Finan v. Finan

Connecticut Appellate Court · Family Law

Family LawCivil ProcedurePractice Book interpretationPostjudgment contemptDiscoveryPractice Book § 25-56request for production at hearingcalendar days

Facts

After the parties' marriage was dissolved, the plaintiff filed a motion for contempt alleging that the defendant failed to pay her amounts required under the dissolution judgment based on compensation he received. Five days before the scheduled hearing, the plaintiff served a request to produce at the hearing under Practice Book § 25-56 seeking tax returns and documents showing the defendant's 2005 and 2006 income, including severance, deferred compensation, bonuses, stock options, and other income. The trial court ruled the request untimely because it believed § 25-56 required service at least five business days before the hearing. At the hearing, the defendant could not explain several items on his employer pay statement, and the trial court stated it had no idea what one large payment represented before denying the contempt motion.

Issue

Does Practice Book § 25-56 require a party to serve a request for production no later than five calendar days before the scheduled hearing date, or five business days before the hearing? If the trial court applied the wrong interpretation, was the error harmful?

Rule

Under Practice Book § 25-56, a request for production for a hearing or trial is timely if served no later than five days before the scheduled hearing date; because the rule does not say 'business days,' it is measured in calendar days. In a civil case, an improper ruling is harmful if it likely affected the result.

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One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

In a postjudgment support hearing in Hartford, Dana Mercer served Leo Mercer with a request to produce financial records under a family-practice rule stating that such a request must be served "no later than five days before the scheduled hearing date." Dana served it exactly five calendar days before the hearing, but only three business days before it because a weekend intervened.

If the trial court rules the request untimely solely because it was not served five business days before the hearing, which is the best analysis?

Explanation. The governing rule is plain-language interpretation of the Practice Book: when a rule says "five days" and does not say "business days," the period is counted in calendar days. Intervening weekends do not convert the period into business days. Thus service exactly five calendar days before the hearing is timely. (Derived from Finan v. Finan (n.d.).)