Hamann v. Carl

Excerpt

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendant for, inter alia, civil theft and unjust enrichment in connection with a $150,000 payment she made on the defendant's line of credit account. The defendant was in the business of collecting rare cars and worked with R, a broker, to find classic cars, purchase them, and, at times, resell them. The plaintiff's former husband, T, was also a broker of classic cars. At one point, the defendant was having cash flow problems and owed $150,000 on his line of credit. R asked T to loan the defendant the money and promised that it would be repaid within seven days. T, who was interested in cultivating a business relationship with the defendant, asked the plaintiff for the funds and the plaintiff, with the understanding that the money would be repaid in seven days, wired the funds directly to the defendant's line of credit account on September 1, 2015. The defendant did not learn until one week after the money had been received that it was from the plaintiff. T contacted the defendant in early January, 2016, seeking repayment of the $150,000, and the defendant refused to repay the money. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiff's action for lack of personal jurisdiction, which was denied by the trial court. After a trial to the court, the court rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff and awarded damages, including treble damages for the civil theft claim pursuant to statute (§ 52-564), and prejudgment interest, from which the defendant appealed to this court. On appeal, the defen- dant claimed that the trial court erred in denying his motion to dismiss, in finding that he committed civil theft and awarding treble damages, in awarding prejudgment interest on the trebled punitive portion of the damages and in setting the start date for the prejudgment interest on the unjust enrichment award. Held: 1. This court declined to review the defendant's jurisdictional challenge on the merits as the defendant waive