Hall v. Hall

Citations

• 335 Conn. 377

Syllabus

The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court from the trial court's judgment of civil contempt rendered against him in the course of marital dissolu- tion proceedings. Following the commencement of the dissolution action, the parties entered into a stipulation, which was approved by the trial court and made a court order. The stipulation required that certain funds be deposited into a joint account and provided that the signatures of both parties were required for withdrawals from that This case originally was scheduled to be argued before a panel of this court consisting of Chief Justice Robinson and Justices Palmer, McDonald, D'Auria, Mullins, Kahn and Ecker. Although Justice Mullins was not present when the case was argued before the court, he has read the briefs and appendices, and listened to a recording of the oral argument prior to partici- pating in this decision. 378 OCTOBER, 2020 335 Conn. 377 Hall v. Hall account. In contravention of the stipulation, the parties set up a joint account that did not require signatures for withdrawals. After the plain- tiff withdrew money from the account and placed it in a separate, personal account, the defendant filed a motion for contempt, which the trial court granted. The trial court thereafter rendered a judgment of dissolution, incorporating the parties' separation agreement, which con- tained a provision that they would file a joint motion to open and vacate the trial court's contempt finding. Although the parties subsequently filed the joint motion to open and vacate, the trial court denied it. While the plaintiff's appeal to the Appellate Court was pending, that court ordered the trial court to issue an articulation, in which the trial court stated, inter alia, that its decision to grant the defendant's motion for contempt was predicated on its finding that the plaintiff had violated the court's prior order when he initially deposited funds into the non- compliant joint account and on two other occasions when the