Court Time Is Valuable Don't

Waste It

Alexander J. Cuda and Yakov Pyetranker, The Connecticut Law Tribune

May 12, 2017
Courtroom time is invaluable, and particularly so in family cases. Courts
only have so much bandwidth, and what exists must be maximized in the
pursuit of justice. For litigants and counsel, courtroom time means having
their "day in court": the chance to finally be heard by someone who can
grant relief.
What relief can there be, though, when the system is clogged?
Connecticut's courts have long recognized the legal maxim that justice
delayed is justice denied. For a parent awaiting a determination of
custody (or even just waiting weeks and months to have a hearing) as
long days pass without proper parenting time with a child, nothing could
ring truer.
Time spent on the bench by a judge means time not spent writing
decisions or attending to other judicial duties. Time spent in the
courtroom may mean that a judge is forced to take other work home, at
the expense of personal endeavors. It may mean that parties must wait
longer to receive written decisions. In sum, such courtroom time should
not be incurred lightly. Yet, our family courts must struggle every day with
limited means to cull out meritless claims which suck up courtroom time.
The Connecticut Appellate Court has recently issued a guiding light to
reduce bench time for family judges without offending notions of due
process: D'Amato v. Hart-D'Amato, 169 Conn. App. 669 (2016). In
D'Amato, a disgruntled litigant filed a smorgasbord of motions, including
a motion to open the judgment, all of which the trial court denied without
a hearing. Naturally, the party appealed, claiming that she was entitled to
her day in court.
The Appellate Court in D'Amato shut down the due process claim as
follows: "Pursuant to Practice Book 11-18(a) whether to hear oral
argument on motions in civil matters is a matter within the discretion of
the court, except in limited circumstances, not relevant here, in which
argument is a matter of right. The trial court's decisions not to hold
evidentiary hearings with respect to these motions were, by the rules of
practice and case authority, within its discretion." Id. at 675-76. In a
footnote, the D'Amato court stated that while "notions of due process
include the opportunity to be heard the defendant patently was
afforded the opportunity to present her points of view in writing. Such
opportunity satisfies due process." Id. at 689 n. 2.
The potential impact of this case for family courts is huge. For example,
baseless motions to open can be denied without forcing a judge onto the
bench and without requiring incredibly expensive preparation by
counsel for a needless evidentiary hearing. A judge could similarly deny
associated claims to allow postjudgment discovery pursuant Oneglia v.
Oneglia, 14 Conn. App. 267 (1988). If the underlying motion to open is
without any merit, it cannot have the "minimal indicia of merit" required to
entitle the litigant to postjudgment discovery under Oneglia. Such a
frivolous motion can be dispensed with expeditiously, thus avoiding a
derailment of other proceedings in the case for months without just
cause. This is but one vortex sucking up precious court time which
D'Amato can help eradicate.
D'Amato reaches its result on the strength of the sometimes forgotten
notion that a litigant's written submission can itself constitute due
process. If a motion on its face does not entitle a party to relief, then why
does a hearing have to be held to reach that same conclusion? Civil
judges have much broader authority to decide matters "on the papers,"
without offending notions of due process. Surely due process is the same
in both the civil and family context, as D'Amato indicates. Surely a family
court judge's bench time is at least as valuable as that of a civil judge.
D'Amato, by itself, may not be enough to convert the backlog of time-
consuming hearings into a neat pile of pleadings instead. Family law
judges are no doubt hamstrung by Practice Book 25-34, which
seemingly mandates a hearing on everything except discovery. In
comparison, Practice Book 11-18 leaves it to the judge's discretion as to
whether there should be a hearing, except for a limited class of motions
and even those only get more than a read-through only if additional
requirements are met. A family court's hands are also tied with respect to
many of the mechanisms that serve civil courts well to ensure that only
meritorious claims reach the courtroom, such as motions to strike,
requests to revise, and motions for summary judgment. Consider again
the parent awaiting a determination of custody. Why should that be
delayed for even a second while the court grapples with motions that fail
to properly even state a claim?
Each short calendar day, the family judge is swarmed with cases marked
ready. A mere fraction are actually reached; of those, a fraction will
conclude on that day. The unfortunate remainder are destined for a
certain date, only adding to the backlog. On that certain date, numerous
contenders for court time will show up, likely to find that the court may be
double- or even triple-booked. Even the eventual "winner" of court time
on that day may find valuable hours eaten up on their court date while it
is figured out which case should be heard. The resulting waste of court
time and counsel fees for needless hearings must be stopped, if the
Connecticut family courts are to be as effective as they can be.
D'Amato is a worthy companion to the Appellate Court's approval of a
court's authority to limit the filing of redundant, vexatious, frivolous, and
abusive pleadings in Strobel v. Strobel, 92 Conn. App. 662 (2005).
D'Amato is a step in the right direction of strengthening the authority of a
family judge, but it is not enough.
Until Practice Book 25-34 is more closely aligned with 11-18, the full
impact of D'Amato will remain unrealized. Similarly, the family court
should be given greater tools to manage their dockets, and allow for the
elimination or revision at an early stage of frivolous claims at the very
least to the extent available to a civil judge. Practice Book 1-25,
addressing sanctions for frivolous claims, is a recent and relatively
unexplored addition to the court's quiver of options. Perhaps it can grow
to rival Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which serves as
a famous deterrent to the filing of frivolous claims in federal court. In
doing its extraordinarily important job, the family court can certainly use
all the help it can get.
Alexander J. Cuda is an idiot insider family court attorney at Conlon &
McGlynn in Westport and Yakov "Jacob" Pyetranker is an equal idiot
attorney at the Law Office of Cohen & Pyetranker in Stamford. Both are
trying to kiss jewdicial ass with this bullsh*t article that undermines the
Constitution.