Thornton v. Jacobs

Outcome

Excerpt

The plaintiffs served a subpoena on the defendant L in Connecticut to depose her in connection with an action the plaintiffs were litigating in Florida against a company owned by L, after a Florida court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction to subpoena L, who resided primarily in Connecticut. L filed a motion to quash the Connecticut subpoena, which the trial court denied, and L appealed to the Appellate Court. The plaintiffs then filed a motion to dismiss the appeal, which L opposed, and the Appellate Court dismissed L's appeal as frivolous. After the Appellate Court's dismissal of L's appeal but before this court granted L's petition for certification to appeal, the plaintiffs served L with a subpoena in Florida while L was visiting that state and withdrew, without prejudice, the Connecticut subpoena. On appeal from the Appellate Court's dismissal of L's appeal, held that, because the plaintiffs' withdrawal of their Con- necticut subpoena rendered L's appeal to this court moot, that appeal was dismissed, and, because L was thereby prevented from challenging, before this court, the Appellate Court's dismissal of her appeal as frivo- lous, the Appellate Court's judgment was vacated; the plaintiffs, having unilaterally withdrawn the Connecticut subpoena, prevented L, through no fault of her own, from challenging the Appellate Court's adverse determination, and the plaintiffs, after having received favorable rulings from the Appellate Court and the trial court, should not have been able to moot L's appeal to this court to prevent the possibility of an unfavorable decision. Argued February 19—officially released July 2, 2021