The plaintiff tenant sought, inter alia, an order to compel the defendant to
exterminate an infestation of insects and rodents in her leased premises,
one of six rental units in a building for which the defendant is the
landlord. The plaintiff, who was the recipient of a rent subsidy, first
reported the infestation to the defendant and then contacted the munici-
pal agency responsible for housing code enforcement in the city in
which the premises was located. An inspector from the agency ordered
the defendant to rid the premises of the infestation and issued a notice
of compliance after the defendant treated the infestation. The plaintiff
thereafter filed a complaint for housing code enforcement pursuant to
the applicable statute (§ 47a-14h), alleging that the defendant violated
the statute (§ 47a-7 (a) (1)) when it failed to exterminate the infestation
in the premises, and she began paying her portion of the monthly rent
to the clerk of the court pursuant to § 47a-14h. The defendant filed a
counterclaim alleging that the plaintiff had prevented and/or failed to
prepare for its access to the premises in an attempt to debilitate and/
or thwart its ability to comply with the housing code enforcement orders.
The trial court determined that the premises had been infested with
insects and rodents for more than one year, the defendant’s efforts to
remediate the infestation had not been reasonable as, inter alia, other
units within the building also remained infested, and the defendant had
violated its duties as a landlord pursuant to § 47a-7 and the housing
code. The court rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff on her
complaint and on the defendant’s counterclaim and awarded the plain-
tiff, inter alia, an abatement of any rent in arrearage and six months of
prospective abatement of rent based on her share of the subsidized rent.
Thereafter, the defendant appealed to this court, claiming, inter alia,
that the court improperly concluded as a matter of law that the defendant
had violated the housing code and the housing code was unconstitution-
ally vague, and the plaintiff filed a cross appeal, arguing that the court
erred in calculating rent abatement based on her share of the subsidized
rent. Held:
1. This court declined to review the defendant’s claim that the trial court
lacked subject matter jurisdiction to consider evidence of housing code
violations that predated the filing of the plaintiff’s complaint with the
municipal agency; the defendant did not dispute that the trial court had
subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s complaint, as the plaintiff
complied with the requirement pursuant to § 47a-14h that a complaint
be made to the municipal agency responsible for enforcement of the
housing code at least twenty-one days prior to the filing of a complaint
with the court, and the defendant’s claim that the trial court did not
have jurisdiction over any evidence of housing code violations prior to
the filing of the complaint was an evidentiary claim raised for the first
time on appeal.
2. The defendant could not prevail on its claim that the trial court improperly
concluded as a matter of law that the defendant violated the housing
code; the city’s housing code plainly and unambiguously required that,
when an infestation exists in two or more dwelling units, the owner of
the property was responsible for extermination, defined as the control
and elimination of insects or other pests, and the court’s factual findings
that the defendant did not act reasonably to resolve the infestation
problem because its actions were too slow and not effective were not
clearly erroneous, as, on the basis of the evidence presented at trial,
the court found that the premises and several other units in the building
had been infested, that more than one year had elapsed between the
initial report of infestation and the notice of compliance from the munici-
pal agency, and that multiple other units remained infested in violation
of the housing code.
3. The defendant could not prevail on its claim that the housing code, as
applied to it in this case, was unconstitutionally vague: although the
plaintiff claimed that the defendant failed to exhaust its administrative
remedies, the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies was
not applicable, as the municipal agency responsible for enforcing the
housing code was not a state agency as defined by statute (§ 4-166 (1));
moreover, the defendant’s unpreserved claim that the housing code was
void for vagueness failed to meet the requirement of State v. Golding
(213 Conn. 233) that a constitutional violation occurred that deprived
the defendant of a fair trial, as the defendant had proper notice of what
constituted an infestation under the housing code and the required steps
to remedy such an infestation, and the housing code did not lack minimal
guidelines or sufficient standards to guide the municipal agency or the
court with respect to its proper application in this case.
4. The plaintiff could not prevail on her claim in her cross appeal that the
trial court erred in calculating rent abatement based on her share of
the subsidized rent rather than the full market rent: § 47a-14h clearly
and unambiguously authorized the court to order abatement of rent and
return such rent paid to the court in proportion to the amount paid by
each party; moreover, although the court was not required to make the
subsidizing entity a party to the action, and the subsidizing entity was
not made a party, the statute explicitly provided that, when a subsidizing
entity is joined as a party and pays its share of rent to the court, any
rent to be returned shall be returned to the tenant and such entity in
proportion to the amount of rent each deposited with the court.
Argued March 1—officially released August 30, 2022 Procedural History