Petrucelli v. Meriden

Citations

• 198 Conn. App. 838

Syllabus

The petitioner appealed to the Superior Court from the decision of the citation hearing officer for the respondent city upholding the issuance of a written notice to the petitioner for violation of the city's ordinance concerning abandoned, inoperable, or unregistered motor vehicles. After a de novo hearing, the trial court rendered judgment in favor of the city, and directed the city to enforce the judgment. On appeal to this court, the petitioner claimed, among other things, that the court errone- ously concluded that his due process rights had not been violated. Held that the trial court should have dismissed the petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction rather than addressing any of the petitioner's claims in the petition and directing the city to enforce the judgment: the peti- tioner did not have a statutory right to appeal to the Superior Court from the hearing officer's decision as the statute (§ 14-150a) pursuant to which the city expressly enacted the motor vehicle ordinance did not contain any language providing that an aggrieved individual had a right of appeal to the Superior Court from an adverse decision concern- ing a violation of an ordinance enacted pursuant to the statute; moreover, the petitioner could not prevail on his claim that a certain statute (§ 7- 152b) enabled him to appeal as the hearing officer's determination of a violation was based on § 14-150a, a statute that is not listed in § 7- 152b, and the hearing officer's decision was not an assessment for purposes of that statute, which unequivocally provided that the proce- dures set forth therein applied when a city sought to collect fines, penalties, costs, or fees imposed for alleged violations of ordinances enacted pursuant to certain statutes, and an assessment entered under § 7-152b required the payment of a monetary sum, which the hearing officer did not order the petitioner to pay; furthermore, our rule of practice (§ 23-51), which the petitioner also claimed enabled him to