Cazenovia Creek Funding I, LLC v. Roman

Citations

• 223 Conn. App. 739

Syllabus

The plaintiff sought to foreclose on certain real property owned by the named defendant, a trust. R filed a self-represented appearance in the action on behalf of the trust, and the trial court sua sponte struck R's appearance as improper, finding that the trust could only be represented by counsel. The court rendered a judgment of foreclosure by sale, and R appealed to this court, which dismissed the appeal on the basis that R was not a party to the action and could not file an appeal on behalf of the trust in a representative capacity. Thereafter, in the trial court, R filed two motions to dismiss the action against the trust, which the trial court denied. R subsequently filed a motion to substitute himself as the defendant, to which he attached a quitclaim deed that transferred the property from R as trustee to himself individually, which the court denied. The court then denied R's third motion to dismiss the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and R appealed to this court. Held that this court dismissed the appeal because R, who was neither a party to the action nor an attorney, appeared without counsel on behalf of a trust and did not have the authority to represent the trust pursuant to statute (§ 51-88): to the extent that the appeal was brought by R in his individual capacity, the appeal was dismissed on the basis that R was not a party to the action, as the defendant in the action was the trust, and, although R filed documents indicating that the property had been transferred from the trust to himself, R had not moved to intervene in the action in his individual capacity, and the court had denied his motion to substitute himself in his individual capacity for the trust; moreover, to the extent that R, a nonattorney, appeared on behalf of the trust in a representative capacity, R was not representing his own cause in this appeal and, therefore, did not have the authority pursuant to § 51-88 (d) (2) to represent the trust. Submitted on briefs Janu