PPC Realty, LLC v. Hartford

Summary

The court held that tenants forced to leave an apartment building after a fire and municipal condemnation were displaced persons because their displacement resulted directly from the city's code-enforcement order, regardless of who caused the fire. It further held that the landlord could not use the statutory affirmative defense concerning lack of landlord fault to invalidate a lien in a lien-discharge proceeding; that defense is available only in a municipal civil action to recover relocation expenses. The judgment was reversed and the case was remanded with directions to deny the application to discharge the lien. Justice Ecker, concurring, agreed with the result but would have treated the statutory scheme as ambiguous and resolved the case using legislative history.