Three Deer Associates Ltd. Partnership v. Johnson

Citations

• 223 Conn. App. 544

Syllabus

The plaintiff landlord sought, by way of a summary process action, to recover possession of certain real property that had been leased to the defendant J. The parties thereafter entered into a stipulated summary process agreement, which provided that a judgment of possession would be rendered for the plaintiff, subject to a stay of execution and a use and occupancy fee. The agreement further provided that the stay of execution was final and that J agreed not to reopen, appeal, or request any further stay of execution. The trial court rendered judgment in accordance with the agreement. J subsequently filed a motion to open the judgment, seeking an extension of the stay of execution, which the trial court denied on the grounds that, inter alia, the parties had entered into the agreement with the assistance of a housing court specialist, the parties understood the terms of the voluntary agreement, and J had affirmed that she would not seek, inter alia, further extensions of time or motions to open. J then filed a second motion to open the judgment, again seeking an extension of the stay to allow J to secure housing, which the trial court denied on the same grounds as the first motion to open. J appealed to this court, challenging, inter alia, the trial court's denial of her second motion to open and claiming that the stipulated summary process judgment should be vacated. Held that, on the basis of its review of the record and having afforded every reasonable pre- sumption in favor of the trial court's action, this court could not conclude that the trial court acted unreasonably or in clear abuse of its discretion when it denied the second motion to open the stipulated summary process judgment; moreover, this court lacked subject matter jurisdic- tion over that portion of J's appeal that challenged the stipulated sum- mary process judgment, as J did not file her appeal within five days of the underlying stipulated summary process judgment as required by statute (§ 47a-3