U.S. EQUITIES CORP.
v.
PEGGY CERALDI
Argued
October 23, 2018
Procedural
History
Action
to collect a debt, and for other relief, brought to the
Superior Court in the judicial district of New Britain, where
the defendant was defaulted for failure to plead; thereafter,
the court, Swienton, J., granted the
plaintiff's motion for judgment and rendered judgment
thereon; subsequently, the court granted the plaintiff's
motion for clarification and issued a certain order, and the
defendant appealed to this court. Reversed; judgment
directed.
Joanne
S. Faulkner, for the appellant (defendant).
Linda
Strumpf, for the appellee (plaintiff).
DiPentima, C. J., and Sheldon and Bear, Js.
OPINION
BEAR,
J.
The
defendant, Peggy Ceraldi, appeals from the judgment of the
trial court granting the postjudgment motion for
clarification filed by the plaintiff, U.S. Equities Corp.,
regarding the postjudgment interest rate to be applied to the
judgment rendered against the defendant in the underlying
debt collection action.[1] The defendant claims that the
court's clarification actually was an improper
substantive modification of the judgment. We agree and,
accordingly, reverse the judgment setting the rate of
postjudgment interest.
The
following facts and procedural history are relevant to the
disposition of this appeal. The plaintiff was assigned all
rights to the defendant's Chase Bank credit card account
from Turtle Creek Assets, Ltd. On December 18, 2010, the
plaintiff commenced this action, seeking monetary damages of
$17, 886.99, prejudgment interest, attorney's fees of
$2683.05, costs of the action, and ‘‘statutory
postjudgment interest of 10 [percent] per annum.'' On
May 31, 2011, the court granted the plaintiff's motion
for judgment following the defendant's default for
failure to plead. In its order granting the motion, the court
awarded the plaintiff $30, 895 in monetary damages, $2683.05
in attorney's fees, $343.20 in costs, and postjudgment
interest pursuant to General Statutes §§
37-3a[2] and 52-356d (e).[3] The court, however, did not
set forth in its order the rate of postjudgment
interest.[4]
On June
27, 2017, the defendant filed a motion for a protective order
claiming that, after the defendant had paid the court-ordered
weekly payments in an amount exceeding $10, 000, the
plaintiff incorrectly notified her that she still owed more
than $43, 000 on the judgment because of its unilateral
application of a 10 percent annual postjudgment interest rate
on the unpaid amount of the judgment. The defendant requested
that the judgment be retroactively modified to the original
amount claimed and that postjudgment interest be denied. On
July 24, 2017, the court denied the defendant's motion
for a protective order, stating that the proper motion for
the relief requested by the defendant was a motion to open
the judgment. On September 1, 2017, the defendant filed a
motion to open the judgment, which the court denied on
September 18, 2017.
On
October 6, 2017, the defendant appealed the court's
judgment denying her motion for a protective order. See
footnote 1 of this opinion. On March 4, 2018, during the
pendency of that appeal, the plaintiff filed a motion for
clarification with the trial court requesting that the
court's May 31, 2011 judgment be clarified to reflect
that the rate at which it had awarded postjudgment interest
was 10 percent per year. On April 30, 2018, the court granted
the plaintiff's motion for clarification, stating that
when it had rendered judgment on May 31, 2011, it had done so
in accordance with the plaintiff's request for relief set
forth in its complaint and had intended that the interest
rate be set at the maximum allowable rate of 10 percent per
year. This appeal followed.
The
defendant's principal claim on appeal is that the
court's order granting the motion for clarification and
setting forth for the first time the rate at which it had
intended postjudgment interest to be awarded, constituted an
improper substantive modification of the judgment. The
defendant argues that the court lacked authority to set a
postjudgment interest rate approximately seven years after
the judgment because the plaintiff did not seek to have the
judgment opened to determine the rate of postjudgment
interest within four months of the May 31, 2011 judgment. See
General Statutes § 52-212a and Practice Book §
17-4.
The
plaintiff counters that, because postjudgment interest
already had been awarded in the judgment, the court's
order granting the motion for clarification was not a
substantive modification of the judgment.[5] The plaintiff
asserts that the court had authority to specify the
postjudgment interest rate through a motion for
clarification, which is not time barred.[6] We disagree.
We
first set forth the applicable standard of review.
‘‘Motions for interpretation or clarification,
although not specifically described in the rules of practice,
are commonly considered by trial courts and are procedurally
proper. . . . A motion for clarification may be appropriate
where there is an ambiguous term in a judgment . . . but,
where the movant's request would cause a substantive
modification of an existing judgment, a motion to open or set
aside the judgment would normally be ...