The plaintiff sought, by way of summary process, immediate possession of
certain residential property that it had acquired and that was occupied
by the named defendant, V. The plaintiff alleged that it did not have a
tenancy agreement with V. Although the state had a temporary morato-
rium on evictions per the governor’s executive orders issued in response
to the COVID-19 pandemic, the plaintiff alleged one of the recognized
exceptions created by those orders, namely, that the plaintiff’s sole
member, R, had a bona fide intention to use the dwelling unit as his
principal residence. During trial, R testified that the plaintiff purchased
the premises in October, 2020, from S Co., and that he had a bona fide
intention to use the premises as his principal residence. V, however,
indicated that the plaintiff brought this action as a result of a loophole
in a prior summary process action brought by S Co. against V and her
estranged husband, D, and that she did not believe R had a bona fide
intent to occupy the premises as his principal residence. In that prior
summary process action, S Co., alleging that D was delinquent in his
rental payments, commenced its action shortly after V had commenced
a dissolution action against D. As a result, the trial court stayed S Co.’s
action through the pendency of the dissolution action, which was still
pending, and, therefore, temporarily removed S Co.’s right to maintain
the summary process action in the absence of an order from the family
court. S Co. thereafter conveyed the property to the plaintiff. Following
trial on the plaintiff’s summary process action, the court issued a memo-
randum of decision, concluding that the plaintiff had not established
that its ownership rights to the premises included the right to maintain
the summary process action. Thereafter, the trial court rendered judg-
ment dismissing the action, from which the plaintiff appealed to this
court. On appeal, the plaintiff claimed, inter alia, that the trial court
erred by dismissing the summary process action on the basis of its
posttrial consideration of extra-record evidence, namely, S Co.’s prior
summary process action. Although S Co.’s action was eventually dis-
missed for dormancy, the trial court observed that S Co. could not as
a matter of law have conveyed to the plaintiff the right to maintain a
summary process action against V because, as a result of the stay, it
did not have such a right of its own. Held that the trial court abused
its discretion in taking judicial notice of S Co.’s summary process action
without providing the parties an opportunity to address it either at trial
or in a posttrial brief: although notice is not always required when a
court takes judicial notice, parties are entitled to receive notice and
have an opportunity to be heard for matters susceptible of explanation
or contradiction; moreover, the trial court relied on the facts of S Co.’s
summary process action in concluding that the plaintiff did not have
the right to bring the present action but did not give the parties an
opportunity to address whether the stay that was entered in S Co.’s
action prevented the current plaintiff from pursuing its own action
against V; accordingly, the judgment was reversed and a new trial
ordered.
Submitted on briefs September 15, 2021—officially released February 8, 2022 Procedural History