219 Conn. 657 | Conn. | 1991
Lead Opinion
The issues raised in this appeal from a judgment of contempt and a modification of an injunction are whether: (1) the trial court’s finding that the named defendant, Youth Challenge of Greater Hartford, Inc.,
In August, 1986, the plaintiff, the commissioner of health services, filed a petition for enforcement, seeking to enjoin the defendants from operating two unlicensed substance abuse treatment facilities. The trial court, M. Hennessey, J., granted the plaintiff’s request for a permanent, injunction, and this court affirmed the judgment on appeal. Commissioner v. Youth Challenge of Greater Hartford, Inc., 206 Conn. 316, 318-19, 537 A.2d 480 (1988) (Youth Challenge I).
Thereafter, in November, 1988, the plaintiff moved that the defendants be held in contempt, alleging that they were violating the permanent injunction by continuing to operate two unlicensed substance abuse
The facts leading to this appeal are as follows. The defendant operates a licensed substance abuse treatment facility at 15-17 May Street, Hartford. In August, 1986, the plaintiff filed a petition for enforcement seeking to enjoin the defendants from operating two unlicensed substance abuse treatment facilities, the Youth Challenge Ranch (Ranch) in Moosup, and the Youth Challenge Girls’ Home (Girls’ Home) in Hartford. In December, 1986, Judge Hennessey found that the defendants managed and operated the Ranch and the Girls’ Home, and that the Ranch and the Girls’ Home were drug and alcohol treatment facilities operating without a license. See Youth Challenge I, supra, 319.
In particular, Judge Hennessey found that the tax returns of the defendants listed the Girls’ Home as a “drug rehabilitation program,” and the Ranch as a “resident drug program.” The Girls’ Home was described in its brochure as having the purpose of “instilling in the drug dependent person, the incentive to
Based on these findings, Judge Hennessey concluded that both facilities were drug or alcohol treatment facilities that were required to be licensed under the provisions of General Statutes (Rev. to 1985) § 19a-491 (a).
In November, 1988, the plaintiff instituted these proceedings, seeking to have the defendants held in contempt for violation of the injunction, alleging that the defendants were continuing to operate the two unlicensed substance abuse treatment facilities. After four days of hearings, the trial court, Satter, J., found that since the injunction was entered in 1986, the operations at both the Ranch and the Girls’ Home had remained unchanged. The court also found that virtually all of the residents of the Girls’ Home had histories of drug or alcohol abuse problems, a fact it considered relevant under the definition of “substance-dependent persons” as “individuals who are physically or psycho
Based upon these findings, the court further found that the defendant had continued to operate the Girls’ Home and the Ranch as unlicensed drug or alcohol treatment facilities in violation of paragraph one of the 1986 injunction, and, therefore, held the defendant in contempt. Pursuant to its finding of contempt, the trial court modified the injunction as follows: “(1) The defendant shall be fined $200.00 per day to begin 30 days after the Court’s issuance of this contempt order unless and until the defendant has either (a) discharged all residents from the Girls’ Home and Ranch by transferring them to a licensed substance abuse treatment facility or otherwise discharging them after giving them information about licensed substance abuse treatment facilities in their community, or (b) applied for a license
“(2) If the defendant chooses or becomes subject to the discharge of residents provision in (1) above, then the defendant must comply with the following additional provisions to ensure that the facilities do not revert back to substance abuse facilities: (a) The defendant shall not allow anyone to reside at the Ranch or Girls’ Home who has had a history of substance abuse within one year prior to admission. This means that anyone applying to reside at the Ranch or Girls’ Home who was abusing drugs or alcohol or who was in a substance abuse treatment facility within the preceding twelve-month period cannot be admitted. The defendant must verify this by questioning the individuals, the referring person, if known[,] and by checking the person’s medical records. The defendant shall maintain documentation of this verification for each person it admits to the Ranch or Girls’ Home. This documentation shall be made available to Department inspectors upon request.
“(b) The defendant shall report to the Department on a bi-monthly basis for the first two years following
“(A) the names and dates of birth of any new residents; their date of admission and length of stay;
“(B) whether the resident is receiving any money and/or reimbursement for costs or is being provided with any services from any state, city or federal agency and the reason such services/money/reimbursement is being provided.
“(3) The Department shall have access to the Ranch and the Girls’ Home for a period of two years from this order to verify compliance with the injunction and with this order. Access is to consist of unannounced visits by Department staff. Department staff are to be allowed to tour the facility, review any resident records, and talk to staff and residents.”
I
The defendant first claims that “[tjhere being no ‘drug and/or alcohol dependent persons’ in the Girls’ Home and the Ranch, the court erred in finding the defendant in contempt of the December 4,1986 Injunction . . . . ” The essence of the defendant’s first claim is a challenge to the factual findings of the trial court. We reject this challenge.
We first note that this appeal is from a finding of civil contempt, and, therefore, “our review is technically limited to ‘questions of jurisdiction such as whether the court had authority to impose the punishment inflicted and whether the act or acts for which the penalty was imposed could constitute a contempt.’ . . . This limitation originates because by its very nature the court’s contempt power . . . must be balanced against the contemnor’s fundamental rights and, for this reason, there exists the present mechanism for the eventual
Although various claims are strewn throughout its brief, the defendant fails adequately to raise a challenge to the contempt order based upon the vagueness or indefiniteness of the injunction, upon an assertion that its constitutional rights were not adequately safeguarded or upon an assertion that it was unable to obey the court’s order. Furthermore, the defendant does not claim that the findings upon which the contempt order was based are “ambiguous and irreconcilable . . . .” Papa v. New Haven Federation of Teachers, supra, 732. Rather, the gravamen of the defendant’s claim is that the trial court should have found facts favorable to it contrary to those the court did find.
“The resolution of conflicting factual claims falls within the province of the trial court. . . . 'The trial court’s findings are binding upon this court unless they
The defendant’s claim is premised upon its assertion that none of the inhabitants of the Girls’ Home or the Ranch is dependent on drugs or alcohol. A review of the evidence presented to the trial court, however, demonstrates that sufficient evidence was presented to support its conclusion that the Girls’ Home and the Ranch both were still operating substance abuse treatment facilities in violation of the injunction.
In support of the trial court’s finding that the defendant was continuing to treat drug or alcohol dependent persons, the acting medical director of the Girls’ Home and the Ranch, Anthony Ardolini, testified, in regard to the Girls’ Home, that “the residents of the Home are psychologically dependent on drugs, even though at the time of admission they may not have been using drugs or having withdrawal symptoms.” He also stated that the Girls’ Home residents “ ‘are allotted an alternative, comprehensive lifestyle that allows them to remain drug free. That fits my definition of a drug rehabilitation program.’ ”
In regard to the Ranch, Ardolini testified that “these [residents] are very addictive individuals. There is something about their psychological make-up, I believe, that makes them that way. This [Ranch] happens to be a very religious organization . . . but they get very much involved—no[t] in a negative way, but addicted— to religious activities of the group, and that offers them a very plausible, certainly a safer, environment where they could go ahead and become more productive members of society.”
The defendant does not dispute this evidence, but disagrees with the findings and conclusions reached by the trial court. It is not the function of this court, however, to pass upon credibility; Nor’easter Group, Inc. v. Colossale Concrete, Inc., supra; and, upon reviewing the entire record, we can find no reason to disturb the trial court’s finding that the defendant has continued to operate two substance abuse treatment facilities in violation of the 1986 injunction. “The trial court’s factual findings and ultimate conclusion are adequately supported by the record and are not clearly erroneous. Practice Book § 4061; see also Pandolphe’s Auto Parts, Inc. v. Manchester, [181 Conn. 217, 221-22, 435 A.2d 24 (1980)]; Howie’s Painting Service, Inc. v. Ferreria, 12 Conn. App. 583, 584, 532 A.2d 1318 (1987).” Id., 473.
II
The defendant next claims that the trial court improperly modified the 1986 injunction at the contempt hearing. The defendant does not challenge the specific modifications entered by the court, but claims that the court should not have modified the 1986 injunction because there were “no pleadings, no notice, no trial and no opportunity for representation by counsel . . . .” Although we generally will not review a claim based
At the outset, the defendant’s claim that it received no notice, no pleadings, no trial, and no opportunity for presentation of evidence by counsel is easily refuted by an examination of the plaintiff’s motion for contempt. In its prayer for relief, the plaintiff requested, inter alia: (a) that the defendant be compelled to allow unannounced visits of the facilities and to allow inspectors to review resident records; (b) that the defendant be forced to show that it has ceased holding itself out to the public as a substance abuse treatment facility; (c) that the defendant be compelled to show that the facilities are no longer operating as substance abuse treatment facilities; and (d) any other equitable relief available. The plain language of this prayer for relief should have alerted the defendant that the plaintiff was requesting relief greater than that provided for in the 1986 injunction. Thus, the defendant should have been aware of the fact that certain modifications were being sought, even before trial began. The defendant had ample notice of the request and ample opportunity both prior to and during trial to present the court with pleadings and evidence demonstrating that such a modification was not necessary.
Furthermore, after four days of trial, the plaintiff filed a posttrial brief to the court. In the brief, the plaintiff submitted a proposed modification of the 1986 injunction. Although the defendant submitted a reply brief, it neither addressed the modification nor requested a hearing thereon. The trial court thereafter adopted the modification of the 1986 injunction proposed by the plaintiff.
Furthermore, it is undisputed that “in dealing with judgments that decree injunctive relief . . . ‘courts have inherent power to change or modify their own injunctions where circumstances or pertinent law have so changed as to make it equitable to do so.’ Adams v. Vaill, 158 Conn. 478, 482, 262 A.2d 169 (1969); Collens v. New Canaan Water Co., 155 Conn. 477, 494, 234 A.2d 825 (1967).” Department of Health Services v. Commission On Human Rights & Opportunities, 198 Conn. 479, 487, 503 A.2d 1151 (1986). “Courts have in general the ‘power to fashion a remedy appropriate to the vindication of a prior . . . judgment.’ ” Hall v. Dichello Distributors, Inc., 14 Conn. App. 184, 192, 540 A.2d 704 (1988), quoting Connecticut Pharmaceutical Assn., Inc. v. Milano, 191 Conn. 555, 563, 468 A.2d 1230 (1983). “Having found noncompliance, the court, in the exercise of its equitable powers, necessarily had the authority to fashion whatever orders were required to protect the integrity of [its original] judgment.” Connecticut Pharmaceutical Assn., Inc. v. Milano, supra, 563-64; see also Gentile v. Ives, 163 Conn. 281, 282, 303 A.2d 720 (1972) (Superior Court has power to enforce its own judgments).
First, as the dissent acknowledges, the defendant has never—in the trial court or in this court—raised the claim of modification relied on by the dissent. The defendant’s claim was confined to a wholesale attack on the authority of the trial court to make any modification.
Second, contrary to the dissent’s assertion, there is no implied finding by the trial court that there are any residents of the Girls’ Home or Ranch who have not had drug or alcohol abuse problems. Of course, it was the obligation of the defendant, as the appellant, to cure any ambiguity in the court’s decision; O’Hara v. State, 218 Conn. 628, 635, 590 A.2d 948 (1991); a remedy the defendant declined to seek.
It is true that the trial court found that “[ajlmost all the residents of the Girls’ Home have histories of drug and/or alcohol abuse problems,” and that “almost all the residents of the Ranch have substance abuse problems.” We read these references, however, as indicating only that the trial court may not have read the medical histories of all the residents. Instead, the court specifically relied on the testimony of Ardolini “that the residents of the Home are psychologically dependent on drugs, even though at the time of admission
In view of these findings, and in view of the total lack in the defendant’s brief of any factual or legal elaboration of a denial of its right to practice religion, it is difficult to comprehend the dissent’s insistence that the modified injunction constitutes “a clear violation” of the defendant’s right to do so. Furthermore, there is no basis here that we can see for the defendant vicariously to assert its residents’ religious rights, as the dissent would permit.
In this instance, the trial court, after having found that the defendant had violated the 1986 injunction prohibiting it from operating two unlicensed substance abuse treatment facilities, had the equitable power to modify the injunction in order to “vindicate” its prior judgment.
The judgment is affirmed.
In this opinion Glass, Covello and F. X. HenNESSY, Js., concurred.
The named defendant, Youth Challenge of Greater Hartford, Inc., does business as Youth Challenge Ranch and as Youth Challenge Girls’ Home. The other defendants are Louie Collazo, the director of Youth Challenge
In its reply brief, the defendant raises a panoply of claims, among them: (1) numerous procedural due process violations; (2) a substantive due process violation; (3) deprivation of the defendants’ constitutional rights of freedom of association and of privacy under the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution and article first, § 14, of the Connecticut constitution; and (4) unconstitutional overbreadth in violation of the first amendment to the United States constitution and article first, § 14, of the Connecticut constitution.
We decline to consider these claims because they either were never raised or were so inadequately briefed in the defendant’s original brief that we consider them abandoned. “Claims of error by an appellant must be raised in his original brief; Practice Book § 3060F; so that the issue as framed by him can be fully responded to by the appellee in its brief, and so that we can have the full benefit of that written argument. Although the function of the appellant’s reply brief is to respond to the arguments and authority presented in the appellee’s brief, that function does not include raising an entirely new claim of error.” Finley v. Aetna Life & Casualty Co., 5 Conn. App. 394, 403 n.6, 499 A.2d 64 (1985), rev’d on other grounds, 202 Conn. 190, 520 A.2d 208 (1987).
The plaintiffs request for a contempt order also was based on the ground that the defendants refused to allow the plaintiff’s inspectors to view the unlicensed facilities operated by the defendants in violation of paragraph five of the 1986 injunction. On December 20, 1988, the trial court, Satter, J., bifurcated the contempt hearing on the alleged violations. Judge Satter held the defendants in contempt after finding that they had refused the inspectors access to the facilities, and fined the defendants $1000. The defendants appealed to the Appellate Court, which affirmed the judgment in Commissioner v. Youth Challenge of Greater Hartford, Inc., 20 Conn. App. 806, 567 A.2d 849 (1989) (Youth Challenge II).
The plaintiff withdrew the motion for contempt against the individual defendants.
General Statutes (Rev. to 1985) § 19a-491 provides in relevant part: “(Formerly Sec. 19-577). license and certificate required, application. (a) No person acting individually or jointly with any other person shall establish, conduct, operate or maintain an institution in this state without a license as required by sections 19a-490 to 19a-503, inclusive. Application for such license shall be made to the department of health services upon forms provided by it and shall contain such information as said department requires, which may include affirmative evidence of ability to comply with reasonable standards and regulations prescribed under the provisions of said sections.”
An “institution” pursuant to General Statutes (Rev. to 1985) § 19a-490 (a) includes an “alcohol or drug treatment facility.” General Statutes (Rev. to 1985) § 19a-490 (h) defines an “alcohol or drug treatment facility” as
In its entirety, the injunction provided: (1) “The defendants are enjoined from operating any unlicensed facilities providing treatment to drug and/or alcohol dependent persons unless, and until, they obtain a license from the Department of Health Services”; (2) “The defendants are to immediately terminate detoxification of persons from either drugs or alcohol at any facility not licensed to provide detoxification”; (3) “The defendants are to immediately terminate dispensing and/or administering medications to residents at any unlicensed facility”; (4) “The defendants are to cease holding themselves out to the public as providing treatment for drug and/or alcohol abusive persons at any unlicensed facility”; and (5) “The State Department of Health Services is to have access to the Youth Challenge Ranch and the Youth Challenge Girls’ Home for a period of one year to verify compliance with the injunction. Access is to consist of unannounced visits by Department staff not to exceed one a month. Department staff are to be allowed to tour the facility and review any resident records.” The issue in this appeal focuses solely on paragraph one of the injunction.
The court noted that the “St. Francis Hospital medical record of one Girls’ Home resident, dated February 5,1987, reads: ‘24 year old [girl] has been to several alcohol rehabilitation programs in past, returns to Youth Challenge in Hartford .... Last P/E [physical exam] 3/86 and since has been in and out of rehab programs intermittently abusing alcohol and using M.J. [marihuana] and cocaine.’ ” (Brackets in original.) The trial court also found that “[tjhe Hartford Department of Social Services’ report dated January 13,1989, on another Girls’ Home resident reads, ‘Client in Youth Challenge for drug problems. Client arrived from N.J. 11/18/88 to enter Youth Challenge.’ ” The trial court also found that “[likewise, almost all the residents of the Ranch have substance abuse problems.”
Indeed, that equitable power appears appropriate in light of the specific factual finding, based on the testimony of one of the defendant’s directors, that there were no changes in the operation of the Ranch and the Girls’ Home from the time that the initial injunction was issued.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting in part. I agree with the majority opinion in all respects except its attempted justification of the overbreadth of the modified injunction in requiring that all residents of the facilities operated by the defendant be discharged despite indications in the finding that not all of them have a history of drug or alcohol abuse. There is a significant discrepancy between the finding of the trial court that “almost all the residents” of the Girls’ Home and of the Ranch have substance abuse problems and the terms of the modified injunction, which require the defendant to discharge “all residents from the Girls’ Home and Ranch” unless it applies to the department of health to obtain licenses for these facilities as drug and alcohol abuse treatment centers. (Emphasis added.) If there are any residents of the Girls’ Home or the Ranch who have not had drug or alcohol abuse problems, as the finding implies, the modified injunction should not have required that these persons be compelled to leave the defendant’s facilities. No license is required for the defendant to operate its religion study program for the benefit of those residents who are not “suffering from . . . alcoholism or other drug addiction.” General Statutes (Rev. to 1985) § 19a-490. “Where the subordinate facts found by the trial court do not . . . support the injunction issued, the injunction must be vacated”; Karls v. Alexandra Realty Corporation, 179 Conn. 390, 403, 426 A.2d 784 (1980); or modified to conform to the facts found.
The defendant has made only a general claim that the modified injunction is overbroad and has not spe
Accordingly, I dissent from the affirmation of the judgment without further modification of the terms of the injunction.