Circulent, Inc. v. Hatch & Bailey Co.

Citations

• 217 Conn. App. 622

Syllabus

The plaintiff technology services provider sought to recover damages from the defendant for, inter alia, breach of contract on the basis of the defendant's alleged failure to pay amounts owed under two agreements, a managed technologies service agreement and a disaster recovery ser- vices agreement. The evidence submitted at trial included exhibit 5, a billing statement from the plaintiff to the defendant representing invoices generated by the plaintiff and payments made by the defendant, and exhibit 13, an accounts receivable from the plaintiff showing amounts unpaid by the defendant. The trial court rendered judgment for the defendant based on its findings that the defendant paid in full the amounts due to the plaintiff under the terms of the agreements. On appeal to this court, the plaintiff argued that the court erred in finding that the defendant had paid in full the amounts owed on both agreements and that the term of the disaster recovery services agreement had been one year rather than three years. Held: 1. The trial court's finding that the defendant tendered payments in full under the terms of the managed technologies service agreement was clearly erroneous: although the court cited to exhibits 5 and 13 in support of its finding, this court found that those exhibits demonstrated that the defendant failed to make payments through the end of the agreement, and no other evidence in the record supported the trial court's finding; moreover, a witness for the defendant testified that the defendant stopped paying the plaintiff under the agreement, and the court's conclu- sion that the defendant did not untimely terminate the agreement was predicated on its clearly erroneous finding that the defendant tendered payment in full under the agreement; accordingly, because this court concluded that the trial court's error was harmful, the plaintiff was entitled to a new trial on the count of the complaint alleging breach of this agreement. 2. The trial court's finding t