Opinion
CV166055562S
01-13-2017
Duncan Adamson v. Nina Marill
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION
Michael Hartmere, Judge Trial Referee.
The issue presented concerns the disposition of cross-motions for summary judgment in this action seeking partition by sale. The defendant moves for summary judgment on the grounds that both res judicata and collateral estoppel bar the present action; the plaintiff moves on the grounds that the absolute right to partition entitles him to judgment as a matter of law, and that if the court orders partition by sale, the plaintiff is also entitled to summary judgment with regard to a declaratory judgment concerning equitable distribution of the proceeds.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
The plaintiff, Duncan Adamson, filed the two count complaint in this action on March 11, 2016. In count one of the complaint, which seeks partition by sale pursuant to General Statutes § 52-500(a), the plaintiff alleges the following facts. The plaintiff and the defendant, Nina Marill, are the owners, as joint tenants, of 700 shares of stock of 14 East 92 Street Owners' Corp., as well as lessees of a cooperative apartment, pursuant to a proprietary lease. Together, the stock and the lease constitute intangible personal property rights entitling the plaintiff and the defendant to own and occupy a cooperative apartment in New York, New York (the property). The lease runs from July 29, 2008 through December 31, 2030. The plaintiff and the defendant are unable to agree on the sale or disposition of the property. Partition by sale would best promote the interests of the plaintiff and the defendant, as partition in kind is not practicable, and the court, Hartmere, JTR, denied an equitable distribution in an earlier action (Docket No. FBT-CV-13-6038035-S, Adamson I ), upon finding that the defendant's interest in the property is not minimal.
General Statutes § 52-500(a) provides: " Any court of equitable jurisdiction may, upon the complaint of any person interested, order the sale of any property, real or personal, owned by two or more persons, when, in the opinion of the court, a sale will better promote the interests of the owners. If the court determines that one or more of the persons owning such real or personal property have only a minimal interest in such property and a sale would not promote the interests of the owners, the court may order such equitable distribution of such property, with payment of just compensation to the owners of such minimal interest, as will better promote the interests of the owners."
In the second count of the complaint, which is labeled " declaratory judgment, " the plaintiff incorporates the allegations concerning the parties' joint tenancy and the nature of the stock and the lease, but also alleges the following facts. The plaintiff alone provided the funds to purchase the stock and to make improvements to the apartment. Additionally, from the time of the purchase until the present time, the plaintiff alone has paid maintenance-related costs for the apartment, which includes rent as well as repair and utility expenses. The defendant requested and chose not to pay for these expenses. Neither the plaintiff nor the defendant has ever resided in the apartment. The plaintiff has an equitable interest in the net proceeds of partition by sale, and the division of the proceeds between the parties according to their respective rights in the property is an issue creating a substantial uncertainty of legal relations that requires settlement.
On July 26, 2016, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment (#109) on the grounds that the present action is barred by both res judicata (claim preclusion) as well as collateral estoppel (issue preclusion). The motion is accompanied by a memorandum of law (#108). The plaintiff also filed a motion for summary judgment on August 9, 2016, (#110) on the grounds that there is no genuine issue of material fact concerning his absolute right to partition as the defendant's special defenses are insufficient as a matter of law, and if the court grants orders partition by sale, the plaintiff is entitled to summary judgment with regard to the count seeking declaratory judgment. The motion is accompanied by a memorandum of law (#111), which supports the plaintiff's motion, but also opposes the defendant's motion. In response, the defendant filed a memorandum of law on September 2, 2016, (#112) in opposition to the plaintiff's motion and in further support of her motion. On September 6, 2016, the plaintiff filed a reply to the defendant's memorandum (#113), which was accompanied by a document (Exhibit A), dated April 3, 2008, in which the plaintiff agrees that " under no condition will [the plaintiff] make [the defendant] financially liable for the payment of the apartment . . ." The parties argued their motions at short calendar on October 27, 2016.
DISCUSSION
" Summary judgment is a method of resolving litigation when pleadings, affidavits, and any other proof submitted show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law . . . The motion for summary judgment is designed to eliminate the delay and expense of litigating an issue when there is no real issue to be tried . . . However, since litigants ordinarily have a constitutional right to have issues of fact decided by a jury . . . the moving party for summary judgment is held to a strict standard . . . of demonstrating his entitlement to summary judgment." (Citation omitted; footnote omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Grenier v. Commissioner of Transportation, 306 Conn. 523, 534-35, 51 A.3d 367 (2012).
" Because res judicata or collateral estoppel, if raised, may be dispositive of a claim, summary judgment [is] the appropriate method for resolving a claim of res judicata." Jackson v. R. G. Whipple, Inc., 225 Conn. 705, 712, 627 A.2d 374 (1993). " Summary judgment in favor of the defendant is properly granted if the defendant in its motion raises at least one legally sufficient defense that would bar the plaintiff's claim and involves no triable issue of fact." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Serrano v. Burns, 248 Conn. 419, 424, 727 A.2d 1276 (1999).
The defendant first argues that both res judicata and collateral estoppel bar the present action. The defendant contends that the equitable distribution sought in Adamson I and the partition requested in the present action are a single claim for the purposes of res judicata. Furthermore, the defendant argues that because the plaintiff had the opportunity to litigate the present causes of action in Adamson I, the actions form a convenient trial unit, and the present case constitutes vexatious litigation, advancing a new legal theory or remedy does not defeat the application of res judicata. For collateral estoppel, the defendant argues that her more than minimal interest was actually and necessarily litigated in Adamson I, precluding the plaintiff from bringing a new action to determine her exact interest in the property. The defendant also maintains that equity defenses can defeat a claim for partition, notwithstanding the defendant's right to seek such a remedy, and in the alternative, that fashioning a partition is a matter of discretion for the court.
The plaintiff argues that his absolute right to partition defeats all the defendant's special defenses, including res judicata and collateral estoppel, and accordingly, he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. First, the plaintiff contends that the special defenses apart from res judicata and collateral estoppel--unclean hands, equitable estoppel, and waiver--are unavailing as a matter of law. He also argues that res judicata does not apply to the present case because equitable distribution and partition are distinct causes of action that involve mutually exclusive elements, this action for partition will not create an inconsistent judgment, and vindication of his absolute right to partition is not vexatious. Furthermore, the plaintiff contends that he was under no obligation to raise inconsistent claims in Adamson I, and that it was in his best interest to limit Adamson I to a claim for equitable distribution. The plaintiff then reiterates his first point concerning the mutually exclusive elements of the causes of action to argue that collateral estoppel does not apply; as the determination in Adamson I concerning the defendant's nonminimal interest is irrelevant to a partition action, the plaintiff argues that collateral estoppel is no bar. Finally, the plaintiff maintains that if the court orders partition by sale, the court must grant summary judgment for the second count, seeking declaratory judgment, because the plaintiff is entitled to a determination of the parties' respective interest in the property.
The defendant counters that the plaintiff's arguments concerning the special defenses are precluded by the law of the case doctrine, and that the arguments concerning the defendant's grounds for summary judgment are misplaced. First, the defendant contends that the court, Radcliffe, J., rejected the plaintiff's arguments concerning the applicability of the defendant's special defenses to an action for partition by denying the plaintiff's motion to strike, which rested on the same grounds as the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment. The defendant also denies that the nature of the present case necessarily bars the special defenses raised. In response to the plaintiff's arguments concerning res judicata, the defendant agrees that the causes of actions in Adamson I and the present case are distinct, but maintains that the claims are the same transaction, and that a significant overlap in the evidence to be presented supports preclusion. The defendant also argues that the policies of res judicata favor its application, arguing that the present case runs counter to the policies against inconsistent judgments, wasted judicial resources, and the defendant's vexation. Additionally, the defendant maintains that collateral estoppel bars the plaintiff from arguing that the defendant has less than a minimal interest in the property, but asserts that calculating the nature and extent of the interest is barred by res judicata. Finally, the defendant argues that the plaintiff has not shown that there is no factual dispute with regard to declaratory judgment, noting that a determination of respective interest is usually made after a sale occurs, and that such a determination requires fact-finding.
In response, the plaintiff disputes the defendant's newest points and bolsters his own arguments. The plaintiff asserts that the law of the case doctrine does not bar his arguments concerning the defendant's special defenses because the court rejected the plaintiff's motion to strike without prejudice, essentially inviting the point to be raised for summary judgment. With regard to res judicata, the plaintiff restates that his right to partition is absolute, and dismisses the defendant's argument concerning alternative pleading by noting that there is no rule requiring the compulsory joinder of claims. He also argues that precluding his right partition is logically troubling, as it would leave the parties--who had formerly been in a romantic relationship, and are now not on good terms--to determine the disposition of the property on their own, in spite of their contentious relationship. Finally, the plaintiff reiterates his argument that if the court orders partition by sale, a determination of the parties' respective interest in the property will necessarily follow, and so the plaintiff is entitled to judgment as matter of law with respect to his declaratory judgment claim.
" Res judicata, or claim preclusion, express[es] no more than the fundamental principle that once a matter has been fully and fairly litigated, and finally decided, it comes to rest . . . Generally, for res judicata to apply, four elements must be met: (1) the judgment must have been rendered on the merits by a court of competent jurisdiction; (2) the parties to the prior and subsequent actions must be the same or in privity; (3) there must have been an adequate opportunity to litigate the matter fully; and (4) the same underlying claim must be at issue . . . Res judicata bars the relitigation of claims actually made in the prior action as well as any claims that might have been made there . . . Public policy supports the principle that a party should not be allowed to relitigate a matter which it already has had an opportunity to litigate . . . Thus, res judicata prevents reassertion of the same claim regardless of what additional or different evidence or legal theories might be advanced in support of it." (Citations omitted; footnote omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Wheeler v. Beachcroft, LLC, 320 Conn. 146, 156-58, 129 A.3d 677 (2016). " The rule that a defendant's judgment acts as a bar to a second action on the same claim is based largely on the ground that fairness to the defendant, and sound judicial administration, require that at some point litigation over the particular controversy come to an end. These considerations may impose such a requirement even though the substantive issues have not been tried, especially if the plaintiff has failed to avail himself of opportunities to pursue his remedies in the first proceeding . . ." 1 Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 19, comment (a) (1982).
" Although res judicata bars claims that were not actually litigated in a prior action, the previous and subsequent claims must be considered the same for res judicata to apply . . . To determine whether claims are the same for res judicata purposes, this court has adopted the transactional test . . . Under the transactional test, res judicata extinguishes all rights of the plaintiff to remedies against the defendant with respect to all or any part of the transaction, or series of connected transactions, out of which the action arose . . . What factual grouping constitutes a transaction, and what groupings constitute a series, are to be determined pragmatically, giving weight to such considerations as whether the facts are related in time, space, origin, or motivation, whether they form a convenient trial unit, and whether their treatment as a unit conforms to the parties' expectations or business understanding or usage . . . [E]ven though a single group of facts may give rise to rights for several different kinds of relief, it is still a single cause of action." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Wheeler v. Beachcroft, supra, 320 Conn. 159-60; see also Weiss v. Weiss, 297 Conn. 446, 463, 998 A.2d 766 (2010) (" the present action seeks a remedy against the defendant with regard to a claim that the plaintiff had made previously, namely, that she was entitled to a certain portion of the marital estate . . . That her current claim is more specific . . . does not preclude the application of res judicata because both actions arise from the same transaction.").
" [A] plaintiff who brings an action upon part of a claim and succeeds or loses on the merits may not sue to recover upon the rest of the claim. Thus the plaintiff is under some compulsion not to split a claim . . . This still leaves the possibility that a plaintiff, actually having a single claim but mistakenly believing that he has a number of them, may commence a limited lawsuit and then run afoul of the rule against splitting. A plaintiff must take this risk into account in framing his action." 1 Restatement (Second), supra, § 24, comment (h). " [A]lthough parties are not required to resolve all disputes during a dissolution proceeding, when a party had the opportunity to raise the claim and the dissolution proceeding provided the proper forum for the resolution of that claim, res judicata may bar litigation of a subsequent action." (Emphasis in original.) Weiss v. Weiss, supra, 297 Conn. 464.
" [U]nder the present Section 'claim' is equated with 'transaction, ' " rather than cause of action. Id., Reporter's Notes.
" [T]he scope of matters precluded [in the subsequent action] necessarily depends on what has occurred in the former adjudication." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Weiss v. Weiss, supra, 297 Conn. 462. " Because the operative effect of the principle of claim preclusion or merger is to preclude relitigation of the original claim, it is crucial to define the dimensions of that original claim." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Buck v. Berlin, 163 Conn.App. 282, 291, 135 A.3d 1237 (2016).
" [A]pplication of the doctrine can yield harsh results, especially in the context of claims that were not actually litigated . . . The decision of whether res judicata should bar such claims should be based upon a consideration of the doctrine's underlying policies, namely, the interests of the defendant and of the courts in bringing litigation to a close . . . and the competing interest of the plaintiff in the vindication of a just claim." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Wheeler v. Beachcroft, supra, 320 Conn. 158. The purposes of res judicata are " promoting judicial economy, minimizing repetitive litigation, preventing inconsistent judgments and providing repose to parties." Weiss v. Weiss, supra, 297 Conn. 465. Section 26 of the Restatement addresses exceptions to the general rule concerning splitting, and provides that preclusion can be overcome by " an extraordinary reason, " such as " the failure of the prior litigation to yield a coherent disposition of the controversy." 1 Restatement (Second), supra, § 26(1)(f). " Such cases are extremely rare, but may occur, for example, when the disposition of a claim and counterclaim in a prior action has left the parties with inconsistent interests in disputed property." Id., comment (i). " Res judicata is, by its very nature, extremely fact specific in application. Thus, [the] application of res judicata . . . necessarily turns on the precise nature and substance of the second action." Weiss v. Weiss, supra, 469.
" The right to partition has long been regarded as an absolute right, and the difficulty involved in partitioning the property and the inconvenience to other tenants are not grounds for denying the remedy." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Fernandes v. Rodriguez, 255 Conn. 47, 55, 761 A.2d 1283 (2000). A plaintiff, however, may be precluded from bringing an action for partition on the basis of res judicata. See Richards v. Richards, 67 Conn.App. 381, 786 A.2d 1247 (2001) (declining application of res judicata to partition action based on specific circumstances, not because generally inapplicable); McDonald v. McDonald, Superior Court, judicial district of Waterbury, Docket No. CV-13-6021057-S (August 18, 2015, Shapiro, J.) [60 Conn.L.Rptr. 852, ] (applying res judicata to bar partition action); Hart v. Hart, Superior Court, judicial district of Fairfield, Docket No. CV-02-0394158-S, (January 15, 2003, Stevens, J.) (" The plaintiff cannot use a partition action to avoid or circumvent the terms of a divorce decree that delineates the manner in which marital property is to be liquidated and divided. Basic principles of collateral estoppel and res judicata preclude such a result.").
In McDonald, the court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment on the basis of res judicata in an action for partition in kind, partition by sale, and equitable distribution. The plaintiff had initiated a prior action seeking only partition by sale; after the court determined that the plaintiff had not met his burden and ruled in favor of the defendant, the plaintiff brought the second action. The court considered, but ultimately rejected, the plaintiff's argument that the absolute right to partition should foreclose the application of res judicata. " On balance, the fact that the plaintiff had a complete opportunity, in the first action, to vindicate his right to partition, must be taken into account. In the first action, he intentionally adopted a restricted strategy concerning partition, both in terms of the relief he sought, and the evidence he chose to present. The defendants went to trial and judgment was rendered in their favor. The fact that the plaintiff did not emerge from the first action with a judgment of partition was entirely as a result of his own voluntarily undertaken approach . . . Courts should not encourage piecemeal approaches to litigation. See Weiss v. Weiss, supra, 297 Conn. 469. Under the circumstances here, the balance weighs in favor of the general policy favoring the application of res judicata. The interest of finality served by preclusion is not outweighed by the right to partition." McDonald v. McDonald, supra, Superior Court, Docket No. CV-13-6021057-S, .
In the present case, the four elements necessary for res judicata are present. The Superior Court rendered judgment in favor of the defendant after a trial in Adamson I, which involved the same parties and provided the plaintiff the opportunity to seek partition. Although the plaintiff argues that the causes of action asserted in the present case are distinguishable and mutually exclusive from the cause of action in Adamson I, the relevant inquiry for res judicata purposes is whether the causes of action constitute the same underlying claim under the transactional test. Wheeler v. Beachcroft, supra . Both the present case and Adamson I concern the disposition of the same jointly-owned property, with no allegations of changed circumstances. Although the present case would require different evidence to be presented, this alone is insufficient for the transactional test. A pragmatic view of the circumstances determines that the causes of action in the two actions constitute the same claim.
Without disputing that he had the opportunity to seek partition in Adamson I, the plaintiff accurately contends that he was under no obligation to join every available cause of action in Adamson I, and that limiting Adamson I to the issue of equitable distribution was strategically advantageous. These arguments, however, do not shelter the plaintiff from the general prohibition against claim-splitting. Weiss v. Weiss, supra, 297 Conn. 464. In Adamson I, the plaintiff sought equitable distribution pursuant to § 52-500(a); that statute, however, also affords a plaintiff the right to seek partition. The plaintiff's narrow framing of the issue in Adamson I created a risk of preclusion, and absent some exception, res judicata will bar the present action.
Although the matters in the present case were not actually litigated in Adamson I, three of the four purposes of res judicata--" promoting judicial economy, minimizing repetitive litigation and providing repose to parties" favor preclusion. Weiss v. Weiss, supra, 297 Conn. 465. The court could have determined the issue of partition in Adamson I as an alternative to equitable distribution, which would have prevented both the relitigation of the parties' respective interests in the property at issue as well as the defendant's continued exposure to further litigation on this matter. Moreover, the plaintiff's argument that barring the present action would leave " former lovers who now agree on nothing but mutual loathing . . . condemned to being joined at the hip by way of their joint ownership of the [p]roperty, " does not invoke some extraordinary reason, such as the parties possessing inconsistent interests in the same property; 1 Restatement (Second), supra, § 26, comment (i); that would overcome preclusion.
The other consideration is preventing inconsistent judgments. The defendant argues that the present action would create an inconsistency to the extent that the plaintiff is currently seeking a different outcome from the court's determination that the defendant's interest in the property is not minimal. As the present action for partition would merely determine the defendant's interest in the property without necessarily overturning the court's earlier determination, it is not certain that the judgments would be inconsistent.
Finally, the nature of this action does not proscribe the application of res judicata; Richards v. Richards, supra ; and despite the plaintiff's characterizations, his absolute right to partition is a wild card, not a trump card. Indeed, the present case is closely analogous to McDonald . In both instances, the plaintiff voluntarily and intentionally eschewed the opportunity to full litigate a claim concerning partition, and then sought to rely upon the absolute right to partition as a shield from preclusion. The sound logic underlying the decision in McDonald is persuasive in the present case, and weighs in favor of granting summary judgment for the defendant.
The remaining arguments from the defendant and the plaintiff are of no moment, because res judicata affords the defendant " at least one legally sufficient defense that would bar the plaintiff's claim and involves no triable issue of fact." Serrano v. Burns, supra, 248 Conn. 424.
CONCLUSION
Based on all of the foregoing, the defendant's motion for summary judgment (#109) is granted and the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment (#110) is denied.