Opinion
No. FA 06-4021023 S
June 15, 2006
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION ON JANE DOE'S MOTION TO INTERVENE, MOTION NO. 103
The captioned matter is an action for dissolution of the marriage between Grace Inkel and John Inkel, who have been married for ten years and have two children, ages 6 and 10. Jane Doe seeks to intervene in this dissolution action. Jane Doe has also filed a civil lawsuit against John Inkel, seeking damages on the basis of a claimed sexual assault against her when she was a minor and she is seeking in that matter to procure attachment on Mr. and Mrs. Inkel's marital home to secure the satisfaction of any judgment she may procure in that civil matter. Jane Doe asserts in this dissolution action that, because Mr. Inkel will soon be sentenced to a period of at least nine months of incarceration for conviction on related criminal charges and because his only asset is the marital home, she should be permitted to intervene so as to preclude the conveyance of the marital home solely to the wife prior to the perfection of any attachment by Jane Doe.
The parties agree that the intervention of Jane Doe in this matter is not as a matter of right, but is within the sound discretion of the court. In support of her motion, Jane Doe directs this court to Gaudio v. Gaudio, 23 Conn.App. 287 (1990). Three years before rendering its decision in Gaudio, the Appellate Court had held that, outside of the limited category of persons permitted by statute to intervene in a dissolution action, intervention is not permitted. Livsey v. Livsey, 11 Conn.App. 43 (1987). Consequently, the Appellate Court in Livsey held that the trial court had erred in adding as a party to the dissolution action, postjudgment, the assignee of a right to a payment that the husband had been awarded in the dissolution. In Gaudio, the Appellate Court held that it was limiting the Livsey holding to the facts of that case, and was overruling Livsey to the extent that it contravened dicta contained in Moliter v. Moliter, 184 Conn. 530 (1981), a case in which the Supreme Court suggested that the addition of a third party might have been appropriate even though that party did not fit within the categories of potential intervenors permitted by statute. In Gaudio, the Appellate Court approved the adding, in a dissolution action, of a party to whom the husband had conveyed an asset during the pendency of the dissolution.
What is clear from the line of cases on this topic is that intervention in a dissolution may be appropriate if there is an issue about a conveyance of a marital asset by husband or wife that may have been inappropriate. That certainly is not the situation in the instant matter. Furthermore, Jane Doe presently is only a claimant in a cause of action against John Inkel. She does not have a judgment, and she is not otherwise a creditor. Moreover, even if such were the case, the clear directive of the law at issue would be thwarted by permitting intervention such as the instant one. The focus of dissolution actions is, and should be, the relationship between the parties to the marriage, and their offspring, with the goal of resolving differences, difficulties, or issues that stem from those relationships. Third-party intervention such as that proposed by Jane Doe in this matter does not assist in achieving that goal, and also would frustrate the already difficult task of addressing the status and obligations of the parties to a dissolving marriage.
The motion to intervene is denied.