First Niagara Bank, N.A. v. Pouncey

Citations

• 204 Conn. App. 433

Syllabus

F Co. sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property owned by the defendants. The substitute plaintiff, K Co., filed a motion for a judgment of strict foreclosure and the defendants filed an amended answer with seven special defenses. Thereafter, K Co. filed a motion for summary judgment as to liability, which the court granted. The defendants then filed a motion to reargue and reconsider the granting of the motion for summary judgment, which the court granted but denied the requested relief. The defendants also filed a motion to open the summary judgment, which the court denied. The defendants then filed a motion to reargue and reconsider the court's denial of their motion to open the summary judgment on the ground that the court had failed to consider our Supreme Court's holding in U.S. Bank National Assn. v. Blowers (332 Conn. 656), which the court denied. Subsequently, the court rendered a judgment of strict foreclosure, from which the defen- dants appealed to this court. Held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the defendants' motion to reargue and reconsider the court's denial of their motion to open the summary judgment as to liability; the record showed that the trial court based its orders on a review of the parties' evidentiary submissions, not on a conclusion that the special defenses as pleaded were legally insufficient and, thus, contrary to the defendants' contention, our Supreme Court's decision in Blowers was inapplicable to the circumstances of the present case, as Blowers involved the trial court's ruling on a motion to strike that the defendant's special defenses and counterclaims, as pleaded, were legally deficient and whether the special defenses related to the enforce- ment of the note and mortgage, whereas in the present case, the court made no reference whatsoever to the relationship of the defendants' special defenses to the making, validity or enforcement of the note or mortgage when it denied the defendant