Kosel Equity, LLC v. MacGregor

Syllabus

The plaintiff landlord appealed to this court, upon certification by the Chief Justice pursuant to statute (§ 52-265a) that a matter of public interest was involved, from the trial court's decision to grant the motion of the Middle- town Fair Rent Commission to intervene in the plaintiff's summary process action against the defendant tenant, M, which was based on, inter alia, M's alleged nonpayment of rent. Before moving to intervene in the summary process action, the commission had issued two decisions in response to cer- tain fair rent commission complaints that M had filed against the plaintiff. In those decisions, the commission found, inter alia, that the plaintiff had retaliated against M by serving him with a notice to quit within six months of the filing of his initial fair rent commission complaint, in violation of statute (§ 47a-20), and ordered the plaintiff to cease and desist from pursu- ing eviction proceedings and to accept a certain amount as monthly rent during the pendency of the initial complaint. The plaintiff filed separate administrative appeals in the Superior Court from the commission's two decisions, and those appeals remained pending at the time of the present appeal. In its motion to intervene, the commission had explained that its purpose in intervening was to enforce its cease and desist order, to defend its capacity to adjudicate complaints and issue orders, and to protect the public policy undergirding fair rent commissions more broadly. On appeal, the plaintiff claimed that the trial court had improperly granted the com- mission's motion to intervene. Held: A review of the relationship between the fair rent commission statutes (§§ 7-148b through 7-148f) and the relevant landlord-tenant and summary pro- cess statutes (§§ 47a-20, 47a-20a and 47a-33) made it clear that, although fair rent and summary process proceedings involve separate adjudications before different decision makers, there is a substantive connection between the subject