Office Condominium Assn., Inc v. Rompre

Syllabus

The plaintiff condominium association sought to foreclose a statutory lien for, inter alia, unpaid common charges on a condominium unit owned by the defendant M, and, thereafter, M filed a counterclaim. The trial court granted M's motion for summary judgment on the foreclosure complaint and M amended her counterclaim to add counts, including vexatious litigation and slander of title. The condominium association filed a motion for summary judgment on the counterclaim, which the trial court granted on all counts except the count for attorney's fees pursuant to statute (§ 47-278), a provision of the Common Interest Own- ership Act. Thereafter, M and the defendant B appealed to this court. Held that this court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal and, accordingly, the appeal was dismissed; the appeal was not taken from a final judgment as the trial court left a substantive claim unre- solved, the claim for attorney's fees having been based on alleged under- lying violations of the Common Interest Ownership Act that required the court to conduct a hearing on the merits to determine whether any such violation occurred during the foreclosure and not simply the amount of attorney's fees to be awarded after a violation has been found, and, therefore, a count remained open following the court's ruling on the condominium association's motion for summary judgment. Argued October 24, 2019—officially released March 10, 2020