Starboard Fairfield Development, LLC v. Gremp

Citations

• 195 Conn. App. 21

Syllabus

The plaintiffs, S Co. and R Co., sought to recover damages arising out a dispute over real estate investments and the disentanglement of business relationships with the defendants, G and G Co. The plaintiffs brought counts against the defendants sounding in vexatious litigation, breach of a general release benefitting S Co. and its individual members, slander of title, intentional interference with a contract pertaining to certain property, breach of a fiduciary duty, and breach of a promissory note. Following a trial to the court, the trial court rendered judgment in part for the plaintiffs, form which the defendants appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendants' claim that the trial court improperly determined that they breached a general release with S Co. by pursuing a civil action against the plaintiffs was not reviewable; the defendants failed to brief their claim adequately, as their brief was utterly devoid of any citations to or analysis of applicable contract principles or case law that supported their claim, let alone any application of law to the facts of the case. 2. The defendants could not prevail on their claim that the trial court improp- erly found that they slandered R Co.'s title to certain property by filing a lis pendens and an affidavit of fact pertaining to that property on certain land records; the trial court, as the trier of fact, was free to discredit evidence provided by G at trial that a reasonable and good faith belief existed for his claim of ownership of R Co., which equated to an interest in the property, and having thoroughly reviewed the defen- dants' arguments on appeal, this court was not persuaded that the trial court's finding of a slander of title was either legally incorrect or factu- ally unsupported. 3. The defendants could not prevail on their claim that the trial court improp- erly found that they intentionally interfered with R Co.'s contract to sell certain property to a third party: although the defendants baldly st