Cummings Enterprise, Inc. v. Moutinho

Citations

• 211 Conn. App. 130

Syllabus

The plaintiff sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property owned by the defendant. The trial court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss, concluding that the plaintiff lacked standing to bring a foreclo- sure action because any mortgage interest the plaintiff had held in the subject property had been foreclosed in an earlier action brought by the defendant, and the plaintiff appealed to this court. After the defendant's attorney, in his brief to this court, refuted certain factual representations made by the plaintiff's attorney in the plaintiff's principal brief, the plaintiff's attorney failed to clarify the matter in the plaintiff's reply brief. During oral argument before this court, when the plaintiff's attorney was questioned about the disputed factual representations, he was unable or unwilling to vouch for the veracity of those statements, did not direct the court's attention to any relevant portion of the record, and did not provide any citation to the record to support those factual assertions. Approximately one month later, the plaintiff's attorney filed a motion with this court for leave to correct the plaintiff's brief. Held: 1. The plaintiff could not prevail on its challenge to the trial court's dismissal of its action; because the plaintiff, who was defaulted for failure to appear in the prior foreclosure action brought by the defendant, made no effort to redeem on or before its designated law day, its mortgage interest was extinguished and, after all law days had passed, title to the property vested in the defendant, leaving the property no longer subject to the plaintiff's mortgage. 2. This court denied the motion for leave to correct the plaintiff's brief filed by the plaintiff's attorney as untimely: the plaintiff's attorney waited too long to correct the misrepresentations, and his effort to remedy them in their entirety was lacking; moreover, the plaintiff's attorney was placed on notice that future, similar conduct would result