Argued
September 24, 2018
Procedural
History
Summary
process action brought to the Superior Court in the judicial
district of Middlesex and tried to the court, Vitale, J.;
thereafter, the defendant Luce Buhl was defaulted for failure
to appear; judgment for the plaintiff, from which the
defendants appealed to this court. Affirmed.
Paul
D. Buhl, self-represented, with whom, on the brief, was Luce
L. Buhl, self-represented, the appellants (defendants).
Peter
A. Ventre, for the appellee (plaintiff).
Elgo,
Bright and Sullivan, Js.
OPINION
SULLIVAN, J.
The
present appeal in this summary process action stems from the
foreclosure of real property located at 12 Casner Road in
East Haddam. The self-represented defendants, Paul Buhl and
Luce Buhl, [1]appeal from the judgment of possession
rendered in favor of the plaintiff, Federal National Mortgage
Association. On appeal, the defendants claim that the trial
court (1) improperly determined that they did not commence an
action pursuant to General Statutes § 47-36aa (a), (2)
improperly determined that the deed to the subject property
was valid despite notarial defects, (3) abused its discretion
by allowing the plaintiff's counsel to give unsworn
testimony, and (4) abused its discretion by rendering a
default judgment against Luce Buhl for failure to appear at
trial. We disagree and affirm the judgment of the trial
court.
The
following facts and procedural history are relevant to our
resolution of this appeal. In 2016, the plaintiff acquired
title to the property through a strict foreclosure action,
while the defendants were living on the premises. On March
29, 2017, the plaintiff commenced this summary process action
against the defendants. Paragraph 2 of the plaintiff's
complaint alleged that ‘‘Liberty
Bank[2]
quitclaimed the property to [the plaintiff] and said deed was
recorded September 28, 2016, on the East Haddam land records
in volume 1012, pages 207-208.'' (Footnote added.)
On May
12, 2017, the defendants denied the material allegations of
the complaint, including paragraph 2. The defendants also
asserted a special defense that they had commenced an action
against the plaintiff in federal District Court concerning
the ownership of the property and that the federal action
needed to be resolved before the underlying summary process
action could proceed.[3]
The
summary process action was tried to the court on June 5 and
26, and July 3, 2017. On June 26, 2017, the defendants filed
a second special defense alleging that the deed to the
property was invalid because its acknowledgment was undated.
On July 3, 2017, the court rendered judgment against Paul
Buhl on the merits and rendered a default judgment against
Luce Buhl for failure to appear at trial. This appeal
followed. Additional facts and procedural history will be set
forth as necessary.
The
defendants' first two claims are based on their argument
that the trial court misinterpreted and misapplied §
47-36aa. We begin with the standard of review for these
claims. ‘‘When construing a statute, [o]ur
fundamental objective is to ascertain and give effect to the
apparent intent of the legislature. . . . In seeking to
determine that meaning, General Statutes § 1-2z directs
us first to consider the text of the statute itself and its
relationship to other statutes. If, after examining such text
and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text
is plain and unambiguous and does not yield absurd or
unworkable results, extratextual evidence of the meaning of
the statute shall not be considered. . . . The test to
determine ambiguity is whether the statute, when read in
context, is susceptible to more than one reasonable
interpretation. . . . When a statute is not plain and
unambiguous, we also look for interpretive guidance to the
legislative history and circumstances surrounding its
enactment, to the legislative policy it was designed to
implement, and to its relationship to existing legislation
and common law principles governing the same general subject
matter . . . . The issue of statutory interpretation . . . is
a question of law subject to plenary review.''
(Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.)
Commissioner of Emergency Services & Public
Protection v. Freedom of Information
Commission, 330 Conn. 372, 380, 194 A.3d 759 (2018).
Section
47-36aa, which is commonly known as the validating act,
provides in relevant part: ‘‘(a) Conveyancing
defects. Any deed, mortgage, lease, power of attorney,
release, assignment or other instrument made for the purpose
of conveying, leasing, mortgaging or affecting any interest
in real property in this state recorded after January 1,
1997, which instrument contains any one or more of the
following defects or omissions is as valid as if it had been
executed without the defect or omission unless an action
challenging the validity of that instrument is commenced and
a notice of lis pen-dens is recorded in the land records of
the town or towns where the instrument is recorded within two
years after the instrument is recorded: (1) The instrument
contains a defective acknowledgment or no acknowledgment . .
. . (b) Insubstantial defects. Any deed, mortgage, lease,
power of attorney, release, assignment or other instrument
made for the purpose of conveying, leasing, mortgaging or
affecting any interest in real property in this state
recorded after January 1, ...