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*********************************************** 
111 CLEARVIEW DRIVE, LLC v. LOIS PATRICK ET AL.

(AC 45702)

Bright, C. J., and Elgo and Cradle, Js.

Syllabus

The plaintiff property owner sought, by way of a summary process action,

to recover possession of certain real property occupied by the defendants. A tax foreclosure action related to the property had previously

been brought against, inter alia, J and H. The defendants were not named

in the foreclosure action. The defendant L filed multiple motions in

the foreclosure action attempting to intervene, claiming that she had

acquired a two-thirds interest in the property upon J’s death and that,

after the court rendered a judgment of foreclosure by sale, she had

acquired the remaining one-third interest in the property from the heirs

of H. The court in the foreclosure action denied L’s motion to intervene

on behalf of the two-thirds interest in the property as untimely and

dismissed L’s motion to open and vacate the foreclosure judgment on

behalf of the one-third interest in the property as moot. The property

was subsequently sold and, after the sale was approved by the court in

the foreclosure action, the buyer conveyed the property to the plaintiff.

L subsequently commenced a quiet title action regarding the property,

which was dismissed by the court as an improper collateral attack on

the foreclosure judgment. The plaintiff initiated the present summary

process action while the quiet title action was pending before the trial

court, seeking immediate possession of the property. After the trial court

dismissed the quiet title action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction,

and while the appeal from that dismissal was pending before this court,

the plaintiff filed a motion in limine in the present action seeking to

exclude from the trial of the summary process action any evidence that

contradicted or collaterally attacked the foreclosure judgment or the

quiet title action. The court granted the motion in limine, and, during

the subsequent trial in the summary process action, the court sustained

the objections of the plaintiff’s counsel to exhibits and evidence associated with the foreclosure action. The court subsequently rendered judgment for possession of the property for the plaintiff, and the defendants

appealed to this court. Held that the defendants could not prevail on

their claim that the trial court improperly granted the plaintiff’s motion

in limine, this court having concluded that it was legally and logically

correct for the trial court to grant the motion in limine because the

record dispositively established that the defendants’ evidence of an

ownership interest in the property was irrelevant as a matter of law:

although the defendants claimed that the trial court improperly relied

on the doctrine of collateral estoppel when it granted the motion in

limine, the record did not support that assertion, as the trial court stated

several times during the trial that the motion in limine was related to

a collateral attack on a prior judgment; moreover, as explained further

in the companion case of Patrick v. 111 Clearview Drive, LLC(224 Conn.

App. 401), the trial court correctly determined that the only purpose of

the evidence was to support nonjusticiable claims and, therefore, the

defendants’ challenge to the foreclosure judgment was improper because

the court could offer no practical relief to the defendants; furthermore,

for the reasons discussed in Patrick v. 111 Clearview Drive, LLC,

supra, 224 Conn. App. 418–419, the defendants’ claim that L retained

an ownership interest in the property as an omitted party from the

foreclosure action pursuant to statute (§ 49-30) was without merit, as

§ 49-30 was not relevant given that L attempted to directly attack the

foreclosure judgment in the foreclosure action but was unsuccessful in

those efforts.

Argued September 14, 2023—officially released March 26, 2024

Procedural History

Summary process action, brought to the Superior

Court in the judicial district of Fairfield, Housing Ses-
sion, where the court, Hon. William Holden, judge trial

referee, granted the plaintiff’s motion in limine to preclude certain evidence; thereafter, Justin Patrick and

Julian Patrick were substituted for the defendants John

Doe and John Doe; subsequently, the matter was tried

to the court, Hon. William Holden, judge trial referee;

judgment for the plaintiff, from which the named defendant et al. appealed to this court. Affirmed.

Earle Giovanniello, for the appellants (named defendant et al.).

James R. Winkel, for the appellee (plaintiff).
Opinion

ELGO, J. In this summary process action, the defendants Lois Patrick, Justin Patrick, and Julian Patrick1

appeal from the judgment of possession rendered by

the trial court in favor of the plaintiff, 111 Clearview

Drive, LLC. On appeal, the defendants claim that the

trial court improperly granted the plaintiff’s motion in

limine, which precluded them from presenting certain

evidence to support their claim that Lois was an omitted

party in the related foreclosure action of Benchmark

Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. v. Roundtree, Superior

Court, judicial district of Fairfield, Docket No. CV-16-

6059553-S (Benchmark action and/or Benchmark judgment), and thus maintained a legitimate and legally

viable interest in the property in question. We affirm

the judgment of the trial court.

Patrick v. 111 Clearview Drive, LLC, 224 Conn. App.

401, A.3d (2024), is a companion case that we

also release today. The facts, procedural history, and

legal analysis relevant to resolving the two cases are

substantially similar. The relevant facts and procedural

history are as follows: ‘‘On August 29, 2016, Benchmark

Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. (Benchmark), recorded a

notice of lis pendens on the Bridgeport land records

for the property known as 44 Wentworth Street (property).2 On September 26, 2016, Benchmark commenced

a tax foreclosure action involving the property against

Erma Jean Roundtree (Erma Jean), Eunice H.

Roundtree (Eunice), and others not relevant to this

[summary process] action. See Benchmark Municipal

Tax Services, Ltd. v. Roundtree, [supra, Superior Court,

Docket No. CV-16-6059553-S]. The [defendants were

not] named . . . in the Benchmark action. A judgment

of foreclosure by sale was rendered in the Benchmark

action on December 12, 2016. After the judgment was

opened, a second judgment of foreclosure by sale was

rendered on December 4, 2017, and the court ordered

a sale date of May 5, 2018. The sale of the property

proceeded as scheduled, with Khurram Ali emerging as

the successful bidder. The court approved the sale on

August 28, 2020, and Ali conveyed the property to [the

plaintiff] on February 6, 2021, by quitclaim deed. During

and after the pendency of the Benchmark action, [Lois]

filed multiple motions with the court in an attempt to

intervene, asserting an ownership interest in the property. [Lois] claimed that she had acquired a two-thirds

interest in the property on October 29, 2017, upon the

death of Erma Jean by descent as Erma Jean’s only

heir, and a one-third interest in the property by quitclaim deed on April 17, 2021, from the heirs of Eunice,

who died on June 5, 2020. The court denied [Lois’]

motion to intervene on behalf of the two-thirds interest

in the property as untimely and dismissed [her] motion

to open and vacate the Benchmark judgment on behalf

of the one-third interest in the property as moot.3

[Lois]
made additional attempts to litigate her alleged interest

in the property, all of which were unsuccessful.4

‘‘[Lois] commenced [a] quiet title action in May, 2021,

and, in July, 2021, filed a revised complaint in accordance with General Statutes § 47-315

regarding her

alleged interests in the property.’’ (Footnotes in original.) Patrick v. 111 Clearview Drive, LLC, supra, 224

Conn. App. 403–405. ‘‘In a memorandum of decision

issued on March 7, 2022, the court dismissed [the quiet

title] action as ‘an improper collateral attack on the

foreclosure judgment.’ ’’ Id., 406, 407. Lois appealed

from that decision, and the resulting opinion by this

court is substantially related to the resolution of the

defendants’ motion in limine claim in this appeal. See

id., 407.

The present action was initiated in September, 2021,

while the quiet title action was pending before the trial

court. The plaintiff initiated a summary process action

against the defendants and others living at the property,

seeking immediate possession of the property. Lois filed

an answer to the complaint, along with special defenses

alleging that (1) ‘‘[t]he plaintiff does not have good title

to the property’’ and (2) ‘‘[t]he defendant [Lois] is the

owner of the property.’’ The plaintiff denied the allegations made in the special defenses. After the trial court

dismissed the quiet title action for lack of subject matter

jurisdiction because it constituted an improper collateral attack on a final judgment, and while the appeal

from that dismissal was pending before this court, the

plaintiff filed the motion in limine at issue. The motion

in limine sought ‘‘to exclude certain evidence at the

trial of this summary process action . . . [s]pecifically

. . . to preclude any evidence . . . that contradicts or

collaterally attacks the . . . [Benchmark judgment], as

well as the . . . [quiet title action].’’ The court granted

the motion on May 25, 2022.

The court held a trial on the summary process action

over the course of two days. During the first day of

that trial, on June 15, 2022, Lois’ counsel asked the court

to respond to her motion for clarification regarding the

grant of the plaintiff’s motion in limine, specifically, to

articulate the scope of what was to be precluded as

well as the basis for the exclusion. The court stated that

Lois was precluded from presenting evidence attacking

the Benchmark judgment, the Benchmark foreclosure

proceedings, ‘‘[t]he committee deed by which Ali took

title, [and] the quiet title action, as such would constitute an impermissible collateral attack on a final judgment . . . .’’ The court stated that ‘‘the motion in limine

stands’’ over the objection that Lois was an omitted

party to the Benchmark action.6

Accordingly, at the trial on both June 15 and August 3,

2022, the court sustained the objections of the plaintiff’s

counsel to exhibits and evidence associated with the

Benchmark action. At the conclusion of the summary
process trial, the court rendered judgment for possession of the property in favor of the plaintiff. From that

judgment, the defendants now appeal.

As a preliminary matter, we note that the applicable

standard of review is dependent upon the characterization of the trial court’s ruling. ‘‘Evidentiary claims ordinarily are governed by the abuse of discretion standard.

. . . That deferential standard, however, does not apply

when the trial court’s ruling on the motion in limine

. . . was based on [a] legal determination . . . .’’ (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.)

Grovenburg v. Rustle Meadow Associates, LLC, 174

Conn. App. 18, 68, 165 A.3d 193 (2017). At the trial on

June 15, 2022, in response to the defendants’ request

to clarify the basis of the court’s ruling on the motion

in limine, the court stated, ‘‘what we have here [is] a

collateral attack on the judgment of the court.’’ The

court’s reasoning for granting the motion in limine was

thus based on a legal determination that the admission

of the proffered evidence would ultimately permit a

collateral attack on a final judgment. ‘‘Accordingly, the

applicable standard of review requires this court to

determine whether the trial court was legally and logically correct when it decided, under the facts of the

case, to exclude evidence of [the Benchmark action

and the quiet title action]. . . . Our review, therefore,

is plenary.’’ (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks

omitted.) Grovenburg v. Rustle Meadow Associates,

LLC, supra, 68.

On appeal, the defendants claim that the court

improperly based its decision to grant the motion in

limine on the doctrine of collateral estoppel, which the

defendants argue does not apply to this case because

(1) they were not parties to the underlying Benchmark

action, and (2) the quiet title action was on appeal at

that time. The defendants thus ask this court to remand

the case for further proceedings to allow them to ‘‘present evidence supporting their claim that [Lois] was an

omitted party in the [Benchmark] action . . . .’’

Although the defendants assert that the court improperly relied on the doctrine of collateral estoppel when

granting the motion in limine, that assertion is not supported by the record. During the June 15, 2022 proceedings, the court stated five separate times that the motion

in limine was related to a collateral attack on a prior

judgment.7 Therefore, the record demonstrates that the

court’s basis for granting the motion in limine was to

exclude evidence that would result in an improper collateral attack on the Benchmark judgment.

Next, we must determine if the court’s decision to

grant the motion in limine was legally and logically

correct. ‘‘The purpose of a motion in limine is to exclude

irrelevant, inadmissible and prejudicial evidence from

trial . . . .’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) State

v. Lo Sacco, 26 Conn. App. 439, 444, 602 A.2d 589 (1992).
It follows that a court properly may determine that

evidence proffered by a party is irrelevant when its only

purpose is to support a claim that is nonjusticiable.

‘‘Because courts are established to resolve actual controversies, before a claimed controversy is entitled to

a resolution on the merits it must be justiciable. . . .

Justiciability requires . . . that the determination of

the controversy will result in practical relief to the complainant. . . . [J]usticiability comprises several related

doctrines, namely, standing, ripeness, mootness and the

political question doctrine.’’ (Internal quotation marks

omitted.) Peck v. Statewide Grievance Committee, 198

Conn. App. 233, 247, 232 A.3d 1279 (2020).

The legal analysis contained in parts I and II of the

companion case, Patrick v. 111 Clearview Drive, LLC,

supra, 224 Conn. App. 409–419, is dispositive of the

claim presented in this appeal. There is no useful purpose to repeat that legal analysis here. For the reasons

explained in that opinion; see id., 409–418; we conclude

that the court correctly granted the motion in limine

because the only purpose of the evidence was to support nonjusticiable claims. As we explained in that companion opinion, the defendants’ challenge to the Benchmark judgment was improper because ‘‘the court can

offer no practical relief to the party collaterally

attacking the prior judgment, rendering the action nonjusticiable.’’ Peck v. Statewide Grievance Committee,

supra, 198 Conn. App. 248.

Furthermore, for the reasons discussed in the companion case, the defendants’ claim that Lois retains an

ownership interest in the property as an omitted party8

from the Benchmark judgment is without merit. See

Patrick v. 111 Clearview Drive, LLC, supra, 224 Conn.

App. 418, 419. As we discussed in that opinion, General

Statutes § 49-30 is not relevant given that Lois attempted

to directly attack the Benchmark judgment in the underlying action but was unsuccessful in those efforts. Id.

We therefore conclude that it was legally and logically

correct for the court to grant the motion in limine

because the record dispositively establishes that the

defendants’ evidence of an ownership interest in the

property was irrelevant as a matter of law.

The judgment is affirmed.

In this opinion the other judges concurred.

1 The operative complaint named Lois Patrick, John Doe, John Doe, Jane

Doe, and Jane Doe as defendants. The court subsequently granted motions

to substitute Justin Patrick and Julian Patrick as defendants for John Doe

and John Doe. A motion for default for failure to appear was granted against

defendants Jane Doe and Jane Doe. For purposes of clarity, we refer to the

defendants individually by first name and collectively refer to Lois Patrick,

Justin Patrick, and Julian Patrick as the defendants.

2

‘‘We note the well established principle that a court ‘may take judicial

notice of the file in another case, whether or not the other case is between

the same parties . . . .’ . . . Rogalis, LLC v. Vazquez, 210 Conn. App. 548,

556, 270 A.3d 120 (2022).’’ Patrick v. 111 Clearview Drive, LLC, supra, 224

Conn. App. 404 n.2.

3

‘‘On April 6, 2018, after acquiring the two-thirds interest in the property

from Erma Jean, [Lois] filed motions to intervene and to open and vacate
the Benchmark judgment. Those motions were denied as untimely under

General Statutes § 52-325 (a) on May 1, 2018, and [Lois] did not appeal those

determinations. On May 10, 2021, after obtaining Eunice’s one-third interest

in the property by quitclaim deed, [Lois] filed a motion to open and vacate

the Benchmark judgment. That motion was dismissed as moot ‘[p]er oral

record’ on June 2, 2021. On June 16, 2021, [Lois] filed a motion to reconsider

the court’s dismissal of the motion to open and vacate the judgment. The

court issued an order on June 16, 2021, stating that it had ‘reviewed this

motion for reconsideration and [was] not changing its ruling on the underlying motion.’ [Lois] did not appeal that order.’’ Patrick v. 111 Clearview

Drive, LLC, supra, 224 Conn. App. 404, 405 n.3.

4

‘‘[Lois’] additional attempts to challenge the Benchmark judgment

included the following. On August 31, 2020, [Lois] filed a request to stay

the proceedings until a legal representative could be appointed to represent

the interests of Eunice, who died on June 5, 2020. That request was dismissed

on September 16, 2020. [Lois] filed another motion to open the judgment

and vacate orders on September 8, 2020, which was dismissed on September

16, 2020, because [she] was not a party to the underlying action. On September 16, 2020, [Lois] filed a motion to reargue and reconsider the order

approving the sale of the property, which was denied on September 30,

2020. From that decision, [Lois] filed an appeal with this court, which was

dismissed on January 13, 2021, for lack of standing as [she] was not a party

to the underlying action.’’ Patrick v. 111 Clearview Drive, LLC, supra, 224

Conn. App. 405 n.4.

5

‘‘General Statutes § 47-31 (a) provides in relevant part: ‘An action [to

settle title or claim an interest in real property] may be brought by any

person claiming title to, or any interest in, real . . . property . . . against

any person who may claim to own the property . . . or to have any interest

in the property . . . for the purpose of determining such . . . interest or

claim, and to clear up all doubts and disputes and to quiet and settle the

title to the property. Such action may be brought whether or not the plaintiff

is entitled to the immediate or exclusive possession of the property.’ ’’

Patrick v. 111 Clearview Drive, LLC, supra, 224 Conn. App. 405 n.5.

6 Upon request of the plaintiff and over the objection of the defendants,

the court applied that ruling to Justin and Julian on August 3, 2022. During

oral argument before this court, the defendants’ counsel acknowledged that

Justin and Julian are in privity with Lois and may only have an interest in

the property if she has a viable ownership interest. Accordingly, any holding

relating to Lois’ ownership interest in the property extends to Justin and

Julian as well.

7 The court mentioned collateral estoppel one time during the June 15,

2022 proceedings. The record indicates that this mention was in the context

of quoting language from the plaintiff’s motion in limine and not as the basis

for granting that motion. Specifically, the court stated: ‘‘I’m reading from

the request of the plaintiff: ‘introducing testimony seeking to attack the

foreclosure judgment or the foreclosure action proceedings, the committee

deed by which Ali took title, or the quiet title action as such would constitute

an impermissible collateral attack on a final judgment, and it’s precluded,

and the collateral estoppel . . . would be inequitable given the actions.’ ’’

Read in context, it appears that the court was merely quoting and/or paraphrasing the plaintiff’s motion in limine, which had included collateral estoppel as an alternative ground on which evidence related to the Benchmark

action should be excluded.

8 General Statutes § 49-30 is titled ‘‘Omission of parties in foreclosure

actions’’ and provides in relevant part: ‘‘When a mortgage or lien on real

estate has been foreclosed and one or more parties owning any interest in

. . . such real estate . . . has been omitted or has not been foreclosed

. . . because of improper service of process or for any other reason . . .

[s]uch omission or failure to properly foreclose such party or parties may

be completely cured and cleared by deed or foreclosure or other proper

legal proceedings to which the only necessary parties shall be the party

acquiring such foreclosure title, or his successor in title, and the party or

parties thus not foreclosed, or their respective successors in title.’’