Technical Deficiencies in Appeal Form? No Problem

In this Connecticut appeal (Levine v. 418 Meadow Street Associates, LLC), the Appellate Court concluded that technical deficiencies in the appeal form did not deprive it of jurisdiction.

Plaintiff and her husband were the only members of the LLC, until husband sold his interest to two others. The LLC owned a single commercial property. Plaintiff’s husband remained associated with some of the tenants in the property and continued to deal with the two members in respect of the property after selling them his interest in the LLC. The LLC ultimately lost the property through foreclosure.

Plaintiff later brought suit seeking to dissolve the LLC “and claimed money damages, alleging [among other things] that [the other two members] breached fiduciary duties owed to her, and that as a result she suffered damages.” The defendant-members counterclaimed against plaintiff and her husband for essentially the same things.

The jury found against plaintiff on her claims in chief and for the defendant-members on their counterclaims. It awarded the defendant-members some $264,000, which was the same amount that the defendant-members paid plaintiff’s husband for his membership interest in the LLC. Plaintiff and her husband moved to set aside the verdict and for remittitur of the verdict. Defendants objected to both motions. The trial court denied both motions without issuing a memoranda of decision.

Plaintiff and her husband appealed. The Appellate Court affirmed.

Technical Deficiencies in the Appeal Form did Not Deprive Appellate Court of Jurisdiction

Plaintiff’s and her husband’s “appeal form, JD-SC-28, indicate[d] that the appeal is taken from the ‘motion to dismiss granted in favor of defendants (see jury verdict (#174), memorandum of decision (#196); and judgment of dismissal (#197).'” However, their “preliminary statement of issues [said], in … part: ‘Did the trial court err in failing to set aside the jury verdict where the damages awarded to the counterclaim plaintiffs … were not supported by the evidence at trial, and were not in conformance with Connecticut law of damages.'”

“[D]efendants assert[ed] that [the Appellate] [C]ourt lacks jurisdiction because [plaintiff and her husband] did not file an appeal form indicating that they sought review of the court’s decisions denying their motions to set aside the verdict and for remittitur of the verdict.”

The Appellate Court noted that the Supreme Court has a policy of not exalting form over substance. “[T]he forms for appeals and amended appeals do not in any way implicate appellate subject matter jurisdiction. They are merely the formal, technical vehicles by which parties seek to invoke that jurisdiction. Compliance with them need not be perfect; it is the substance that matters, not the form.”

“[Plaintiff and her husband] referenced the jury verdict itself on the appeal form, which can be interpreted as an intention to appeal from the judgment.” Moreover, the preliminary statement of issues is a better representation of the substance of the appeal than the appeal form.

Consequently, “[d]espite the imprecise language used on the appeal form, viewing the substance of [plaintiff and her husband’s] amended appeal, they have sufficiently invoked this court’s jurisdiction, and we will review their claims on appeal.”

Plaintiff’s Main Argument on Appeal

“The essence of the [plaintiff’s and her husband’s] claim briefed on appeal is that the jury could not have awarded damages for defendants’ capital contributions to [the LLC] because the complaint only referenced, in all of its counts, losses due to the foreclosure of [the LLC’s] property by People’s Bank, and the value of the property at the time of foreclosure was less than the amount of the mortgage at the time of foreclosure.” In other words, plaintiff and her husband claimed that the defendant-members lost their investment not because of anything plaintiff or her husband did but because the property was underwater.

Appellate Court Concludes there was No Error

“[I]t was possible for the jury to have found that [the LLC’s] property became less valuable, not enough rent was collected to satisfy mortgage payments, and the property was subsequently foreclosed because of the self-dealing and obstructive behavior of [plaintiff and her husband]. The jury also could have concluded that the [defendant-members] … lost the entire amount of their
investments in Meadow when the property was foreclosed. Therefore, it would have been reasonable for the jury to conclude that absent the self-dealing and obstructive behavior of [plaintiff and her husband], [the LLC’s] property might not have been foreclosed, and the [defendant-members] would not have lost their investments in [the LLC].”

“Therefore, on the basis of our review of the limited record provided to us, we conclude that the [plaintiff and her husband] have not shown that the court acted unreasonably or abused its discretion in denying their motions to set aside, and for remittitur of, the verdict thereby rendering judgment in favor of the [defendant-members] on their counterclaims, in accordance with the jury verdict.”