Wheeler v. Beachcroft, LLC

Citations

• 210 Conn. App. 725

Syllabus

The defendant B Co., which owned a portion of a residential housing develop- ment adjacent to Long Island Sound, appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court summarily enforcing a settlement agreement among the parties to resolve a dispute over access to the shore. The plaintiffs, who owned interior lots in the development, had brought an action to quiet title to an avenue that ran through the development as well as to a lawn that abuts the sound at the end of the avenue. After most of the parties' claims were resolved during the course of the litigation, counsel for some of the parties informed the trial court that all of the parties had reached a settlement agreement and, thereafter, entered two interrelated agreements on the record during a pretrial hearing. The settlement agreement required, inter alia, that B Co. would quitclaim the avenue to the town of Branford and P Co., a municipal subdivision of the town, and grant the town an easement for the repair, maintenance and replacement of a certain drainpipe at the end of the avenue that ran toward the sound. After the court ordered that the case had been reported settled, B Co. claimed that the defendants J and E, who owned a waterfront lot in the development, had interfered with the execution of the settlement agreement. B Co. filed a motion seeking an order that J and E were bound by the agreement and had no right to interfere with its implementation but later withdrew its motions for order and to bind. J and E claimed that they were not bound by the agreement. At a later hearing on motions to enforce the agreement that were filed by the plaintiffs, the town and P Co., in which they asserted that J and E were not bound by the agreement, the plaintiffs' counsel did not represent that J and E had signed off on the agreement. The court then ordered the plaintiffs' counsel to file a proposed order regarding enforcement of the agreement. The court thereafter granted the plain- tiffs' motions to enfor