Court Opinion

ID: 9645092
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:12:29.780719+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:22.877183
License: Public Domain

Arthur H. Healey, J.
(dissenting.) I cannot agree with the reasoning or the disposition of the majority. The majority concludes that all record owners of the property involved are necessary parties to this action and that we cannot finally resolve this appeal without them. I would readily agree with the majority if this were a quiet title action brought pursuant to General Statutes § 47-31. If it were, the plaintiff would then be required to “name the person or persons who may claim such adverse estate or interest” to which the statute earlier refers. General Statutes § 47-31. But the plaintiff’s action is clearly not one to quiet title. The plaintiff brought this action seeking equitable *376relief, which included a petition for a new trial, from a judgment of strict foreclosure. Her complaint challenges the legality of the procedure followed in the foreclosure action.
None of the cases cited by the majority involved a challenge to the validity of a foreclosure action and the proceedings that flowed from such an action, as this appeal does. Although the majority opinion refers to cases from other jurisdictions to support the conclusion that the record owners are necessary parties, it does not refer to a recent decision of this court I deem to be on point. In Hartford National Bank & Trust Co. v. Tucker, 181 Conn. 296, 435 A.2d 350 (1980), the defendant challenged the validity of a court ordered sale of property owned by him after a judgment of foreclosure had been rendered by the court. Because at the time the trial court ordered and later approved a sale of the property the case was still involved in the ongoing appellate process of this court as well as that of the United States Supreme Court, we declared that the trial court’s action was without legal authority. In setting aside the order of the court authorizing the sale and remanding the case for the setting of a new date for a public sale, we stated in a footnote: “As our disposition of this appeal makes clear, the sale of the property ... is void, and therefore, of no force and effect.” Hartford National Bank & Trust Co. v. Tucker, supra, n.5.
Although in Hartford National Bank & Trust Co. v. Tucker, supra, we concluded that the court’s action in ordering a sale of the property, pursuant to which a deed was executed and later approved by the court, was without judicial authority, we did so without the purchaser at that sale being a party *377to the action. While the purchaser could have been joined as a party in that case, his absence as one was of no consequence to our disposition. That action, like the present one, involved the disputed validity of a foreclosure judgment and the effect on the title to the property involved was only incidental to the dispute of that judgment. I believe that the holding of the majority is contrary to our precedent in Hartford National Bank & Trust Co. v. Tucker, supra.
This action is a dispute between just two parties, the plaintiff, Graham, and the defendant, Zimmerman. For the purpose of resolving the issues raised by these two parties on this appeal, the subsequent purchasers could add nothing, as not one of them was directly involved in the foreclosure action which generates this appeal. While it is true that, for purely practical purposes, it would have been to the plaintiff’s advantage not to withdraw the case with respect to the subsequent purchasers, her decision to do so is of no consequence to the resolution of the basic dispute between the plaintiff and the defendant, as is evident from the issues framed by them in this appeal. Moreover, and significantly in view of the majority’s holding, the subsequent purchasers appear to have recognized this fact when they agreed, by written stipulation which is part of the record, to permit a trial before a state referee solely between the plaintiff and the defendant on the issues, albeit without a waiver of any rights they might have as set out in the stipulation. Ordinarily, where a case is tried on a certain theory, we determine the appeal upon the same theory. See, e.g., Machiz v. Homer Harmon, Inc., 146 Conn. 523, 525, 152 A.2d 629 (1959); Jenkins v. Bishop Apart*378ments, Inc., 144 Conn. 389, 391, 132 A.2d 573 (1957); see also Maltbie, Conn. App. Proc. § 42. I believe we should do so here, especially because of this stipulation and the later withdrawal of the action against the former defendants.
The majority also indicates that it is significant that some of the subsequent purchasers of the property may have been bona fide purchasers for value. While a person’s status as a bona fide purchaser for value may be important where the recordation of interests in real estate is involved, it is not so here. It is well-recognized that where the conveying instrument is void “even a bona fide purchaser or mortgagee for value and without notice will not acquire an estate or interest as against the owner.” Burby, Real Property § 264, p. 489. Professor Cribbet, writing on the operation of recording systems, has stated: “Nor can recording give validity to a void deed or mortgage. Becording places on file, in a public place, the written evidence of a conveyance; if that conveyance was void for want of delivery, forgery, lack of capacity in the grantor due to infancy or insanity, etc., it is void still.” Cribbet, Principles of the Law of Property, p. 218. Since a deed that is obtained through or by a court acting without legal authority is void, it follows that any claim of title flowing from such a deed is void. This elementary principle of real property law makes clear that the validity of the title of subsequent purchasers depends upon the validity of the defendant Zimmerman’s title. The record owners whom the majority holds are necessary in this action are wholly unnecessary to the decision of the *379real issue of whether Zimmerman had valid title to the property involved pursuant to the foreclosure judgment.
Accordingly, I would reach the merits of the issues on this appeal and, therefore, I dissent.