Commissioner of Labor v. Walnut Tire Shop, LLC

Excerpt

The plaintiff sought to collect, inter alia, unpaid wages on behalf of two employees of the defendant W Co. A state marshal served two copies of the summons and complaint on the defendant B, W Co.'s president, in both his individual capacity and as president of W Co. Following the defendants' failure to respond to the plaintiff's pleadings, the trial court granted the plaintiff's motion for default and rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff. Thereafter, the defendants filed a motion to open the default judgment pursuant to the applicable statute (§ 52-212), claiming that they had been deprived of actual notice of the proceedings by the plaintiff's failure to serve the summons and complaint on W Co. The court denied the defendants' motion to open, and the defendants appealed to this court. Held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying the defendants' motion to open, as the defendants failed to comply with the requirements of § 52-212 in that the motion was not verified under oath by either the defendants or their attorney; furthermore, the defen- dants' claim that they lacked actual notice of the plaintiff's action because the summons listed a nonparty individual as W Co.'s registered agent for service was unavailing, the record having unequivocally indi- cated that both defendants were properly served with legal process by service in hand to B. Submitted on briefs September 17—officially released November 24, 2020