The plaintiff landlord sought, by way of summary process, to regain posses-
sion of certain residential property that was occupied by the defendant
tenant. The plaintiff and the defendant were parties to a written, one
year lease that commenced on March 1, 2021. The defendant paid her
rent in full until June, 2021, when she paid only a partial amount. She
included with her partial payment an explanation that she had deducted
the cost of recent air conditioning repairs from her rent payment. Both
parties agreed that it was the plaintiff’s obligation to repair the air
conditioning if it was not working. The defendant acknowledged that
she did not contact the plaintiff to request the repair but explained
that she chose to proceed as she did because she was uncomfortable
contacting the plaintiff in light of a civil protective order that she had
obtained against the plaintiff. The plaintiff subsequently served the
defendant with a notice to quit on July 21, 2021, with a quit date of August
21, 2021. The notice to quit included a use and occupancy disclaimer
that stated that payments tendered after the quit date would be accepted
for use and occupancy only and not for rent. The plaintiff subsequently
commenced the summary process action on September 1, 2021, alleging
that the plaintiff had failed to pay rent due on June 1, 2021. The defendant
filed an answer that raised several special defenses, including, inter alia,
that all rent had been paid to the plaintiff. Thereafter, the trial court
issued a memorandum of decision, in which it found that the defendant
tendered monthly payments from July through September, 2021, on time
and in full; that each check had ‘‘rent’’ written in the memo field; and
that, although the plaintiff did not immediately deposit the checks for
July, August, and September, the plaintiff eventually deposited them
into his account. The court further found that, although the plaintiff did
not accept the subsequent rent payments until after the quit date, the
plaintiff’s acceptance of rent payments tendered after service of the
notice to quit but prior to the quit date reinstated the tenancy. The court
subsequently dismissed the plaintiff’s summary process action, and the
plaintiff appealed to this court. Held:
1. This court declined to review the plaintiff’s claim that the trial court
incorrectly concluded that the defendant’s tenancy was reinstated, not-
withstanding the use and occupancy disclaimer, the plaintiff having
failed to provide this court with an adequate record to resolve the factual
dispute: the trial transcript was necessary to properly evaluate on appeal
whether the evidence presented to the trial court supported that court’s
factual conclusions, it was the responsibility of the plaintiff as the appel-
lant to provide this court with an adequate record for review, and the
plaintiff failed to provide this court with a transcript of the summary
process trial, leaving this court with an inadequate record upon which
to determine whether the trial court’s ruling on this claim was clearly
erroneous.
2. This court declined to review the plaintiff’s unpreserved claim that the
governor’s executive orders promulgated during the COVID-19 pandemic
altered the required analysis of the case: this court was not bound to
consider a claim unless it was distinctly raised at the trial or arose
subsequent to the trial, and, in any event, the existence of the executive
orders did not transform the factual question of the plaintiff’s intentions
when he accepted the additional payments from the defendant into a
legal question; moreover, the plaintiff’s failure to provide the court with
a transcript of the summary process trial left the court with an inadequate
record upon which to review the claim.
3. This court declined the plaintiff’s request to adjudicate the merits of the
defendant’s special defenses: the trial court never reached the special
defenses because it found that the plaintiff’s acceptance of rent for
the months of July, August, and September reinstated the defendant’s
tenancy and, therefore, having made that finding, the trial court did not
need to address the special defenses, and, as a result, there was nothing
for this court to review on appeal.
Argued May 17—officially released December 6, 2022 Procedural History