Mystic Oil Co. v. Shaukat, LLC

Citations

• 228 Conn. App. 147

Syllabus

The defendants, a gasoline retailer and its guarantor, appealed from the trial court's award of damages to the plaintiff, a wholesale petroleum dealer, for breach of contract and breach of guarantee and from the grant of the plaintiff's motion for attorney's fees and costs. The defendants claimed, inter alia, that the trial court erred in awarding certain damages. Held: This court declined to review the defendants' unpreserved claim that they were not liable for point of sale fees charged after the plaintiff had stopped delivering fuel under the contract because the claim was inadequately briefed and because the defendants failed to provide the trial court with an eviden- tiary foundation to support their argument. Contrary to the defendants' assertions, there was sufficient evidence to support the trial court's damages determination with respect to the cost of unpaid fuel deliveries. The trial court did not err in awarding the plaintiff damages for the unreim- bursed sales tax that it had prepaid or for the balance of the cost of two fuel dispensers it had delivered because the court previously had granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment as to liability with respect to those claims and the hearing in damages did not constitute an opportunity for the defendants to attempt to undo the liability findings. The trial court incorrectly granted the plaintiff's motion for attorney's fees and costs because, in the absence of an evidentiary hearing, the defendants were deprived of their ability to litigate fully the issue of the reasonableness of the requested fees and costs. Argued February 1—officially released September 17, 2024