Loch View, LLC v. Town of Windham

Summary

The Connecticut Appellate Court affirmed a trial court judgment concerning a tax assessment fixing agreement between Loch View, LLC, and the Town of Windham under General Statutes § 12-65b. The court held that the trial court properly considered certain pre-agreement capital expenditures, limited the town’s retroactive reassessment remedy, found waiver of reporting requirements, admitted business records, and declined to award interest. The court also affirmed the rejection of the plaintiff’s claim that the 2014 assessment was wrongful under General Statutes § 12-119.

Holdings

1. The trial court properly considered capital expenditures incurred before execution of the agreement when determining whether Loch View met the first two financial benchmarks because the agreement did not specify a starting date for qualifying expenditures and its purpose was to ensure completion of the required investment by the stated deadline.
2. The agreement permitted the town to reassess the property retroactively only for the grand list immediately preceding the event constituting the breach—the October 1, 2014 grand list—and § 12-65b did not prohibit that contractual limitation.
3. The trial court's finding that the town waived strict enforcement of the agreement's semiannual reporting requirement was not clearly erroneous.
4. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the 1,327-page expenditure exhibit as business records and admitting the summary under Connecticut Code of Evidence § 10-5.
5. The trial court properly declined to award the town interest because the town withdrew its counterclaim seeking interest and did not pursue the claim in its posttrial briefing, raising it only in a motion to reargue.
6. Loch View failed to establish a wrongful assessment under § 12-119 because proof that the town overvalued the property was insufficient without proof that the assessment was manifestly excessive and resulted from disregard of the statutory valuation requirements.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the trial court properly considered Loch View's pre-agreement capital expenditures in determining compliance with the first two contractual benchmarks.
2. Whether the agreement's limitation-of-remedies provision permitted the town to reassess the property only for the final grand list year preceding the breach, and whether that limitation was consistent with § 12-65b.
3. Whether the town waived enforcement of the agreement's semiannual reporting requirement.
4. Whether the trial court properly admitted the plaintiff's voluminous expenditure records and summary under the business-records exception and Connecticut Code of Evidence § 10-5.
5. Whether the town was entitled to interest on delinquent taxes after withdrawing its counterclaim and raising the issue for the first time in a motion to reargue.
6. Whether Loch View proved that the town's property assessment was manifestly excessive and illegal under General Statutes § 12-119.

Disposition

affirmed