Ryder v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Assn.

Citations

• 227 Conn. App. 114

Syllabus

The plaintiff appealed from the judgment of the trial court, rendered after a jury trial, for the defendant bank. Following certain litigation over two mortgages on the plaintiff's property, the parties executed a settle- ment and release agreement and a loan modification agreement. After the defendant commenced a foreclosure action against the plaintiff, claiming that he had defaulted on the modified loan, the plaintiff initiated the underlying action against the defendant, claiming, inter alia, breach of the loan modification agreement and settlement agreement, to which the defendant asserted the special defense of setoff. The jury returned its verdict, pursuant to which it found for the plaintiff on the count of his complaint alleging breach of the settlement agreement, and it awarded damages in the amount of $350,000. The jury also found that the defen- dant had proven that, due to the plaintiff's ongoing default in his loan obligations, the plaintiff was indebted to the defendant for more than $4 million. The jury subtracted the amount of the indebtedness from the damages award on the interrogatories form. The jury, however, returned a verdict for the plaintiff. Following clarifying instructions from the court, the jury returned a defendant's verdict on all counts of the complaint consistent with its responses to the interrogatories. The plain- tiff filed various postverdict motions, which the court denied. Held: 1. This court declined to review the plaintiff's claims that the trial court improperly denied his motions to set aside the verdict and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict as those claims were unpreserved: the plain- tiff never sought to challenge the legal sufficiency of the defendant's setoff defense by filing a motion to strike in accordance with the rules of practice and failed to distinctly raise his claim that the setoff defense was invalid prior to the submission of the case to the jury; moreover, the plaintiff failed to preserve his claim