Prime Bank v. Vitano, Inc.

Citations

• 198 Conn. App. 136

Syllabus

The plaintiff bank sought to recover damages from the defendant guarantor in connection with the alleged default by the borrower, A, on a certain promissory note. The defendant had entered into an agreement with the plaintiff providing that the defendant guaranteed payment of all liabilities owed to the plaintiff by A. A ceased making required payments on October 18, 2011, and the plaintiff subsequently obtained a judgment against A. Thereafter, the members of another entity, P Co., agreed to fund the monthly interest payment due on A's note, and did so until October, 2017, but ceased thereafter. The plaintiff then made a demand on the defendant pursuant to the guarantee agreement, which the defen- dant failed to satisfy, and the plaintiff commenced this action. Following a bench trial, the court rendered judgment in favor of the defendant, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court properly found that the plaintiff's cause of action to recover from the defendant on its guarantee of A's note accrued on October 18, 2011, and, therefore, was barred by the applicable six year statute of limitations (§ 52-576): the court found that, by the terms of the guarantee, A's default on October 18, 2011, immediately implicated the guarantee, and, found that the plaintiff was aware that it had a cause of action on October 18, 2011, as evidenced by its October 18, 2011 letter notifying the defendant it was commencing legal action against A and its filing of an action against A; moreover, the language of the guarantee expressly contravened the plaintiff's argument that its action against the defendant did not accrue on A's initial default but, rather, when partial payments by P Co. ceased; furthermore, this court has explicitly held that an action accrues on the date the note becomes due and payable, not the date of the debtor's last installment payment, and this court concluded that this holding should be extended to apply to actions on third-party g