JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. v. Georgitseas
149 Conn. App. 796
Conn. App. Ct.
2014
Check Treatment

JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A. v. GEORGE N. GEORGITSEAS ET AL.

(AC 35559)

Appellate Court of Connecticut

Argued March 3—officially released April 29, 2014

150 Conn. App. 796

Bear, Sheldon and Schaller, Js.

between the appraised value and the selling price has been credited. As pointed out in the treatise by Denis Caron and Geoffrey Milne, “[u]nder certain circumstances . . . this formula may operate to eradicate the deficiency completely.”2

Under these circumstances, although it has become very common, making a motion for interlocutory summary judgment on liability in a foreclosure case is the procedural equivalent of trying to drive a nail with the blade of a saw.

Genevieve P. Salvatore, for the appellant (named defendant).

Laura Pascale Zaino, with whom, on the brief, was Brian D. Rich, for the appellee (plaintiff).

Opinion

PER CURIAM. The defendant George N. Georgitseas1 appeals from the judgment of strict foreclosure rendered by the trial court in favor of the plaintiff, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. On appeal, the defendant makes three claims pertaining to the court‘s reliance on a “drive-by” or “exterior-only” appraisal dated more than 120 days before the date of the judgment in its calculation of the subject property‘s fair market value. We conclude that the defendant has failed to preserve any of his claims for appellate review, and we accordingly affirm the judgment of the trial court.

”Practice Book § 60-5 provides in relevant part that [t]he court shall not be bound to consider a claim unless it was distinctly raised at the trial or arose subsequent to the trial. The court may in the interests of justice notice plain error not brought to the attention of the trial court. . . . Indeed, it is the appellant‘s responsibility to present a claim clearly to the trial court so that the trial court may consider it and, if it is meritorious, take appropriate action. That is the basis for the requirement that ordinarily [the appellant] must raise in the trial court the issues that he intends to raise on appeal. . . . For us [t]o review [a] claim, which has been articulated for the first time on appeal and not before the trial court, would result in a trial by ambuscade of the trial judge. . . . We have repeatedly indicated our disfavor with the failure, whether because of a mistake of law, inattention or design, to object to errors occurring in the course of a trial until it is too late for them to be corrected, and thereafter, if the outcome of the trial proves unsatisfactory, with the assignment of such errors as grounds of appeal.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) , cert. denied, .

We carefully have reviewed the trial court file, including but not limited to the transcripts of the relevant proceedings, and we cannot find any notice to and opportunity for review by the trial court of any of the defendant‘s three claims raised in this appeal. During oral argument before this court, we asked the defendant on what basis we could hear these claims for the first time on appeal. The defendant did not assert that he had properly preserved the claims for appellate review; he, instead, argued that the state of the law and the trial court‘s alleged failure to perform its gatekeeping function should compel this court to review his claims, regardless of whether they properly were preserved. In light of our long-standing precedent requiring claims to be made initially in the trial court, and the defendant‘s failure to provide any valid explanation for his failure to do so in this case, we have no alternative except to affirm the judgment.

The judgment is affirmed and the case is remanded for the purpose of setting a new law day.

Notes

1
RBS Citizens, N.A., also was named as a defendant but is not involved in this appeal. We therefore refer in this opinion to George N. Georgitseas as the defendant.
2
D. Caron & G. Milne, Connecticut Foreclosures (5th Ed. 2011) § 10-5:2, p. 575.