Dessa, LLC v. Riddle

Citations

• 223 Conn. App. 457

Syllabus

The defendant J appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court, which found that J and his father, P, were jointly and severally liable for unpaid rent and other expenses in connection with the plaintiff landlord's lease of an apartment to P. J testified at trial that he had never resided at the apartment and had never seen or known of the lease until he was served with process when the plaintiff commenced suit. P testified that, after the plaintiff had informed him that his credit was insufficient to rent the apartment, he used J's Social Security number and identity to acquire the lease, told the plaintiff that J would also be a tenant at the apartment and forged J's signature on the lease and placed utilities in J's name, all without J's knowledge. The court, Spader, J., found that, although P and J were ''largely credible,'' it also stated that it did not believe J had known nothing about P's actions and credit issues. Judge Spader stated that, ''[s]peaking personally, as a son,'' he would have let his father use his name and credit in similar circum- stances, and that, even if J had not given explicit permission to P, ''as a dutiful son,'' permission to do so was implied. Held: 1. This court was unpersuaded by J's claim that newly discovered evidence demonstrated that the plaintiff had commenced this action with unclean hands and without probable cause under fraudulent premises: J's failure to raise those issues at the time of trial or by way of an appropriate posttrial motion undermined his ability to raise those issues on appeal; moreover, whether the plaintiff's conduct amounted to the misconduct J had alleged was an issue of fact that had to be decided by the trial court in the first instance, and, even if the court had found that wilful misconduct on the part of the plaintiff had been proven, the issue of an appropriate sanction had to be determined in the trial court's sound discretion and was not an issue for this court to decide in the firs