Gateway Development/East Lyme, LLC v. Duong, 227 Conn. App. 38 (2024)

Citation: Gateway Development/East Lyme, LLC v. Duong, 227 Conn. App. 38 (2024)
Parent Document: Gateway Development/East Lyme, LLC v. Duong, 227 Conn. App. 38 (2024)
Jurisdiction: Connecticut (state)
Effective Date: 2024-07-30
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10131818/gateway-developmenteast-lyme-l... ↗

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see Russo v. Thornton, 217 Conn. App. 553, 567 n.18,
       290 A.3d 387 (court ‘‘necessarily rejected’’ argument
       that it did not explicitly address), cert. denied, 346 Conn.
       921, 291 A.3d 608 (2023); T & M Building Co. v. Has-
       tings, 194 Conn. App. 532, 545–46, 221 A.3d 857 (2019)
       (same), cert. denied, 334 Conn. 926, 224 A.3d 162 (2020);
       and ‘‘we will presume, in the absence of an articulation,
       [that the] trial court acted correctly, meaning that it
       undertook a proper analysis of the law and made what-
       ever findings of the facts were necessary.’’ (Emphasis
       omitted.) Zaniewski v. Zaniewski, 190 Conn. App. 386,
       396, 210 A.3d 620 (2019). With these principles in mind,
       we turn to the defendants’ claims.
                                      I
         First, the defendants contend that the court improp-
       erly relied solely on the language of the parties’ sublease
       agreement and failed to consider the evidence of the
       parties’ course of performance in its interpretation of
       the agreement. Specifically, the defendants argue that
       paragraph 21 of the sublease agreement was ambiguous
       as to whether a pretermination notice and a ten day
       cure period was required in the context of a default for
       nonpayment of rent and, therefore, the court should
       have considered the parties’ course of performance as
       evidence of the parties’ understanding of the terms of
       the lease. We are not persuaded.
          We begin our analysis with the applicable standard
       of review. The defendants’ claim ‘‘presents a question
       of contract interpretation because a lease is a contract,
       and, therefore, it is subject to the same rules of con-
       struction as other contracts. . . . Although ordinarily
       the question of contract interpretation, being a question
       of the parties’ intent, is a question of fact . . . [when]
       there is definitive contract language, the determination
       of what the parties intended by their . . . commit-
       ments is a question of law [over which our review is
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