Casner v. Roberts

Syllabus

The defendant property owners appealed from the trial court's judgment determining that they had breached the terms of a restrictive covenant that runs with their property by constructing a six car commercial garage and operating a commercial roofing business therefrom without having received prior approval from the plaintiff, the owner and developer of the subdivision where the defendants' property was located. The defendants claimed, inter alia, that the court improperly determined that the three year statute of limitations (§ 52-575a) did not bar the plaintiff's action. Held: The trial court properly determined that the plaintiff's action was not barred by § 52-575a, as the three year limitation period of § 52-575a was suspended by Governor Ned Lamont's Executive Order No. 7G, seven and one-half months after the plaintiff was notified of the defendants' construction of the garage, and the plaintiff subsequently commenced the present action less than eighteen months after the suspension of § 52-575a was lifted by Executive Order No. 10A. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the defendants' request to amend their special defenses to include laches, which was based on their assertion that the plaintiff had more knowledge than the ordinary person concerning the town's municipal building department operations and infor- mation, as the plaintiff's trial testimony did not reasonably reflect that he had or should have had the special knowledge asserted by the defendants, and the existence or nonexistence of that knowledge on the part of the plaintiff was not relevant. This court declined to review the defendants' claim that the trial court improperly determined that the restrictive covenant was enforceable, as this claim was raised by the defendants for the first time on appeal. The trial court's determination that the defendants had violated the restric- tive covenant by failing to obtain the plaintiff's approval for the construction of the six car ga