Federal Home Loan v. Patrick G. O'Neill et al. (2013)

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

A judgment of strict foreclosure was entered in this case on March 29, 1999.   Title vested in the plaintiff, Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, on April 28, 1999.   On January 8, 2001, Dyck O'Neal, Inc. was substituted as the plaintiff after having been assigned the note and judgment.   Thereafter, on the same day, a deficiency judgment entered in favor of the substituted plaintiff in the amount of $21,995.63.   There was no further activity on this file until July 15, 2013 when the plaintiff, Dyck O'Neill, Inc., filed a motion (# 120) requesting that the court enter an award of post-judgment interest at the rate of ten percent (10%) from the date of the rendering of the judgment in accordance with C.G.S. § 37–3a.   On October 4, 2013, the defendant filed a written objection to the motion for postjudgment interest.   Also on October 4, 2013, the plaintiff filed a reply to the defendant's objection.   The motion for postjudgment interest was marked as “take the papers” on the October 7, 2013 short calendar.

C.G.S. § 37–3a does not require an award of interest in every case in which money has been detained after it has become due;  an award is discretionary.   Sosin v. Sosin, 300 Conn. 205, 228 (2011).   In this case, no award of postjudgment interest was made at the time of the deficiency judgment.   No request for postjudgment interest is included in the written motion for deficiency judgment.   The file does not reveal any postjudgment collection efforts.

The issue is whether the delay of over 13 years in making a request is unreasonable.   It is not necessarily an abuse of discretion to award postjudgment interest after judgment has been rendered.   The plaintiff relies heavily on an Appellate Court decision and a Superior Court decision in which postjudgment interest was awarded after the judgment was rendered.  Brower v. D'Onfro, 45 Conn.App. 543, 550 (1997) (Trial court reversed a prior decision not award postjudgment interest on a jury verdict by granting a “motion for clarification” seven weeks after it originally entered judgment.   Absent a reasonable claim of prejudice or surprise, the trial court does not abuse its discretion in acting on post-judgment motions for interest filed within a reasonable time after judgment has been rendered);  Fleet Bank of Connecticut, Inc. v. Kueza, Superior Court, judicial district of Hartford, Docket No. CV–90–0038491 (June 28, 2011) (Postjudgment interest awarded ten years after judgment where the defendant has refused to pay the judgment against him by attempting to argue repeatedly that he was not the person sued but it is clear, from his own admissions that he was.   The court specifically found that retention of the money was unlawful).

Here, the defendant has not paid a lawful judgment.   Despite the thirteen-year delay since the judgment, the defendant “[I]n the context of § 37–3a, a wrongful detention of money, that is, a detention of money without the legal right to do so, is established merely by a favorable judgment on the underlying legal claim, so that the court has discretion to award interest on that judgment, without any additional showing of wrongfulness, upon a finding that such an award is fair and equitable.”  Dilieto v. County Obstetrics and Gynecology, P.C., 310 Conn. 38, 48 (2013).

Having considered the limited facts and case law available to court, a fair and equitable award is to order that the plaintiff recover postjudgment interest at the rate of 2% per annum from the date of judgment to the date of payment.

BY THE COURT,

Pickard, J.

Pickard, John W., J.