Onthank v. Onthank

Citations

• 206 Conn. App. 54

Syllabus

The plaintiff sought to recover damages for, inter alia, breach of contract, alleging that the defendants had failed to make all payments required under a promissory note. The trial court rendered judgment for the plaintiff on his breach of contract claim and rejected the defendants' special defenses, including their defense that the plaintiff failed to allege or establish that he had fulfilled every condition precedent prior to bringing an action on the promissory note. On the defendants' appeal to this court, held: 1. This court affirmed the judgment of the trial court as to the breach of contract claim on the ground that the plaintiff substantially complied with the notice of default provision in the promissory note under the circumstances of this case; although the plaintiff did not send the letter declaring default by certified mail, as required by the notice provision in the promissory note, there was no contractual requirement of proof of actual delivery, the defendants did not contest that they had actual notice of the declaration of default, and any noncompliance by the plaintiff with the requisite method of delivery as provided in the promis- sory note did not result in any prejudice to the defendants. 2. The trial court's award of damages was not clearly erroneous, as there was ample evidence in the record to support its finding that the defen- dants were not entitled to a $120,000 credit for the purported value of certain stock provided to the plaintiff as security; the share value for the stock claimed by the defendants was based on market transactions in December, 2015, but the plaintiff did not have an obligation under the note to sell the shares until after he declared a default in September, 2016, the defendants provided no evidence as to the value of the shares at the time of the declaration of default, the evidence actually revealed substantial fluctuations in the stock price over the years, and there was evidence that the shares were not accessib