Delfino v. Vealencis Supreme Court of Connecticut, 1980. Facts: Plaintiffs and Defendant were tenants in common of a rectangular, 20.5 acre tract of land. Ps owned an undivided 99/144 interest, and D owned a 45/144 interest. D maintained a residence and business on the westernmost part of the land; D’s business had been in continuous operation for around 50 years (since the 1920s). Procedural History: Ps brought suit asking the court to order a partition by sale with the proceeds split between the parties; D moved for a partition in kind. The trial court ordered a partition by sale; inferring that it would be in the parties’ best economic interests (based on assumptions that Ps would not be able to secure the planning commission’s support of its subdivision because D’s business violated zoning laws). Issue: Can a court order a division by sale if a division in kind is physically impracticable or inequitable and the interests of the parties would be better promoted by such a sale? Holding: Yes, although a division in kind is preferable, a court can alternatively order a division by sale only when the above two criteria are met. Reasoning: A partition by sale should be ordered only where a partition in kind is impracticable or inequitable, and when the interests of the parties would be better suited by sale. The trial court held that partition in kind was not feasible, but unlike other, more complex cases, this case only involves two competing interests. Vealencis occupies land at the far western border of the 20.5acre plot and it is not impractical to partition her land off from that belonging to the Delfinos. There is no reason to believe that a partition in kind is not practicable under these circumstances. The trial court also held that partition by sale would better promote the interests of the parties, because residential development of the land would be hampered by the ongoing trash business on Vealencis’s property, and because the trial judge had doubts as to whether the zoning commission would permit both residential development and a trash business in such close proximity. These reasons are unpersuasive. There is no reasonable probability that the zoning commission would reject the proposed subdivision plans. Moreover, the trash business run by Vealencis did not involve the actual storage of refuse on the property, so the business was unlikely to present an obstacle to a partition in kind. Indeed, the trial court’s holding, in which it was to have compared the equities between selling the property and partitioning it, failed to account for the fact that a forced sale would have forced Vealencis out of the home she had made for herself on the property, and could have impacted her income stream. The trial court’s judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded.