Longbottom v. Longbottom

Citations

• 197 Conn. App. 64

Syllabus

The plaintiff, whose marriage to the defendant previously had been dis- solved, appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court denying her motions to open and to modify the court's previous judgment modifying an educational support order. The parties' separation agree- ment, which was incorporated into the dissolution judgment, included a section pertaining to the division of costs for educational support for their daughter. That section did not contain terms setting forth a specific allocation of responsibility between the parties with regard to the educa- tional expenses but provided that the court would retain jurisdiction over the issue and that the judgment would remain modifiable. The defendant filed a postjudgment motion to modify the educational support order, seeking to establish each party's responsibility regarding their daughter's college costs and expenses, which the court granted, ordering that the plaintiff was responsible for 45 percent of the college costs and expenses for the 2017-2018 school year. Thereafter, the plaintiff filed a motion to open the judgment and a motion to modify the educational support order, alleging fraudulent nondisclosure on the part of the defen- dant with regard to his income. The court denied the plaintiff's motions, concluding that the plaintiff had the defendant's accurate financial infor- mation, and the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court did not fail to determine whether the plaintiff had met her burden of proof to establish the existence of probable cause that the defendant committed fraud by nondisclosure; the trial court's memo- randum of decision explicitly set forth the definition of fraud and the legal standard for opening a judgment when fraud is alleged before it ultimately denied the plaintiff's motions and it was implicit in the court's rejection of the plaintiff's claim that the court considered the facts as applied to the appropriate legal framework and made a determina