68 A.2d 132 | Conn. | 1949
This summary process action was brought to the City Court of Stamford in October, 1948. The plaintiff therein, Old Colony Gardens, Inc., alleged that it sought possession of its premises on the ground, sanctioned by federal statutes then in effect, that it intended in good faith to withdraw them from the rental market and would not thereafter offer them for rent.
Public Acts, 1949, No. 5, contains eighteen sections, the final one of which makes the act effective on the day of its passage. Section 1 is in part as follows: "No person shall bring any action of summary process to recover possession of any land, building, any apartment in any building . . . except for nonpayment of rent or nuisance, or when the owner seeks in good faith to recover possession for the immediate use and occupancy by himself, his spouse, his parent or parents, his child or children. This section shall cease to be *20 effective May 1, 1951." Section 11 provides in part as follows: "Except for section 1 this act shall apply to any action of summary process pending on the effective date of this act before any justice of the peace or court in which judgment has not been entered. . . ." The other sections of the act repeal earlier summary process statutes and provide machinery for the operation of the new act.
The trial court held that 1 limits the grounds upon which summary process can be used and that the instant action, not having been brought on one of these grounds, is barred by 11. It construed the expression in 11, "except for section 1 this act shall apply to any action of summary process," to mean that unless the action is brought on one of the grounds named in 1 it may not be maintained. We read no such meaning into the clause. Section 1 refers to the bringing, not the maintaining, of such actions. It refers to future actions on new grounds. Section 11 recognizes the inapplicability of 1 to the remaining sections of the act and expressly excepts it from any connection with them. The clause is not ambiguous and admits of no such forced construction as given it by the trial court. As the wording of the statute is plain, we are not at liberty to speculate upon any supposed intention. McManus v. Jarvis,
This conclusion makes it unnecessary for us to discuss the question of the constitutionality of the statute because of a claimed retroactive effect. Nor does the case present the question whether the provisions of the United States statutes as to permissible grounds of eviction prevail over those stated in 1 of the Connecticut *21 statute in view of the provisions of General Statutes, 8292, that, until the termination of the war, the statutes of the United States and the regulations thereunder affecting summary process shall supersede statutes of this state concerning such process, so far as there is a conflict.
There is error, the judgment is set aside and a new trial is ordered.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.