Nationstar Mortgage, LLC v. Giacomi

Citations

• 226 Conn. App. 467

Syllabus

The plaintiff sought to foreclose on certain real property owned by the defendants G and his wife. After several failed attempts to serve G with process, the court granted the motion of the substitute plaintiff, U Co., to cite in G as a party defendant, and U Co. filed a revised complaint. Thereafter, G failed to file a timely pleading in response to the operative complaint by the deadline for doing so under the rule of practice (§ 10- 8), and the court granted U Co.'s motion to default G for failure to plead and rendered a judgment of foreclosure by sale. G subsequently filed a motion to open and vacate the judgment of foreclosure, which the court denied. On G's appeal to this court, held: 1. G could not prevail on his claims challenging the trial court's underlying default judgment of foreclosure; neither G's claim that he wrongfully was denied participation in the foreclosure mediation program due to procedural delays nor his claim that the court erroneously denied his request to revise the complaint constituted a proper challenge to the court's judgment that G had been defaulted for failure to plead, as the effect of the default was to preclude G from denying liability for the claims asserted in the complaint and to permit the rendering of judgment in favor of U Co. 2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying G's motion to open the default judgment; the court found, inter alia, that G's proffered justification for failing to file a timely pleading, namely, that he had an erroneous understanding of the pleading deadline at issue, did not satisfy the second prong of the applicable statute (§ 52-212 (a)) because it was not the result of mistake, accident or excusable neglect but was rooted in G's own negligence. Argued January 29—officially released July 2, 2024