Clark v. Quantitative Strategies Group, LLC

Citations

• 224 Conn. App. 224

Syllabus

The defendant judgment debtor, B, appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court denying his claim that certain bank accounts were exempt from execution pursuant to statute ((Supp. 2022) § 52-367b) because the plaintiff judgment creditors executed on accounts that did not belong to him but, rather, belonged to his mother, J. The plaintiffs had obtained an arbitration award against B arising from a default on a loan, and the award was confirmed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The plaintiffs then domesticated the judgment in the Superior Court. After the trial court granted an application for a bank execution to satisfy the domesticated judgment, the plaintiffs served the execution on T Co., a bank, which identified two bank accounts on which B was listed as an account owner along with J and his sister. In his claim of exemption, B did not identify any of the statutory bases for an exemption set forth in § 52-367b or on the form prescribed by the Judicial Branch pursuant to § 52-367b (k). Instead, B indicated on his claim of exemption form that the basis of his claim was ''[o]ther'' and included a handwritten notation stating ''[f]unds in these accounts are not my property.'' Following a hearing, the court denied B's claim of exemption. Held that the trial court did not improperly find that the accounts at issue were joint accounts and were not exempt from execution under § 52-367b, the court having correctly concluded that B's asserted exemption was not recognized or enumerated under § 52-367b: although B purported to claim an exemp- tion under § 52-367b, specifically, that the funds in the accounts were not his but, instead, belonged solely to J, both the plain language of § 52-367b and case law make clear that the only cognizable exemptions are those provided for by that statute or any other laws or regulations of this state or the United States which exempt such debts from execution; moreover, although B note