BRIDGEPORT HOUSING AUTHORITY v. LYLES, No. BRSP-067159 (May 8, 2009)

MOORE, J.

This matter comes before the Court on plaintiff's affidavit of non-compliance with a stipulation. The relevant facts are that on September 26, 2008, the defendant entered into a stipulation with the plaintiff as part of a summary process action. The stipulation, inter alia, indicated that the defendant was to abide all rules and regulations of the Bridgeport Housing Authority (BHA).

The plaintiff claims the defendant violated the rules on October 9, 2008 when she allowed and encouraged her son, Akeem Lyles, to engage in an altercation with another tenant. The plaintiff argues that this event constitutes non-compliance with the stipulation and affords them the opportunity for execution of their summary process judgment. The defendant denies that she allowed or encouraged her son's actions on that day and therefore, is not in violation of her stipulation.

The court has weighed all the evidence and assessed the credibility of the witnesses. Based on the evidence presented, the court makes the following findings regarding the respective claims and defenses. Clearly, there was a major altercation on the day in question which involved a number of persons, a knife and possibly a golf club being used as a weapon. Several of the witnesses were personally involved in the fight and hence, their ability to observe all the actions of the defendant and her son would be tempered by their concern for their own plight at any given moment. As for the independent witnesses, one was inside her apartment observing the event from her window and did not testify that she heard any words from the combatants and the others did not offer any testimony as to the interaction between the defendant and her son.

The defendant testified that she did not say anything to her son to encourage his entry into the altercation and that his actions were as a result of seeing his family members being attacked by a person wielding a knife. The court finds this evidence credible. Furthermore, the court CT Page 7864 cannot find that the defendant was responsible for her son's actions after the police arrived. The evidence clearly shows that his behavior with the police and inside the police cruiser was at his own bidding and not at the influence of the defendant. Consequently, the court finds that the defendant did not violate the conditions of the stipulation by his son's actions on October 9, 2008.

It should be noted that some behavior of the defendant that day could have possibly violated the rules and regulations of the BHA. However, since the rules and regulations were not admitted as part of the evidence, the court is not able to make a finding based on the evidence and anything else would be pure speculation.

Accordingly, the Court finds that the plaintiff has not proved, by a fair preponderance of the evidence, non-compliance with the stipulation.

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