Townsend v. Molina

Torrey Terrial Townsend v. Michelle Molina et al.

No. NNHCV185043789

Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of New Haven, New Haven

May 21, 2019

UNPUBLISHED OPINION

Judge (with first initial, no space for Sullivan, Dorsey, and Walsh): Ozalis, Sheila A., J.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION RE MOTIONS TO STRIKE ##118 121, & 123

OZALIS, J.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

On November 15, 2018, the plaintiff, Torrey Terrial Townsend, filed an amended complaint against defendants Commissioner Evonne Klein (Klein) and Steve DiLella (DiLella) of the State of Connecticut, Department of Housing (DOH), Michelle Molina (Molina) and Peter Gadsby (Gadsby), alleging the following facts. The plaintiff alleges that she is part of a protected class in regard to race, color, and lawful source of income. The plaintiff alleges that Klein, the commissioner of the DOH, has failed, pursuant to General Statutes § 8-345, which is known as the Rental Assistance Program (RAP), the DOH Administrative Plan for the RAP (Administrative Plan), and 42 U.S.C. § 1437, to ensure the accurate calculation of the amount of rent owed by the plaintiff. The plaintiff alleges that defendant Klein has also failed or refused to respond to the plaintiff’s complaints concerning these inaccurate calculations, and has failed to provide the plaintiff with a hearing in response to such complaints. The plaintiff alleges that defendant Dilella, is the executive director of the DOH and that he did not answer the plaintiff’s complaints, submitted via email, nor did he provide the plaintiff with a hearing.

The plaintiff alleges that the defendant Molina, is the executive director of J.D’Amelia and Associates. The plaintiff alleges that it is defendant Molina’s duty to carry out the DOH Choice Voucher Program, but that in doing so, she failed to properly calculate the amount of rent owed by the plaintiff, which has been calculated as though the plaintiff receives income throughout each week of the year, but she does not. The plaintiff alleges that the plaintiff’s rent calculation has also been made inaccurate because defendant Molina has unreasonably delayed adjusting the plaintiff’s income downward, and prematurely adjusted the plaintiff’s income upward. The plaintiff alleges that in calculating the amount of rent owed by the plaintiff, defendant Molina has also inappropriately taken into account amounts earned through a work-study program by Shania Anderson, a non-party. The plaintiff alleges that defendant Molina has further changed the plaintiff’s income calculations without the plaintiff filling out a change of income form, and has repeatedly failed to respond to the plaintiff’s complaints.

The plaintiff alleges that the defendant Gadsby,^[1] is the property manager for Florence Virtue Homes, which provides low-income housing and participates in the RAP and that Gadsby has inappropriately calculated the amount of rent owed by the plaintiff by failing to calculate such amounts at 40 percent of the plaintiff’s income. The plaintiff alleges that instead the defendant Gadsby has charged the plaintiff rent on the basis of market rates.

The plaintiff claims that the denial of public services by the defendants was based on the plaintiff’s race, color, and lawful source of income, and that such denial has caused her damages and violated the plaintiff’s rights, as guaranteed by General Statutes § 46a-64, General Statutes § 46a-71, the Unifaun Administrative Procedure Act (UAPA), and 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

On November 20, 2018, defendants Dilella and Klein jointly filed a motion and supporting memorandum to strike the plaintiff’s amended complaint, on the ground that it fails to state any claim upon which relief can be granted. On December 5, 2018, defendant Molina filed a motion to strike the plaintiff’s amended complaint, adopting the arguments made by defendants Dilella and Klein in support of their motion to strike. On December 11, 2018, defendant Gadsby filed a motion to strike the plaintiff’s amended complaint, adopting the arguments made by defendants Dilella and Klein in support of their motion to strike.^[2] Oral argument on the matter took place on March 11, 2019.

II. DISCUSSION

"[A] motion to strike challenges the legal sufficiency of a pleading and, consequently, requires no factual findings by the trial court ... [The court] construe[s] the complaint in the manner most favorable to sustaining its legal sufficiency ... Thus, [i]f facts provable in the complaint would support a cause of action, the motion to strike must be denied ... Moreover . [w]hat is necessarily implied [in an allegation] need not be expressly alleged ... It is fundamental that in determining the sufficiency of a complaint challenged by a defendant’s motion to strike, all well-pleaded facts and those facts necessarily implied from the allegations are taken as admitted ... Indeed, pleadings must be construed broadly and realistically, rather than narrowly and technically." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Geysen v. Securitas Security Services USA, Inc., 322 Conn. 385, 398, 142 A.3d 227 (2016). "If any facts provable under the express and implied allegations in the plaintiff’s complaint support a cause of action ... the complaint is not vulnerable to a motion to strike." Bouchard v. People’s Bank, 219 Conn. 465, 471, 594 A.2d 1 (1991). "In ruling on a motion to strike the trial court is limited to considering the grounds specified in the motion." Meredith v. Police Commission, 182 Conn. 138, 140, 438 A.2d 27 (1980).

"Prior case law ought not to be read for the proposition that clearly improper allegations upon which relief may not be granted as a matter of law must remain in a complaint indefinitely, leading to confusion for the court, the parties and the jury, just because there are aspects of the complaint that are otherwise valid. If the motion to strike has merit as to certain allegations of the complaint ... the proper course for the court is to strike those allegations only ..." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Coe v. Board of Education, 301 Conn. 112, 121 n.5, 19 A.3d 640 (2011), quoting Cook v. Stender, Superior Court, judicial district of Middlesex, Docket No. CV- 04-0104110-S (December 22, 2004, Silbert, J.) (38 Conn.L.Rptr. 439, 440). "Under prior case law and earlier versions of the Practice Book, it was generally improper to [move to strike] a paragraph of a complaint unless the paragraph purported to state a separate cause of action ... Since 1978, however, the Practice Book has not contained such a constraint." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Coe v. Board of Education, supra, 301 Conn. 121 n.5, quoting Nordling v. Harris, Superior Court, judicial district of Fairfield, Docket No. 329660 (August 7, 1996, Levin, J.) (17 Conn.L.Rptr. 296, 298 n.1).

A. General Statutes § 46a-64

The defendants first argue that the plaintiff’s claims under § 46a-64 would only apply if the RAP were a "place of public accommodation, resort or amusement," pursuant to that statute. According to the defendants, because the RAP is not offered to the general public, but is a selective program, it is not a "public accommodation," and thus, § 46a-64 is inapplicable to the present matter. The defendants assert that this is further demonstrated by the legislature’s removal of "public housing projects and all other forms of publicly assisted housing" from the definition of "place of public accommodation, resort or amusement." The defendants also claim that the plaintiff has not sufficiently alleged facts to support her claims brought under § 46a-64.

Section 46a-64 provides in relevant part: "It shall be a discriminatory practice in violation of this section ... [t]o deny any person within the jurisdiction of this state full and equal accommodations in any place of public accommodation, resort or amusement because of race ... color ... [or] lawful source of income ... of the applicant, subject only to the conditions and limitations established by law and applicable alike to all persons ..." General Statutes § 46a-63 defines "[p]lace of public accommodation, resort or amusement," as used in § 46a-64, as "any establishment which caters or offers its services or facilities or goods to the general public, including, but not limited to, any commercial property or building lot, on which it is intended that a commercial building will be constructed or offered for sale or rent ..."

"When construing a statute, we first look to its text, as directed by General Statutes § 1-2z ..." Genesky v. East Lyme, 275 Conn. 246, 253, 881 A.2d 114 (2005). Section 1-2z provides that "[t]he meaning of a statute shall, in the first instance, be ascertained from the text of the statute itself and its relationship to other statutes. If, after examining such text and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text is plain and unambiguous and does not yield absurd or unworkable results, extratextual evidence of the meaning of the statute shall not be considered." In construing statutory language that has been judicially interpreted, courts "do not write on a clean slate, but are bound by our [appellate courts’] previous judicial interpretations of the language and the purpose of the statute." Kasica v. Columbia, 309 Conn. 85, 93-94, 70 A.3d 1 (2013). Thus, although case law is relied on to interpret statutory language, "[courts] still apply § 1-2z to the extent that those cases do not fully resolve the issues presented ..." Id., 94 n.10.

Our Supreme Court, in Quinnipiac Council, Boy Scouts of America, Inc. v. Commission on Human Rights &amp Opportunities, 204 Conn. 287, 288, 528 A.2d 352 (1987) (Quinnipiac Council ), considered "whether the refusal to permit a woman to serve as a scoutmaster for a Boy Scout troop is a...