MANELSKI v. DARIEN ZONING BD OF APP., No. FSTCV 04-4000464-S (Jun. 29, 2006)

DENIS MANELSKI ET AL. v. DARIEN ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS.

2006 Ct. Sup. 12028
No. FSTCV 04-4000464-SConnecticut Superior Court Judicial District of Stamford-Norwalk at Stamford
June 29, 2006

[EDITOR’S NOTE: This case is unpublished as indicated by the issuing court.]

ORDER
ALFRED J. JENNINGS, JUDGE.

This appeal from a decision of the Darien Board of Zoning Appeals was tried before the undersigned on April 26, 2005. The Court requested at the conclusion of oral argument, without objection by the defendant, that the plaintiff make a supplemental submission of about 15 pages of legislative history of the enactment of a revision to Conn. Gen. Stat. § 8-26a, which is a statute involved in the merits of the controversy between the parties. That submission was made by the plaintiffs promptly after April 26, 2006.

Now before the Court is “Plaintiffs’ Objection to Defendant’s Improper Post-Trial Submission Dated June 20, 2006” submitted by facsimile to the Clerk of the Court on June 22, 2006, complaining of an unsolicited letter from plaintiff’s counsel to the undersigned enclosing and commenting on some 61 pages of additional legislative history of the public act which effected the amendment in question. Counsel for the defendant did simultaneously send copies of his letter of June 20, 2006 with enclosures to all counsel of record, but did not seek or obtain the Court’s permission or consent of other parties before making the June 20 submission. Plaintiffs argue that the submission directly to the Court under those circumstances was improper and should be disregarded by the Court.[1] The Court agrees that the submission directly to the Court under those circumstances was improper. But rater than disregarding the legislative history, which might be helpful to the Court in deciding this case, the Court accepts the plaintiffs’ alternate suggestion and request that they be allowed a reasonable time to submit a response to the defendant’s submission of June 20, 2006. Accordingly it is ordered that the plaintiffs shall have until July 14, 2006 to submit a response to the defendant’s June 20, 2006 letter and enclosures. Following that response by the plaintiffs neither party shall make any further submissions to CT Page 12029 the Court regarding this matter with seeking and obtaining advance approval from the Court.

[1] The plaintiff actually asks that the letter “. . . be rejected by the Clerk before it reaches Judge Jennings . . .” but the June 20 letter had been delivered to the undersigned and had been in my possession for about one day before I was made aware of the plaintiffs’ objection. I have read only the two-page cover letter of June 20 but not the enclosures reported by the plaintiffs to consist of some 61 pages of legislative history transcript, since I recognized from the cover letter that there might be an issue as the propriety of the submission. Although the plaintiffs have not requested or suggested my recusal, they have cited Judge Murray’s order of recusal in Source One Mortgage v. Michael Mainiero, 1996 WL 24665 (Conn.Super.) Docket No. 0126036, Superior Court, Judicial District of Waterbury, (Murray, J., January 10, 1996), under similar circumstances (post-hearing submission of three letters between the plaintiff bank and the foreclosure defendants). This Court has considered recusal, but has decided not to do so, because (1) I have read only the cover letter and not the legislative history itself which is presumably the substance of the submission; (2) the legislative history submitted by the defendant herein, unlike the submissions to Judge Murray in Source One Management, is publicly available through the Connecticut State Library as a legitimate source of legal research and might have been obtained in any event by the Court or the legal research clerk presently working on this file if it seemed appropriate to do so; and (3) the plaintiffs themselves have suggested an alternate remedy, which the Court adopts, of considering the legislative history submitted while allowing a period of time for the plaintiffs to respond to the June 20, 2006 submission by the defendant.

CT Page 12030