver, he states that he is not able to work due to his obligations of coming to court, doing legal research and meeting with his attorneys. Although in this letter he swears under oath that he nets nothing from the rents collected during the winter and may make $50 profit in the summer, in his memorandum in support of the motion before the court, he argues that the rents exceed the amount paid towards the mortgage by $2,000 each month.
When his businesses failed, he pursued the defendants to rent rooms in the property from him on an oral weekly basis. The owner of the property, Ross, claimed that St. Germain had no authority to sublet the rooms and was specifically told not to do so. St. Germain has really not contested his initial lack of authority, but claimed that he later told Ross of the situation and she waived her rights by allowing him to continue subletting.
At some point, a physical altercation occurred between St. Germain and one of the renters. On November 21, 2005, a full protective order was issued against St. Germain barring him from returning to the property and from having any contact with the renters. His motion to alter or amend the protective order was denied and he is still ordered away from the property.
One week later, on November 28, 2005, he had notices to quit served on the renters based on nonpayment and lapse of time. Summary process complaints were filed on the same grounds. The complaint alleged that the renters did not pay their rent beginning on dates after the protective order was issued. Therefore, the rents were paid until the date of the protective order.
One tenant filed a special defense arguing that he paid the rent to St. Germain up until the protective order was issued. Thereafter, he paid the rent to Ross, the owner of the property. At the hearing, Ross confirmed that after the altercation and arrest of St. Germain, she was contacted by the renters who were concerned. Since then she has been collecting the rent from all the renters, gives them receipts and has even issued them one-year leases. In addition, she commenced an eviction action against St. Germain.
Rather than seeing this as just being the payment of rent under a written lease, St. Germain somehow characterizes this situation as a fabrication of documents in return for the payment of money and the giving of receipts to cover for the defendants. He argues that the protective order prevents him from warning the defendants to protect them from being implicated in this fraud.
On December 21, 2005, this court, after hearing, dismissed the plaintiff's summary process action, ruling that the plaintiff lacked standing. The plaintiff has moved to reargue and has filed an extensive memorandum in support. Some of the law cited in the memorandum is applicable, most is not. He basically argues that he is a tenant in possession who has sublet his property.
This situation presents the question: does a tenant have standing to commence an eviction action as a landlord against sublessees where the tenant: (1) was told not to sublease, (2) was arrested after an altercation and is now barred by a protective order from entering the property, and (3) is himself the subject of an eviction action. Although looking at the ultimate outcome of the matter cannot be the basis of the court's decision on standing, if the tenant were found to have standing under these facts, this would lead to almost certain defeat in the underlying action because: (1) the renters paid their rent until the tenant was barred from the premises, (2) they thereafter paid their rent to the property owner who (3) now issued them one-year leases. In addition, St. Germain has admitted that he has no money to pay any rent without the payments of the renters whom he is asking the court to evict in this action. The plaintiff basically wants all of the paying renters to be ordered out of the property and for him to be allowed back in without any ability to pay rent. The plaintiff is correct that under certain circumstances, a tenant who subleases the property can have standing to evict his sublessees. In Western Boot Clothing Co. v. L'Enfance Magique, Inc., 81 Conn.App. 486, 840 A.2d 574, cert. denied, 269 Conn. 903, 852 A.2d 737 (2004) the Appellate Court "[took] judicial notice that subleases are common in the world of commercial real estate." Id., 490. The court read General Statutes § 47a-1(e) in connection with General Statutes § 47a-23 and stated that "[w]e do not believe that our legislature intended to give an owner and lessor, but not a sublessor, an expeditious means of obtaining possession of the premises from a commercial tenant for nonpayment of rent." Id. The court is not aware of a Connecticut case that discusses eviction by a sublessor against a sublessee in a noncommercial context, but there appears no reason to believe that a noncommercial tenant would not also have that right.
The section defines "owner" as someone "in whom is vested . . . all or part of the beneficial ownership and a right to present use and enjoyment of the premises . . ."
The section gives a right to commence a summary process action to "the owner or lessor . . ."
See General Statutes §§ 47a-1(d) and (1) which define landlord as "the owner, lessor or sublessor of the dwelling unit" and tenant as "the lessee, sublessee or person entitled . . . to occupy a dwelling unit . . ."
Although a tenant can theoretically be considered to be an "owner" for eviction purposes, for the plaintiff to have standing and to be considered an owner, however, he would have to be someone in whom is vested, the beneficial ownership and a right to the present use and enjoyment of the premises. General Statutes § 47a-1(e). Under the facts of this case, the plaintiff has neither the beneficial ownership nor the right to the present use and enjoyment of the premises.
Accordingly, the motion to reargue is denied as the plaintiff lacks standing.