Bank of New York Mellon v. Francois

Citations

• 198 Conn. App. 885

Syllabus

The plaintiff bank sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property owned by the defendant. During trial, the defendant's counsel filed a motion for a continuance, on the basis that he was due to appear in this court in another matter on the second day of the trial. The defendant and the defendant's counsel thereafter failed to appear for the scheduled continuation of the foreclosure trial. The court denied the motion and rendered a judgment of foreclosure, from which the defendant appealed. The trial court thereafter vacated the judgment of foreclosure and set a new trial date, after it was discovered that there had been miscommuni- cations among court staff and the defendant's counsel had, in fact, been required to appear at this court. A new foreclosure trial was held and the trial court rendered a judgment of strict foreclosure, from which the defendant filed an amended appeal. On appeal, the defendant claimed that the trial court improperly vacated the prior judgment of foreclosure and rendered a new judgment of strict foreclosure in violation of the automatic appellate stay in effect that arose as a result of the defendant's initial appeal. Held that the defendant's claim that the appellate stay of execution arising from the vacated first judgment and initial appeal was violated when the trial court rendered its second judgment of strict foreclosure was unavailing, as the trial court had the authority to vacate a judgment on appeal, even if the effect of such an order was to render any appeal from that judgment moot; although this court agreed that any appellate stay of execution resulting from the filing of the initial appeal technically continued at the time the trial court vacated the first judgment of foreclosure and at the time the trial court rendered the second judgment of strict foreclosure, the court's vacatur of the first judgment could not have violated the appellate stay because it did nothing to enforce or carry out that judgment, but, to t