Court Opinion

ID: 9749743
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 17:01:58.61917+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:57.212955
License: Public Domain

Arthur H. Healey, J.
(concurring). I concur in the result reached by the majority but not in the route used to attain it. General Statutes § 49-13 is a statute that gives only a narrow and limited jurisdiction. See Simonelli v. Fitzgerald, 156 Conn. 49, 53-54, 238 A.2d 418 (1968). “The statute [§ 49-13] gives the court no jurisdiction to determine the validity or invalidity of a disputed mortgage of long standing.” (Emphasis added.) Simonelli v. Fitzgerald, supra, 54. The purpose of such a statute “is to provide a simple method whereby a mortgage, the invalidity of which is undisputed, may be declared invalid by the court and removed as a cloud on the title to the property.” (Emphasis added.) Simonelli v. Fitzgerald, supra. It is thus apparent from Simonelli that the validity or invalidity of a mortgage is a determination a court has no jurisdiction to make under § 49-13. The trial court, however, did hold that this mortgage was usurious thus determining its validity — a holding it was clearly without jurisdiction to make. Having done this, it was also without jurisdiction to do anything further in the name of, or under, § 49-13 and it was without jurisdiction to reach the matter of the evidence of “recognition” of the mortgage which the majority has little difficulty in *488doing. Simply put, § 49-13, under Simonelli, cannot afford relief where there is a mortgage of disputed validity. "We are presented with a mortgage determined to be invalid and to brush the absence of the jurisdictional predicate aside and reach the recognition of the mortgage issue eviscerates the jurisdictional grant of § 49-13.
The case of Kaufman v. Samuelson, 134 N.J.L. 573, 49 A.2d 479 (1946), cited by the majority lends support. In that case the New Jersey court pointed out that the judge’s “authorization” to order cancellation of the mortgage under the New Jersey statute “is limited to cases where no person representing the holder of the mortgage or interest therein shall ‘appear at the time and place specified [by the court in its rule to show cause why the mortgage should not be cancelled].’” Kaufman v. Samuelson, supra. Because someone did legally “appear” representing the holder of the mortgage, the court held that the judge “was without authority or jurisdiction . . .” to cancel the mortgage. Kaufman v. Samuelson, supra, 577. In the case before us, as in Kaufman, once the trial court held the mortgage invalid for usury, as it patently did, the court was without further jurisdiction to act and should have dismissed the matter for lack of jurisdiction.
Therefore, I concur in the result.
In this opinion Aumentado, J., concurred.