PRESIDENTIAL VILLAGE, LLC v. TONYA PERKINS
AC 38459
Appellate Court of Connecticut
September 19, 2017
DiPentima, C. J., and Keller and Prescott, Js.
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The plaintiff landlord sought, by way of summary process, to regain possession of certain federally subsidized premises that it had leased to the defendant. The plaintiff had provided the defendant with a federal pretermination notice based on the defendant‘s nonpayment of her total rental obligation, which constituted material noncompliance with the terms of her lease. The notice included a chart detailing a month-to-month breakdown of the amount of rent that the defendant owed to the plaintiff. After the defendant failed to tender any payment to the plaintiff within the time period specified in the pretermination notice, the plaintiff served the defendant with a notice to quit possession of the premises and, thereafter, brought this summary process action, seeking immediate possession thereof. In response, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss the action on the ground that the plaintiff‘s pretermination notice was defective, and, therefore, the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the action. The trial court granted the defendant‘s motion to dismiss and rendered judgment in favor of the defendant, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held that the trial court improperly dismissed the summary process action on the ground that the plaintiff‘s federal pretermination notice was defective and, therefore, that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the action: the pretermination notice sufficiently complied with the applicable federal regulations and requirements (
Argued February 14—officially released September 19, 2017
Procedural History
Summary process action brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Hew Haven, Housing Session, where the court, Ecker, J., granted the defendant‘s motion to dismiss and rendered judgment for the defendant, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Reversed; further proceedings.
Hugh D. Hughes, with whom was Barbara M. Schellenberg, for the appellant (plaintiff).
Amy Eppler-Epstein, for the appellee (defendant).
DiPENTIMA, C. J. The plaintiff, Presidential Village, LLC, appeals from the judgment of the trial court dismissing its summary process action against the defendant, Tonya Perkins, for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.1 On appeal, the plaintiff claims that the court improperly granted the defendant‘s motion to dismiss because the court determined that the federal pretermination notice2 was defective, and the defective notice deprived the court of subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case. Because its decision mistakenly rests primarily on its determination that the federal termination notice was defective under the requirements of
The record reveals the following relevant facts and procedural history. On March 2, 2010, the defendant leased an apartment from the plaintiff. The dwelling unit is located in New Haven and was subsidized by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (department). According to the department‘s model lease agreement entered into by the parties, the defendant‘s lease term began on March 2, 2010, ended on February 28, 2011, and continued thereafter from month-to-month. At the time the defendant signed the lease, she agreed to pay a rent of $377 on the first day of each month, which was subject to change during the lease term in accordance with the amount the department made available monthly on behalf of the defendant.
On January 14, 2015, the plaintiff sent a federal pretermination notice3 to the defendant based on her nonpayment of rent in January, 2015, at which time the defendant‘s monthly rent was $1402.4 The notice addressed to the defendant stated:
RE: PAST DUE RENT
Inv. No Inv. Date Due Date Inv. Amount Balance 08/27/2013 08/27/2013 $1,797.56 $1,797.56 10 09/01/2013 09/11/2013 $93.00 $93.00 CHFA201321 10/01/2013 10/11/2013 $93.00 $93.00 2014-1232 11/01/2014 11/11/2014 $1,402.00 $1,402.00 2014-1340 12/01/2014 12/11/2014 $1,402.00 $1,402.00 2014-1455 01/01/2015 01/11/2015 $1,402.00 $1,402.00 Total Rental Obligation: $6,189.56”
Immediately following this table are four paragraphs of text:
“You have violated the terms of your lease in that you failed to pay your rent, in the total rental obligation of $6,189.56. Your failure to pay such rent constitutes a material noncompliance with the terms of your lease.
“We hereby notify you that your lease agreement may be subject to termination and an immediate eviction . . . proceeding initiated by our office. We value our tenants and request that you immediately contact our office, regarding full payment of your rental obligations.
Your rental obligations will include the delinquent rent, late fees, utilities, legal fees, and any other eviction proceeding sundry cost[s]. “You have the right within ten days after receipt of this notice or within ten days after the date following the date this notice was mailed whichever is earlier to discuss the proposed termination of your tenancy with your landlord‘s agent . . . .
“If you remain in the premises on the date specified for termination, we may seek to enforce the termination by bringing judicial action at which time you have a right to present a defense.”
The defendant did not discuss the possible termination of her tenancy with the plaintiff‘s agent during the ten day period nor did she tender any payment to the plaintiff within that time. Accordingly, on January 29, 2015, the plaintiff served the defendant with a notice to quit possession of the premises and, thereafter, in February, 2015, brought a summary process action for nonpayment of rent, seeking immediate possession of the premises.
In response to the plaintiff‘s summary process complaint, the defendant filed a motion to dismiss on the ground that the pretermination notice was defective, and, therefore, the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The alleged defects included the plaintiff‘s “failure to specify accurately the amount that must be paid by [the] defendant to cure the default underlying the threatened eviction.” Specifically, the defendant alleged that the pretermination notice “inaccurately—and misleadingly—states that she will be evicted unless she promptly pays the landlord $6189.56 in ‘total rental obligations,’ when, in truth, she would have avoided eviction for nonpayment of rent, under well established Connecticut law, by tendering a cure amount of only $2804 . . . .” (Emphasis in original; footnote omitted.)
In response, the plaintiff argued that the pretermination notice was not defective. To support its argument, the plaintiff asserted that there was “nothing defective about a pretermination notice that lists the total financial obligations owed by [the] defendant to [the] plaintiff.” The plaintiff further contended that “a federal pretermination notice fully complies with the law if it includes the specific information supporting the landlord‘s right to termination; a notice does not become defective simply because it contains more information than strictly necessary.”
On September 28, 2015, the trial court, Ecker, J., issued a memorandum of decision granting the defendant‘s motion to dismiss the summary process action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the pretermination notice was defective. The plaintiff then filed this appeal. Additional facts will be set forth as necessary.
We begin our analysis by identifying the legal principles governing summary process actions. “Summary process is a special statutory procedure designed to provide an expeditious remedy. . . . It enable[s] land-
“[B]efore a landlord may pursue its statutory remedy of summary process, the landlord must prove compliance with all of the applicable preconditions set by state and federal law for the termination of the lease.” (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Housing Authority v. DeRoche, 112 Conn. App. 355, 361–62, 962 A.2d 904 (2009).
We now turn to the applicable standard of review. “A motion to dismiss . . . properly attacks the jurisdiction of the court, essentially asserting that the plaintiff cannot as a matter of law and fact state a cause of action that should be heard by the court. . . . A motion to dismiss tests, inter alia, whether, on the face of the record, the court is without jurisdiction. . . . [O]ur review of the trial court‘s ultimate legal conclusion and resulting [decision to] grant . . . the motion to dismiss [is] de novo.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Beecher v. Mohegan Tribe of Indians of Connecticut, 282 Conn. 130, 134, 918 A.2d 880 (2007). Mindful of these principles and guided by our standard of review, we address the specific claim raised by the plaintiff on appeal.
The plaintiff claims that the court improperly dismissed the summary process action because the court determined that the federal pretermination notice was defective. With respect to this claim, the plaintiff argues that its pretermination notice complied with the applicable federal regulations governing the termination of a federally subsidized tenancy based on nonpayment of rent. We note that the adequacy of a federal pretermination notice based on nonpayment of rent is an area of the law that rarely has been addressed by the appellate courts of this state. Nevertheless, applying established principles of summary process law, we conclude that the trial court improperly dismissed the action because the federal plaintiff‘s pretermination notice sufficiently complies with the federal requirements.
In its memorandum of decision, the court determined that the plaintiff‘s pretermination notice was defective because it was “misleading in at least two respects. First, $6189.56 is not the amount that [the defendant] would have needed to pay to avoid the termination of [the defendant‘s] tenancy for nonpayment of rent under Connecticut law. . . . Second, the plaintiff‘s notice uses the term ‘rental obligations’ as a synonym for ‘rent,’ as in, ‘you failed to pay your rent in the total rental obligation of $6,189.56.’ This is not true, as a matter of law. . . . The plaintiff concedes that the $6189.56 figure includes charges for attorney‘s fees and expenses,
We emphasize that the trial court‘s primary concern regarding the alleged defective nature of the pretermination notice was based on its finding that the notice failed to comply with both the state requirements and the federal requirements. Although the pretermination notice must comply with the federal requirements pursuant to
We begin by setting forth the relevant legal principles that govern the termination of a federally subsidized tenancy. When a defendant is a tenant of federally subsidized housing, federal law must be followed. Farley v. Philadelphia Housing Authority, 102 F.3d 697, 698 (3d Cir.1996) (in exchange for receiving federal subsidies, local public housing authorities required to operate in compliance with United States Housing Act). The federal regulations pertinent to this case are set forth in
Pursuant to
In applying
The requirements for a valid pretermination notice are contained in
We conclude that the contents of the plaintiff‘s pretermination notice substantially complies with the applicable federal requirement pursuant to
The court‘s memorandum of decision indicates two reasons that the pretermination notice was in fact defective. For the reasons that follow, we disagree with both contentions.
First, the trial court‘s decision expressly stated that the purpose of the pretermination notice was “to provide the Section 8 tenant with an opportunity to cure the noncompliance that otherwise will result in termination of the tenancy.”7 There is no support for the court‘s interpretation within the federal regulations governing the pretermination notice. In particular,
The trial court also concluded that the pretermination notice did not comply with the federal regulations’ specificity requirement because it included nonrent charges, i.e., late fees and attorney‘s fees.9 In its decision, the trial court explicitly relied on Housing Authority & Urban Redevelopment Agency v. Taylor, 171 N.J. 580, 595, 796 A.2d 193 (2002), noting that “[r]ent under Section 8 means the amount that may be charged for the
We disagree with the trial court‘s reliance on Taylor. Specifically, Taylor addresses the ability to recover late fees, attorney‘s fees and utility fees under
We note that Taylor does not address the adequacy of a pretermination notice under
Even if we were to agree with the trial court, that the analysis in Taylor of what constitutes rent bears upon the adequacy of the pretermination notice, how-
For the foregoing reasons, the trial court improperly concluded that the pretermination notice was defective and, therefore, deprived the court of subject matter jurisdiction to hear the case.
The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings according to law.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.