PPC Realty, LLC v. Hartford

Citations

• 350 Conn. 347

Syllabus

The defendant city appealed from the judgment of the trial court, which granted the plaintiff property owner's application to discharge a lien that the city had placed on the plaintiff's property pursuant to the relevant provisions (§§ 8-268 and 8-270) of the Uniform Relocation Assistance Act, in connection with the city's efforts to recover costs that it incurred when it relocated the tenants of the plaintiff's apartment building, which was destroyed by an act of arson and condemned under the city's building code. The city claimed that the trial court had incorrectly determined that the lien was invalid on the ground that the plaintiff's tenants were displaced as a result of a third party's arson and not the city's enforcement of its building code. Held: The tenants were ''displaced persons,'' as defined by statute (§ 8-267 (3) (B)), because, even though the fire that displaced them was not the plaintiff's fault, their displacement was a direct result of the city's enforcement of its building code. The trial court improperly allowed the plaintiff to challenge the validity of the lien by asserting an affirmative defense contemplated by the provision (§ 8-270a) of the act that allows a municipality or the state to recover relocation expenses from a landlord by bringing a civil action, as that affirma- tive defense is available to a landlord only in a civil action brought by a municipality or the state under § 8-270a and cannot be invoked in support of an application to discharge a lien filed pursuant to §§ 8-268 and 8-270. (One justice concurring separately) Argued March 25—officially released August 12, 2024