Ferri v. Powell-Ferri

Citations

• 213 Conn. App. 841

Syllabus

The plaintiff sought damages for vexatious litigation from the defendant P, his former wife. P previously sought the dissolution of her marriage to the plaintiff and, in that action, a disputed asset was a trust. While the dissolution action was pending, the trustees of the trust brought a declaratory judgment action against P and the plaintiff, seeking approval of their actions in forming another trust, into which they had decanted all of the assets of the initial trust. As part of the declaratory judgment action, the defendants T and N Co., who represented P in both actions, filed a cross complaint on her behalf, alleging that the plaintiff violated his duty to preserve the marital assets by allowing the trustees to remove assets from the marital estate. The trial court rendered summary judg- ment in favor of the plaintiff on the cross complaint. In this vexatious litigation action, the plaintiff alleged that the defendants lacked probable cause to institute and pursue the cross complaint. The trial court granted the motion for summary judgment filed by T and N Co. Following a bench trial on the plaintiff's claims against P, the trial court rendered judgment in favor of P, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held that the trial court correctly concluded that P had probable cause to pursue her cross complaint in the declaratory judgment action, the plaintiff having failed to satisfy his burden to prove that P did not have a reasonable, good faith basis for her cross complaint against him; as aptly noted by the trial court, not only did P have a good faith belief in the facts alleged in her cross complaint, but the relevant facts related to the existence of probable cause were undisputed, as P alleged that the plaintiff failed to seek the return of the assets of the initial trust, which were transferred to another trust, and, in light of the automatic orders that issue in dissolution cases, including an order that neither party transfer or dissipate mar