Scholz v. Epstein

Excerpt

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendant, an attorney, for alleged statutory theft arising from the defendant's conduct during prior judicial proceedings involving the foreclosure of the plaintiff's property. The defendant, acting as attorney for B Co., brought an action against the plaintiff to foreclose a municipal lien that B Co. had pur- chased from the city of Bridgeport. The plaintiff thereafter commenced this action alleging that the defendant, in the course of the foreclosure proceeding, made false representations to the court with the intent to default the plaintiff for failure to appear and to render a judgment of strict foreclosure. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant intended to deprive the plaintiff of his property and/or to appropriate the property to B Co., committing theft pursuant to statute (§ 52-564). The court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the ground that the defendant was protected by absolute immunity pursuant to the litigation privilege, and, from the judgment rendered thereon, the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court properly granted the defendant's motion to dismiss, this court having determined, as a matter of first impression, that the defen- dant was protected by absolute immunity from the plaintiff's action for statutory theft under § 52-564: following an evaluation of the competing public policy considerations, including the underlying purpose of judicial proceedings, the similarity between statutory theft and claims of fraud and defamation, which are protected by the privilege, and the availability of other remedies, this court reasoned that the plaintiff's claim of statu- tory theft did not require a consideration of whether the underlying purpose of the foreclosure litigation was improper, rather, the plaintiff's claim raised the issue of whether an attorney's conduct, while represent- ing a client during a judicial proceedi