Gaddy v. Mount Vernon Fire Ins. Co. ( 2019 )

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CHARLES H. GADDY v. MOUNT VERNON FIRE
INSURANCE COMPANY ET AL.
(AC 41130)
Bright, Devlin and Eveleigh, Js.
Syllabus
The plaintiff appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court
granting the motion for summary judgment filed by the defendants. The
plaintiff claimed that the trial court improperly concluded that his claims
were barred by the applicable statute of limitations. Held that the trial
court properly granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment
and rendered judgment for the defendants; the claims that the plaintiff
raised on appeal were essentially the same claims that he raised in the
trial court and, because those issues were properly resolved in the trial
court’s thoughtful and comprehensive memorandum of decision, this
court adopted that court’s well reasoned memorandum of decision as
a statement of the facts and the applicable law on those issues.
Argued May 28—officially released September 3, 2019
Procedural History
Action seeking, inter alia, to recover proceeds alleg-
edly due under an insurance policy issued by the defen-
dants, and for other relief, brought to the Superior Court
in the judicial district of Hartford, where the court,
Noble, J., denied the plaintiff’s motion for summary
judgment and granted the defendants’ motion for sum-
mary judgment, and rendered judgment thereon, from
which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Affirmed.
Mario Cerame, with whom, on the brief, were Juri
E. Taalman, Joseph R. Serrantino and Timothy Brig-
nole, for the appellant (plaintiff).
Beverly Knapp Anderson, for the appellees
(defendants).
Opinion
PER CURIAM. The plaintiff, Charles H. Gaddy,
appeals from the summary judgment rendered by the
trial court in favor of the defendants, Mount Vernon
Fire Insurance Company and United States Liability
Insurance Group. On appeal, the plaintiff claims that
the court improperly concluded that his claims were
barred by the applicable statute of limitations. We
disagree.
The claims raised by the plaintiff on appeal essentially
are the same claims he raised in the trial court when he
opposed the defendants’ motion for summary judgment
and argued in favor of his own motion for summary
judgment. We have examined the record on appeal,
including the briefs and arguments of the parties, and
we conclude that the judgment of the trial court should
be affirmed. The issues raised by the plaintiff were
resolved properly in the thoughtful and comprehensive
memorandum of decision filed by the trial court, Noble,
J. Because Judge Noble’s memorandum of decision also
fully addresses the arguments raised in the present
appeal,1 we adopt the trial court’s well reasoned deci-
sion as a statement of the facts and the applicable law
on those issues. See Gaddy v. Mount Vernon Fire Ins.
Co., Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket
No. CV-XX-XXXXXXX-S (October 16, 2017) (reprinted at
192 Conn. App. , A.3d ). It would serve no
useful purpose for us to repeat those facts or the discus-
sion here. See, e.g., Tzovolos v. Wiseman, 300 Conn.
247, 253–54, 12 A.3d 563 (2011).
The judgment is affirmed.
1
In addition to the claims he raised before the trial court, the plaintiff,
on appeal, also argues that a recent case, Cadle Co. v. Ogalin, 175 Conn.
App. 1, 167 A.3d 402, cert. denied, 327 Conn. 930, 171 A.3d 454 (2017),
establishes that, pursuant to General Statutes § 52-598, he, as a judgment
creditor, has twenty-five years to bring suit against the defendants, which
he claims are judgment debtors. We disagree that Cadle Co. applies to the
plaintiff’s situation. Because the plaintiff has never obtained a judgment
against these defendants, they, as a matter of law, are not judgment debtors
in this case. In an attempt to avoid this obvious conclusion, the plaintiff
argued, for the first time in a motion for reargument and reconsideration,
that the defendants are the ‘‘alter ego’’ of their insured, the actual judgment
debtor. The court denied the plaintiff’s motion, and the plaintiff has not
argued on appeal that it was error for the court to do so. Furthermore,
other than a bald assertion that the defendants are the alter ego of their
insured, neither the plaintiff’s principal brief nor his reply brief contain any
analysis of such a claim. For these reasons, any such claim is deemed
abandoned. See NRT New England, LLC v. Jones, 162 Conn. App. 840, 856,
134 A.3d 632 (2016).