United Cleaning & Restoration, LLC v. Koskerides

Citations

• 234 Conn. App. 401

Syllabus

The defendants, commercial property owners, appealed from the trial court's judgment for the plaintiff, a cleaning and restoration construction company, on its breach of contract claim and on the defendants' counterclaim, and from the court's award of attorney's fees to the plaintiff. The defendants claim, inter alia, that the court made clearly erroneous factual findings in connection with its conclusions that the plaintiff had proved its claim that the defendants failed to pay the plaintiff for work performed to repair and remediate the defendants' property after it was damaged in a fire. Held: The trial court's finding that the plaintiff had substantially performed its contractual obligations, despite the defendants' allegation that the plaintiff failed to obtain a warranty for the property's roof, was not clearly erroneous, as this finding was supported by evidence in the record that the plaintiff was unable to obtain the roof warranty due to the defendants' failure to provide instructions to the plaintiff that would have allowed the plaintiff to obtain a final inspection from the roof manufacturer, and this court was not left with a definite and firm conviction that a mistake had been committed. The trial court's finding that the plaintiff's completion of phase two of the contract constituted substantial performance was not clearly erroneous, as, although the plaintiff's work took longer than the four months specified in the contract, the timeliness of the plaintiff's work was never an issue, from which the court could have concluded that the parties did not intend for time to be of the essence. The trial court's finding that the plaintiff substantially performed under the contract, despite having failed to obtain a certificate of occupancy, was not clearly erroneous, as the court reasonably could have concluded that the plaintiff's failure did not deprive the defendants of a benefit reasonably expected in light of the terms and scope of the contract, and that