Davis v. Property Owners Assn. of Moodus Lake Shores, Inc.

Citations

• 214 Conn. App. 165

Syllabus

The plaintiff homeowners sought, inter alia, a judgment declaring that the defendant, a property owners association, violated the defendant's gov- erning documents and restrictive covenants by improperly preventing the plaintiffs from accessing their driveway. The plaintiffs, whose real property abutted a portion of the association's property, claimed that the only means of access from their property to a certain public road was via a driveway that was located over a portion of the defendant's property and that the defendants had improperly barricaded the drive- way by erecting a fence along the common boundary between the two properties. The plaintiffs had previously brought an action in the trial court to determine whether the plaintiffs had an easement by implication over the defendant's property. The trial court determined that the plain- tiffs had failed to establish an interest in the defendant's property so as to grant an easement and rendered judgment for the defendant, which this court affirmed on appeal. Thereafter, the plaintiffs brought the present action, and the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment, claiming that the plaintiffs' claims were barred by the doctrine of res judicata. The trial court granted the defendant's motion, and the plaintiffs appealed to this court. Held that the trial court did not err in concluding that the plaintiffs' claims in the present action were barred by the doctrine of res judicata: the claims asserted in both actions arose out of the same series of connected transactions, as both actions concerned the same parties, the same property, the ability of the plaintiffs to access the road from their residence, and the defendant's legal capacity to construct a barrier between the two properties, and both actions sought similar remedies; moreover, although the plaintiffs argued that their present claims were separate and distinct from the claims raised in the first action, they failed to demonstrate why their present cla