Atlantic St. Heritage Associates, LLC v. Atlantic Realty Co.

Citations

• 216 Conn. App. 530

Syllabus

The plaintiff, an entity that owned commercial real property, sought, inter alia, injunctive relief enjoining the defendants, various entities that owned or leased commercial property located to the south of the plain- tiff's property within the same city block, from interfering with the plaintiff's right to use a claimed easement area. The plaintiff acquired its real property in 1982, and the defendants, which were all owned or controlled by members of the same family, purchased their respective real properties between 1988 and 2014. Since the acquisition of its property, the plaintiff's members, employees, tenants, and invitees have used a twelve foot wide alleyway located between two of the properties owned by certain of the defendants and a portion of the paved area behind the defendants' properties to access its own gated parking lot. In 2015, the defendants erected a gate at the end of the alleyway that connected to the street and installed a chain barrier across the end of the alleyway that abutted the paved area. During the hours when the retail business that operated out of the defendants' properties was closed, the defendants locked the gate and put the chain barrier in place. After the defendants refused to provide the plaintiff with a key to the gate, the plaintiff commenced the present action, alleging, in its operative complaint, that it had a prescriptive easement over the alleyway and a portion of the paved area. The defendants asserted five special defenses to the plaintiff's complaint prior to its filing of the operative complaint. Thereafter, the plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment, and the defendants filed a cross motion for summary judgment. The trial court heard oral argument on the parties' cross motions. Thereafter, without seeking leave of the court, the defendants filed an answer to the plaintiff's operative complaint and filed amended special defenses, which reas- serted the five original special defenses and also asserted five n