Marciniszyn v. Board of Education

Citations

• 230 Conn. App. 592

Syllabus

The plaintiffs, a self-represented nonattorney father and his minor son by and through the father as next friend, appealed from the trial court's denial of their petition for a bill of discovery. They claimed, inter alia, that the court erred when it determined that they had failed to establish probable cause for their claims that the defendants had discriminated against the son in denying him admission to a public high school program in violation of several federal civil rights laws. Held: This court properly considered, sua sponte, the issue of the plaintiff father's standing to bring this appeal in his individual capacity and of his authority to proceed in a representative capacity as a self-represented nonattorney on behalf of his minor son, as exceptional circumstances warranted this court's review, the parties have been afforded an opportunity to be heard, the plaintiffs have failed to raise a colorable claim of prejudice, and the record was adequate for review, even though the parties did not raise the issue in their principal briefs. The plaintiff father had standing in his individual capacity to appeal from the trial court's decision denying the petition for a bill of discovery, as he was classically aggrieved by the court's decision in that, as one of two plaintiffs in the proceedings before the court, he suffered an injury when the court denied his request to act pursuant to its common-law authority to issue the bill. The plaintiff father, notwithstanding his aggrievement by the trial court's decision, did not have standing to bring the action in his individual capacity in the first instance because he was not classically aggrieved, as a review of the petition revealed that the injuries alleged therein were exclusively injuries to his minor son and not to him, and the court should have dismissed the petition as to the father for lack of subject matter jurisdiction rather than denying it. This court dismissed the appeal as to the minor son as the plaintiff