Volume 199 — Connecticut Appellate Reports

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendants W Co. and A, for, inter alia, breach of contract in connection with a dispute arising from a transaction in which C Co. sold a shopping plaza to M Co., and, in return, C Co. took back certain purchase money notes from M Co., including an amended and restated third promissory note, which con- tained the terms of the sale of the plaza. The notes subsequently were assigned to the plaintiff. Prior to the sale of the plaza, W Co., M Co. and S Co., the sole tenant in the plaza, had entered into a restriction agreement pursuant to which S Co. agreed to pay W Co. an annual cash rental subsidy in exchange for its promise not to lease a nearby property to S Co.'s competitor. Thereafter, M Co. and S Co. signed a letter agree- ment pursuant to which the cash rental subsidy payments under the restriction agreement were redirected and applied to pay down the amounts owed on the first and second purchase money notes. Subse- quently, B, individually and on behalf of H Co., the general partner of M Co., and the plaintiff, as the successor in interest to C Co., entered into a first modification agreement pursuant to which the cash rental subsidy payments were directed to pay off the second note prior to paying off the first note. Both the first and second notes thereafter were paid in full; no payments were directed toward the third note. In its breach of contract claim, the plaintiff alleged that the defendants failed to direct the cash rental subsidy payments to pay off the third note pursuant to an alleged letter of direction, which purportedly provided for those payments to be applied toward paying off the third note once the first and second notes were paid in full. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, and the plaintiff filed a memorandum of law in opposition thereto to which it attached the deposition testimony of B, a signatory to all of the relevant agreements, to establish the existence and terms of the alleged letter of direction. The plaintiff did not submit a copy of the letter of direction. The trial court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and rendered judgment thereon, determining, inter alia, that B's testimony was barred by the best evidence rule. Held that the plaintiff could not prevail on its claim that the trial court improperly determined that the best evidence rule barred the plaintiff's reliance on B's deposition testimony in support of its opposition to the defendants' motion for summary judgment; the plaintiff failed to satisfy its burden, pursuant to the applicable rule (§ 10- 3) of the Connecticut Code of Evidence, to prove that B's testimony was sufficient to establish the former existence, present unavailability and contents of the letter of direction, as his testimony lacked specific details regarding the letter's signatories and terms and neither B nor the plaintiff could locate a copy of the letter, and, therefore, the produc- tion of the letter at trial would not have been excused. Argued February 18—officially released July 14, 2020

The defendant appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court granting the application for relief from abuse filed by his daughter, the plaintiff, and issuing a domestic violence restraining order against him. The trial court granted the plaintiff's ex parte application for relief from abuse on behalf of herself, her minor child and her mother, and issued a restraining order against the defendant that required him, inter alia, not to harass, follow, interfere with or stalk the plaintiff or her minor child. The court thereafter conducted a hearing on whether to extend the ex parte order, at which the plaintiff testified that the defendant's actions were affecting the child's behavior and schoolwork, and that the child did not want to be around the defendant and was afraid that the defendant was following him. The defendant testified that he went to the area across the street from the child's school bus stop two to three times a week and waved and said hello to the child. The court rendered judgment denying the continuation of the ex parte order as it pertained to the plaintiff and continuing it as to the child. In continuing the ex parte order as to the child, the court stated that, rather than using the dictionary definition of stalking, it would use the statutory (§ 53a-181d) definition set forth in the crime of stalking in the second degree, which defined stalking as to follow, lie in wait for, observe, surveil, communicate with or to send unwanted gifts to a person that results in emotional distress. On appeal, the plaintiff claimed that the trial court used the wrong definition of stalking and that it should have used the definition of stalking in Princess Q. H. v. Robert H. (150 Conn. App. 105), and erroneously relied on testimony that the plaintiff gave on behalf of the child. Held: 1. The trial court did not err in issuing the domestic violence restraining order against the defendant: although the court's reference to the definition in § 53a-181d was incorrect, that narrower definition was not inconsis- tent with the common understanding of stalking relied on in Princess Q. H., in which the court articulated a broader standard of stalking in the civil protection order context than in the criminal context, and evidence establishing that the defendant's conduct met the criminal standard was more than sufficient to satisfy the civil standard; moreover, the court credited the plaintiff's testimony that the defendant surveilled her and the child and surreptitiously attempted to gather information about the child from the plaintiff and her mother, and the court credited the testimony of the plaintiff and her landlord that the defendant stood across the street from the bus stop to see and to attempt to interact with the child, who did not want the same with the defendant. 2. The defendant's claim that the trial court erroneously relied on testimony that the plaintiff gave on behalf of the child was unreviewable, the defendant having failed to properly preserve his objection at the hearing: although the defendant objected to the plaintiff's testimony about the child's fears, the court overruled the objection, which was not stated precisely, and the defendant made no further objections specific to that claim after he declined the court's invitation to have the child testify; moreover, as there was substantial evidence before the court that estab- lished that the child feared the defendant, any error in the court's having overruled the defendant's objection to such testimony was harmless. Argued March 12—officially released July 14, 2020

The defendant administrator of the Unemployment Compensation Act appealed to this court from the judgment of the Superior Court sustaining the plaintiff's appeal from the decision of the Board of Review of the Employment Security Appeals Division, which affirmed the determina- tion by an appeals referee that the plaintiff was not entitled to certain unemployment benefits. The plaintiff, who had been employed by A Co., had been found eligible for unemployment benefits by the adminis- trator. A Co. appealed from that decision, and the appeals referee, following a hearing, reversed the decision of the administrator to award benefits to the plaintiff. The plaintiff, who did not attend the hearing before the appeals referee, thereafter filed a motion to open the referee's decision, arguing that he had not received notice of the hearing. The referee denied the plaintiff's motion on the ground that he had not established good cause for his failure to participate in the hearing, finding that, the notice had been properly mailed to the plaintiff at his usual address where he had received all other notices, the notice had not been returned as undeliverable, and the plaintiff had admitted that he may have inadvertently discarded the notice. The board subsequently affirmed the decision of the referee, concluding that the evidence sup- ported the referee's findings and conclusion. Thereafter, the plaintiff appealed to the Superior Court, which found that there was no evidence that the defendant had properly mailed notice of the hearing before the appeals referee and remanded the case for a de novo appeal hearing before the referee. Held that the Superior Court exceeded its scope of authority by assessing the factual findings of the referee, as adopted by the board, and determining that because there was no evidence to support the referee's findings, the board had acted unreasonably, ille- gally, or in abuse of its discretion by denying the plaintiff's motion to open; in an appeal from the decision of the board, the trial court is bound by the board's factual findings and, therefore, it was improper for the trial court to review the subordinate findings of the referee, which had been adopted by the board, in the absence of the plaintiff's filing a motion to correct pursuant to the applicable rule of practice (§ 22-4); moreover, the evidence supported the referee's factual findings that notice had been properly mailed to the plaintiff at his address of record and received by the plaintiff and, therefore, the board acted properly in accepting those findings and affirming the referee's decision. Submitted on briefs April 15—officially released July 14, 2020

The defendant, who had been on probation in connection with a prior conviction, appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court revoking his probation and sentencing him to thirty months of incarcera- tion. Following a stop of a van in which the defendant was a passenger and a subsequent search of his hotel room, the defendant was arrested and charged with possession of narcotics with intent to sell and posses- sion of drug paraphernalia. At his probation revocation proceeding, certain evidence was admitted that had been obtained from the stop and the search of his hotel room. After the close of evidence, the trial court denied the defendant's motion to suppress, declining to recognize an exception to the general inapplicability of the exclusionary rule to probation revocation proceedings, and ruled that the search of the defen- dant's hotel room was lawful. On appeal, the defendant claimed that under the circumstances of the case, the trial court improperly declined to apply the exclusionary rule pursuant to article first, § 7, of the Connect- icut constitution. Held that the defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court improperly declined to apply the exclusionary rule, as the warrantless search at issue did not violate the Connecticut consti- tution; a standard condition of the defendant's probation provided that he submit to a search of his person, possessions, vehicle or residence when a probation officer has a reasonable suspicion that he was violating conditions of his probation, which diminished his reasonable expecta- tion of privacy and furthered the state's dual interests in facilitating the defendant's rehabilitation and protecting society from any future criminal violations by him, and there was no requirement in the defen- dant's probation search condition that a warrant be procured before a search was conducted, and the probation officer and investigator in this case possessed sufficient reasonable suspicion to suspect that the defendant was engaged in a sale of narcotics and that his hotel room might contain further evidence of such criminality to conduct their search of the defendant's hotel room, the defendant having been observed leaving a hotel parking lot, walking to the parking lot of certain neighboring apartments, approaching a driver of a van and reaching his hand into the van's front driver side window, and entering the van, and, after a motor vehicle stop of the van was conducted, the driver of the van was observed visibly shaking and beginning to cry, a needle and glassine bags were discovered on the driver's person, the driver admitted to purchasing $50 worth of heroin, the sum of $50 was found in one of the defendant's pockets, a room card key for the hotel was found on the defendant, and a hotel clerk stated that the defendant had been staying at the hotel. Submitted on briefs March 18—officially released July 14, 2020

Convicted, following a jury trial, of attempt to commit robbery in the first degree and conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree, the defen- dant appealed to this court. Held that the defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court improperly admitted uncharged misconduct evidence regarding a separate robbery as the defendant failed to meet his burden of establishing harmful error: the state presented evidence beyond the uncharged misconduct evidence that overwhelmingly identi- fied the defendant, including surveillance video and eyewitness identifi- cation as well as physical evidence linking the defendant to the gun that was used in the attempted robbery and the defendant stated to the police that he and his accomplice had intended to commit robberies and were present in the store where the attempted robbery took place; moreover, the trial court instructed the jury several times that the uncharged misconduct evidence could be considered only for purposes of identification and a jury is presumed to follow limiting instructions in the absence of contrary evidence. Argued November 21, 2019—officially released July 14, 2020

The defendant, whose marriage to the plaintiff previously had been dis- solved, appealed to this court from judgment of the trial court, which granted the plaintiff's motion for a modification of the defendant's child support obligation. The parties' separation agreement, which had been incorporated into the dissolution judgment, required the defendant to pay the cost of the private elementary school education for the parties' minor child through the conclusion of the fifth grade. At the time the separation agreement became enforceable, the annual cost of the child's private school tuition was $55,000. After the child completed the fifth grade and was enrolled in public school, the plaintiff sought a modifica- tion of the defendant's child support obligation on the grounds that there had been a substantial change in circumstances because, inter alia, the child was no longer attending private school. The defendant also filed a motion for modification of child support, in which he requested a decrease in his court-ordered obligation on the ground that the plaintiff's income had increased since the date of the last support order. The trial court determined that the parties had contemplated that the plaintiff accepted a lower weekly child support amount in return for the defen- dant's being responsible for paying 100 percent of the child's private school tuition. The court further determined that, because the child had stopped attending private school, the savings for the defendant in tuition represented a substantial change of circumstances that entitled the plaintiff to a modification in child support. The court awarded the plain- tiff $1246 in weekly child support, which was the maximum presumptive amount prescribed by the child support guidelines. The court order was silent as to the defendant's motion for modification. On appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the trial court erred in finding that there had been a substantial change in circumstances and that the court had ordered an improper wealth transfer between the parties because it failed to consider or respond to the needs of the child. Held: 1. The trial court's finding that there had been a substantial change in the defendant's financial circumstances was not clearly erroneous: the expiration of the defendant's court-ordered obligation to pay for the child's private schooling removed an encumbrance on his assets that made an additional $55,000 per year available to him for all purposes, including the payment of child support, and, although the separation agreement did not expressly link the amount of the plaintiff's initial child support award to the defendant's agreement to pay for the child's private schooling or entitle the plaintiff to reconsideration of that order once the defendant's payment obligation ended, the court reasonably determined that the amount of that award should be reconsidered in light of the termination of the defendant's private school payment obligation. 2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining that the amount of the child support award would be $1246 per week; the court did not determine the amount of the award until after it conducted an extensive evidentiary hearing and considered the arguments of counsel, the parties' motions, memoranda of law and testimony, and all relevant rules, statu- tory authority and case law, and the court was not required to cite additional reasons for its increase in the defendant's child support obliga- tion, as its order was consistent with statutory (§ 46b-84 (d)) criteria and within the range between the minimum and maximum support amounts established by the child support guidelines. 3. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court erred by failing to consider and rule on his motion for modification of his child support obligation; although the trial court never made a formal ruling on the defendant's motion, it expressly acknowledged that the motion was before it when it granted the plaintiff's motion for modifica- tion, which effectively and intentionally denied the defendant's motion, and, as the defendant conceded to this court that his motion was effec- tively denied, he could not be granted relief, as he failed to raise a substantive challenge to the ruling. Argued February 6—officially released July 14, 2020

The plaintiff sought to recover monetary relief pursuant to statute (§ 12- 170) for the alleged misconduct of the defendants, members of the town board of assessment appeals related to his motor vehicle tax assessment appeal. The defendants filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiff's action on the grounds that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies and had failed to allege that the defendants had engaged in some unlawful act or the omission of a necessary act, allegations that were required to support an action pursuant to § 12-170. The court granted the motion to dismiss on both grounds, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court improperly held that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the plaintiff's action because the plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies before the Freedom of Information Commission (FOIC): there was nothing in the record before this court from which to conclude that the legislature intended that a plaintiff seeking to recover under § 12-170 must first exhaust any and all administrative remedies; § 12-170 does not contain an exhaustion requirement and nothing in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) statutory scheme mandates that any and all issues involving the FOIA must always be raised to and resolved by the FOIC before an action is brought in the Superior Court; moreover, there is no statute that confers any authority on the FOIC to impose monetary penalties on board members and, thus, it would have been futile for the plaintiff to have filed an administrative appeal because the FOIC lacked the ability to provide the plaintiff with the relief requested. 2. This court declined to consider the plaintiff's claim that a motion to dismiss was not the proper procedural vehicle to challenge the legal sufficiency of his complaint, the plaintiff having waived any objection to the defendants' use of a motion to dismiss by failing to raise that issue before the trial court. 3. The trial court properly determined that the plaintiff's complaint was insufficiently pleaded, the complaint having failed to allege any act or omission by an individual defendant that, if true, could satisfy the plain- tiff's burden of demonstrating an unlawful act or omission necessary to prevail under § 12-170. Argued January 16—officially released July 14, 2020

The plaintiff landowner appealed from the decision of the defendant planning commission, which had concluded that the plaintiff was required to file an application for subdivision approval in order to revise the lot lines of two abutting properties that it owned. The plaintiff submitted a map of the properties to the town's planning and zoning administrator, seeking a lot line adjustment that would reduce the acreage of one property and increase the acreage of the second property by ten acres. Following a hearing, the commission denied the plaintiff's request for a lot line revision, concluding that the plaintiff's map required subdivision approval because it created a drastic change in the existing lots. There- after, the plaintiff appealed to the Superior Court, which rendered judg- ment dismissing the appeal, from which the plaintiff, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court, claiming, inter alia, that the court improperly concluded that the plaintiff's proposed lot line revision constituted a subdivision under the applicable statute (§ 8-18). Held: 1. The Superior Court improperly concluded that there was substantial evidence in the record to support the commission's finding that the plaintiff's proposed lot line adjustment of two adjacent lots constituted a subdivision under § 8-18: because no new lot was created from the boundary adjustment that resulted in three or more parts or lots, the proposed lot line revision did not satisfy the definition of subdivision pursuant to § 8-18; although one of the properties had previously been subject to a first cut, the commission's decision that subdivision approval was required was contrary to the language of § 8-18 as the plaintiff's proposal did not divide that property a second time, resulting in three or more parts or lots. 2. The Superior Court improperly concluded that subdivision approval was required because the proposed lot line revision was more than a minor adjustment: there was nothing in the language of § 8-18 that addresses the degree of the lot line adjustment, rather, the only relevant inquiry is whether the property was divided into three or more lots, and the mere changing of lot lines or adding additional land to lots, no matter how sizeable, does not constitute a subdivision. 3. The defendants could not prevail on their claim that because the proposed boundary line revision would create a third part, it required subdivision approval, which was based on their claim that the distinction in § 8-18 between ''parts'' and ''lots'' could indicate that the legislature meant the words to be read separately, and, therefore, the proposed lot line revision could still satisfy the definition of subdivision by dividing the first prop- erty into a third part: this court concluded that the legislature intended the word ''parts'' to refer to separate but whole, not fractional, members of a tract of land, thus, when the word ''parts'' is read in light of its commonly approved usage and together with the definition of ''resubdivi- sion'' in § 8-18, its meaning is plain and unambiguous, and is to be read together with the word ''lots'' so as to clarify the latter's meaning. Argued December 9, 2019—officially released July 21, 2020

The plaintiff, whose marriage to the defendant previously had been dis- solved, appealed to this court from the order of the trial court requiring her to reimburse the defendant a certain prorated portion of unallocated alimony and child support that she received in the year in which she remarried. The parties' separation agreement, which had been incorpo- rated into the dissolution judgment, required the defendant to pay the plaintiff a specified percentage of his gross annual compensation in any calendar year, which payments were to terminate on, inter alia, the plaintiff's remarriage. In the year in which the plaintiff remarried, the defendant paid the plaintiff 40 percent of bonuses and severance pay- ments he received from a former employer a few months before her remarriage. The court granted the defendant's postjudgment motion for order requesting reimbursement, in which he claimed that, when the plaintiff remarried in August of a year in which she was entitled to receive unallocated support, she was only to receive those benefits, specifically the bonus and severance payments, on a prorated basis. In the plaintiff's objection to the motion for reimbursement, she claimed that, because the separation agreement did not contain a provision for prorating unallocated support, she had no obligation to refund any part of the unallocated support she received that year. The parties, upon the plaintiff's remarriage, stipulated to the defendant's monthly child support obligation, which was entered as an order of the court. The defendant filed a cross appeal from the trial court's denial of his motion for modification of child support, in which he claimed that a reduction in his earned income constituted a substantial change in circumstances from the date when the court entered the parties' child support stipula- tion as an order of the court. On the plaintiff's appeal and the defendant's cross appeal to this court, held: 1. The trial court improperly granted the defendant's postjudgment motion for reimbursement of unallocated support and ordered the plaintiff to repay the defendant a portion of the unallocated support he paid her in the year of her remarriage: the relevant portion of the parties' separation agreement was clear and unambiguous, and the trial court improperly read a term into the separation agreement when it concluded that it was implicit that the defendant's gross annual compensation was to be prorated, the relevant language in the separation agreement did not contain the word prorated, and, to the contrary, additional language from the separation agreement provided that the defendant was to make all payments from his additional and/or incentive compensation to the plaintiff within fifteen days of receipt of such payment by the defendant, and no paragraph of the agreement set forth conditions under which the plaintiff may have been required to return unallocated support at the time she was entitled to receive it; furthermore, the parties did not seek to unbundle alimony and child support in the defendant's unallocated payments at the time the parties stipulated to the defendant's child support obligation and arrearage, retroactive to the month of the plaintiff's remarriage, and the fact that there was no mention of an overpayment at that time did not support the defendant's position that the parties intended to prorate unallocated support that terminated before the end of a calendar year. 2. The defendant could not prevail on his claim in his cross appeal that the trial court improperly denied his motion for modification of child support by concluding that the reduction in his earned income did not constitute a substantial change in circumstances: any claim that the court failed to consider the defendant's argument regarding deviations from child support guidelines or that the court failed to consider child support guidelines failed, as at the time that the defendant filed his motion, he did not plead that the amount of child support he was paying pursuant to the parties' stipulation deviated from the child support guidelines but, instead, that he had experienced a substantial change in circum- stances due to his loss of earned income, and the court was not required to consider the presumptive child support under the guidelines, as the evidence demonstrated the defendant's ability to maintain his lifestyle, spending habits, travel and assets, and, thus, he failed to carry his burden to demonstrate clearly and definitely that he experienced a substantial change in circumstances notwithstanding his diminution in salary and period of unemployment. Argued March 2—officially released July 21, 2020

Convicted of the crime of breach of the peace in the second degree in connection with an encounter with S, the mayor of New Britain, the defendant appealed to this court, claiming that the evidence was insuffi- cient to support his conviction. S had been hosting an event for children in a public park when the defendant arrived on a bicycle that had a political campaign sign affixed to it and began passing out business cards to children. When an aide to S asked the defendant to leave because his presence was inappropriate and a safety issue for the children, the defendant screamed profanities. Thereafter, when S approached the defendant and asked him to stop yelling profanities, he grabbed her wrist, threw her arm down abruptly and shouted profanities at her. Held that the evidence was sufficient to support the defendant's conviction of breach of the peace in the second degree in violation of statute (§ 53a- 181 (a) (1)), as his conduct and use of profanities occurred in a public place and constituted fighting, or violent, tumultuous or threatening behavior; the evidence was sufficient for the jury to determine that the defendant acted with the requisite intent required by § 53a-181 (a) (1), and the jury was free to consider that the defendant intended the harm to S as a natural result of his physical actions toward her. Argued March 16—officially released July 21, 2020

Convicted, on a conditional plea of nolo contendere, of the crimes of assault in the first degree, robbery in the first degree and criminal possession of a firearm, the defendant appealed to this court, claiming, inter alia, that the trial court improperly denied his motions to dismiss the charges against him because he was not brought to trial within a reasonable period of time in violation of his right to a speedy trial under the sixth amendment and his right under the Interstate Agreement on Detainers (§ 54-186 et seq.) to a final disposition of his case within 180 days from the date on which he requested a speedy disposition. The defendant had been arrested in 2017 in connection with a shooting he was alleged to have committed in 2014. DNA was recovered from a cap that was left at the scene of the shooting. Shortly after the shooting, the police received information that the defendant had fled to Maine and obtained a warrant authorizing the taking of a DNA sample from him that was to be compared with the DNA sample from the cap. The DNA samples were not sent to the state's forensics laboratory until 2016, when the laboratory matched the defendant's DNA with that on the cap. In July, 2016, the police submitted to the state's attorney's office a draft arrest warrant application for the defendant, which was not signed by the affiant until February, 2017, and by the court until March, 2017, when the defendant was in federal custody in New Hampshire. The defendant was not returned to Connecticut and arrested until August, 2017. After the defendant entered his plea but prior to sentencing, he filed a second motion to dismiss, claiming that the state had failed to comply with the 180 day requirement for a final disposition of his case pursuant to § 54- 186 et seq. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss, reasoning that there had been no objection to the course of the proceed- ings under § 54-186 et seq., and rendered judgment in accordance with the defendant's plea. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that his right to due process was violated because the state's three year delay in filing charges against him caused him actual substantial prejudice and was unreasonable and unjustifiable: a. The trial court properly concluded that the defendant failed to prove that actual substantial prejudice resulted from the preaccusation delay; the defendant's claim that he was prevented from gathering documen- tary, exculpatory evidence or that there was any witness who could have provided exculpatory testimony was speculative, and his assertion that he was unable to secure video surveillance from the area of the crime scene was unsupported by evidence that such surveillance video existed or that it would have been exculpatory. b. The defendant's claim that the trial court improperly rejected his assertion that the state deliberately delayed his arrest to gain a tactical advantage over him was unavailing; it was not the role of this court to reexamine the evidence considered by the trial court or to construe it differently and in the light favorable to the defendant. 2. The defendant's express waiver of any claim stemming from the postarrest delay in bringing him to trial was fatal to his assertion of a violation of his rights to a speedy disposition of his case under the sixth amendment and § 54-186 et seq. Submitted on briefs April 6—officially released July 21, 2020

Convicted, after a jury trial, of the crimes of murder, conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree and carrying a pistol without a permit, and, after a trial to the court, of the crime of criminal possession of a pistol or revolver, the defendant appealed. The defendant's conviction stemmed from an incident in which he shot and killed a convenience store clerk while he and another individual were robbing the store. Prior to trial, the defendant filed a motion in limine to preclude the state from introducing testimony from his former probation officer, D, regarding her identifica- tion of him in a surveillance video from a grocery store, and a motion to suppress two statements that he made during a conversation with a police officer while he was being transported to the police department following his arrest for violation of probation. Following a hearing, the trial court denied both motions. Held: 1. The defendant's unpreserved claim that the trial judge violated his constitu- tional right to due process by improperly failing to recuse himself from presiding over the defendant's trial because he previously had signed search and seizure and arrest warrants against the defendant in this case was unavailing: because the defendant did not assert actual bias on the part of the trial judge, his claim necessarily failed, and, therefore, he could not prevail pursuant to State v. Golding (213 Conn. 233), as he did not demonstrate the existence of a constitutional violation; moreover, this court was not persuaded by the defendant's assertion that the trial judge's failure to recuse himself constituted plain error because, at minimum, it created an appearance of impropriety, as the judge's conduct was not expressly prohibited by our rules, statutes, or case law, and, therefore, it did not constitute plain error or even error at all. 2. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting D's testimony identifying the defendant in the surveillance video from the grocery store; contrary to the defendant's contention that D's testimony consti- tuted her opinion on an ultimate issue reserved to the jury, namely, his criminal culpability, in violation of the applicable rule (§ 7-3) of the Connecticut Code of Evidence, and, although the defendant's presence in the grocery store may have been relevant to his participation in the acts that were committed at the convenience store, D did not express an opinion regarding the identity of the person who committed the crimes at the convenience store, and, therefore, her testimony did not constitute a legal opinion about the defendant's guilt as to the crimes with which he was charged. 3. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court improperly denied his motion to suppress the statements he made to a police officer while he was being transported to the police department following his arrest, which was based on his claim that those statements were made during custodial interrogation without his being advised of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436); the trial court properly determined that the officer's conversation with the defendant did not constitute custodial interrogation for Miranda purposes because the officer's questions were not reasonably likely to elicit incriminating statements from the defendant. Argued March 9—officially released July 21, 2020

The plaintiffs, a medical group, together with former physician shareholders of the medical group, sought to vacate an arbitration award in favor of the defendant, who filed an application to confirm the award, which was issued in connection with the plaintiffs' alleged breach of a shareholder employment agreement. The arbitrator denied and dismissed the defen- dant's claims against the physician shareholders but issued an award on his claim against the medical group. In their application to vacate the award, the plaintiffs claimed that the award was not mutual, final and definite because the arbitrator had failed to allocate arbitration costs, expenses and compensation and set forth a reasoned award with respect to the issue of attorney's fees, having failed to award attorney's fees to the physician shareholders. The trial court denied the plaintiffs' application to vacate the award, granted the defendant's application to confirm the award and rendered judgments thereon, from which the plaintiffs appealed to this court. Held that the trial court properly granted the defendant's motion to confirm the arbitration award: the plaintiffs failed to sustain the heavy burden necessary to vacate an arbitration award pursuant to statute (§ 52-418) as they failed to present a reasoned legal argument for why the award should be vacated on the ground that the arbitrator failed to allocate arbitration costs, expenses and compensation, the arbitrator's award of attorney's fees was reasoned and the arbitrator's failure to explain his decision denying attorney's fees for the physician shareholders did not constitute grounds to vacate the award. Argued February 11—officially released July 21, 2020

The petitioner, who had been convicted of multiple charges involving the sexual abuse of a minor, filed a third petition for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his trial counsel and appellate counsel had rendered inef- fective assistance. The first two habeas courts denied the first two petitions. The third habeas court rendered judgment declining to issue the writ, determining, pursuant to the applicable rule of practice (§ 23- 24 (a) (2)), that the petition was frivolous on its face. The court stated that the petitioner's third petition raised claims that were identical to those raised, litigated and resolved against the petitioner in his first two habeas petitions. The court thereafter granted the petitioner certification to appeal, and the petitioner appealed to this court, asserting that his third petition was not wholly frivolous because the claims it raised were different from the claims raised in his first two petitions. After the parties submitted their briefs to this court, the respondent Commissioner of Correction conceded that the habeas court had erroneously declined to issue the writ and concluded that the matter had to be remanded to the habeas court with direction to issue the writ. Held that the habeas court abused its discretion in declining to issue the writ of habeas corpus on the ground that the petitioner's habeas petition was wholly frivolous on its face; the petition alleged cognizable claims of ineffective assis- tance of trial counsel and prior habeas counsel, and a claim of actual innocence that had not been pleaded in previous petitions, and the petitioner's claims should have survived the screening function of Prac- tice Book § 23-24 and entitled the petitioner to present evidence in support of his claims. Submitted on briefs March 17—officially released July 21, 2020

Convicted, on a conditional plea of nolo contendere, of possession of a sawed-off shotgun and criminal possession of a firearm, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant allegedly fled the scene of a motor vehicle accident and thereafter assaulted a witness to the accident with a sawed-off shotgun. The police met the defendant at his home in an attempt to locate the shotgun. The defendant gave the police permission to search his apartment and the backyard of the property but the search was unsuccessful. The police thereafter conducted a ruse; they stated that they were leaving the property but, instead, continued their surveil- lance of the defendant to see if he would recover the weapon after the police left. The defendant then walked outside to an area of the property, where he was stopped by the police. The police then resumed their search of that area and seized the shotgun. On appeal to this court, the defendant claimed that the trial court improperly denied his motion to suppress the shotgun because there were no exigent circumstances that permitted the officers to conduct a warrantless search and seizure of the shotgun under the fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution. Held that the trial court properly concluded that the search was lawful under the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement and properly denied the defendant's motion to suppress, as the police had strong reason to believe that the defendant had used the sawed- off shotgun to assault the witness earlier that evening and it was likely that the shotgun was on the property despite the defendant's assertions to the contrary; the record indicated that the defendant was visibly intoxicated and had stated in the presence of the officers that he was willing to resort to violence in response to someone who bullied him, it was reasonable and prudent for the police to believe that the shotgun could have been loaded, and, under the circumstances, it was reasonable for the police to conclude that the defendant believed that the police had all left his property, that the defendant was intent on recovering the shotgun, and that such actions were prompted by the defendant's desire to avoid arrest, and the record sufficiently demonstrated that the police were concerned that the defendant could soon arm himself and present a threat of safety to the officers had the defendant discovered them surveilling the property. Argued March 10—officially released July 21, 2020

The plaintiff sought to recover damages for the alleged negligence of the defendant J Co., an independent contractor hired by a possessor of land to render snow and ice removal/remediation services for premises on which the plaintiff slipped on an accumulation of ice and fell to the ground, sustaining injuries. The trial court granted the motion for sum- mary judgment filed by J Co., interpreting the counts against it as sound- ing in premises liability, and finding that because the plaintiff did not allege that J Co. possessed and controlled the premises, J Co. did not owe a duty to the plaintiff. On the plaintiff's appeal to this court, held that the trial court improperly rendered summary judgment as to those counts of the complaint against J Co. by mischaracterizing the plaintiff's claims as sounding in premises liability; the counts against J Co. alleged ordinary negligence in that the plaintiff did not allege that J Co. owed her a duty because it owned or controlled the premises, but that the duty J Co. owed to her arose from the snow services agreement it had with the third-party land possessor, and, pursuant to § 324A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, because the plaintiff alleged that J Co. undertook to render snow and ice removal/remediation services on the premises, which activity J Co. should have recognized as necessary for the protection of persons such as the plaintiff, J Co. may have been liable to the plaintiff for the injuries she allegedly sustained that resulted from any failure by J Co. to exercise reasonable care in removing/ remediating snow and/or ice from the premises. Argued March 10—officially released July 21, 2020

The plaintiffs, coexecutors of the estate of R, sought to recover damages for the alleged medical malpractice of the defendants, a hospital, a physician practice group, and several individual physicians. The plain- tiffs, pursuant to statute (§ 52-190a), appended to their complaint an opinion letter authored by M, a physician and general surgeon who was board certified in surgery; the individual physicians were board certified in internal medicine. The plaintiffs alleged in their complaint that the physicians' diagnosis and postsurgical treatment of R was within the medical specialty of surgery, that the physicians were acting outside the scope of their specialty and, therefore, M could be considered a ''similar health care provider'' as defined by statute (§ 52-184c (c)). The defendants filed motions to dismiss in which they claimed, inter alia, that the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over them because M was not a ''similar health care provider'' to them as defined by § 52- 184c (c). The physician practice group also claimed that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because it was not a legal entity at the time R received treatment. The trial court granted the motions to dismiss on the ground that it lacked personal jurisdiction over the defendants and rendered judgment thereon, from which the plaintiffs appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court did not lack subject matter jurisdiction over the claim against the physician practice group; it was irrelevant that the physician practice group was not a legal entity at the time that R was treated, as it was a legal entity at the time the action was brought against it and, therefore, the court had subject matter jurisdiction. 2. The trial court properly dismissed the plaintiffs' action for lack of personal jurisdiction; the plaintiffs' unsupported conclusory allegation that the individual physicians were acting outside the scope of their specialty of internal medicine was insufficient to establish that they were acting as surgeons when they treated R and, therefore, the letter authored by M, a surgeon, was not authored by a ''similar health care provider.'' Argued March 9—officially released July 21, 2020

The plaintiff, whose marriage to the defendant previously had been dis- solved, appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court granting the defendant's motion to modify or to terminate alimony. Pursuant to article 3.2 (a) of the parties' separation agreement, which had been incorporated into the dissolution judgment, the defendant was required to pay the plaintiff unallocated alimony until, among other things, the cohabitation of the plaintiff pursuant to statute (§ 46b-86 (b)), or May 31, 2013, whichever event occurred first. The trial court concluded that the plaintiff was cohabitating with another person as defined by § 46b-86 (b) and determined that article 3.2 (a) of the separa- tion agreement was clear and unambiguous and that cohabitation required the immediate termination of alimony. The plaintiff appealed to this court, which reversed the trial court's judgment and ordered a remand, concluding that article 3.2 (a) was ambiguous and that findings of fact were necessary as to the parties' intent regarding whether that article incorporated the remedial aspects of § 46b-86 (b). Thereafter, on remand, the trial court, following an evidentiary hearing, determined that the parties had intended that the plaintiff's cohabitation would result in the immediate termination of her alimony under article 3.2 (a) of the separation agreement, and, accordingly, it granted the defendant's motion to modify or to terminate alimony and terminated his obligation to pay alimony. Held: 1. The plaintiff could not prevail on her claim that the trial court erred by concluding that it was bound by the finding of cohabitation made by a prior judge in the case; the plaintiff did not challenge that finding in her prior appeal, and, after this court issued its remand order in that appeal, which was limited to the consideration of whether the parties had intended to incorporate the remedial aspects of § 46b-86 (b) into article 3.2 (a) of the separation agreement, the plaintiff no longer had the ability to raise the cohabitation finding as an issue on remand, and, therefore, the trial court properly construed the limited remand order and properly determined that it was bound by the unchallenged finding of cohabitation. 2. The plaintiff's claim that the trial court erred by failing to make a factual finding as to the parties' intent regarding whether article 3.2 (a) of the separation agreement incorporated the remedial aspects of § 46b-86 (b) was without merit: that court properly followed this court's remand order and, although it did not state specifically that the parties intended that the remedial aspects of § 46b-86 (b) would not apply if the plaintiff cohabitated, it was not required to do so; moreover, the court, on the basis of the evidence presented and its credibility determinations, prop- erly considered the intent of the parties in drafting article 3.2 (a) and concluded that they intended the immediate, nondiscretionary, termina- tion of alimony in the event of the plaintiff's cohabitation, and implicit in that finding is that the parties did not intend that the remedial aspects of § 46b-86 (b) would apply, and the plaintiff did not claim that the court's findings were clearly erroneous or unsupported by the evidence presented at the hearing on remand. 3. The plaintiff's claim that the trial court erred by exceeding the scope of the remand order in the prior appeal when it made unnecessary and binding factual findings concerning article 3.2 (b) of the separation agreement was unavailing, as that court's consideration of article 3.2 (b) was for the limited purpose of ascertaining the parties' intent as to article 3.2 (a) and nothing more. Argued May 11—officially released July 28, 2020

The plaintiff bank sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property owned by the defendants. The defendants had obtained a loan from the plaintiff, secured by the mortgage, to build a sports facility but, due to construction delays, the facility had a late opening and did not generate enough revenue for the defendants to meet their mortgage obligations. As part of the mortgage transaction, the defendants agreed to obtain a small business loan, which would thereafter be used to pay down the mortgage debt. In order to receive the small business loan, the plaintiff certified that there was no significant changes in the defendants' finan- cial status, despite its knowledge that the defendants had no working capital to be profitable. The defendants received the small business loan; however, they had already defaulted on the mortgage payments and the plaintiff commenced the foreclosure proceedings. The trial court thereafter rendered a judgment of foreclosure by sale, from which the defendants appealed, claiming that the plaintiff's certification of the defendants' financial status for the small business loan, when it knew that the defendants had no ability to make mortgage payments, consti- tuted misconduct relating to the mortgage, and that the trial court improperly found that the defendants' claims of inequitable conduct did not relate to the mortgage. Held that the defendants could not meet their burden of proving an evidentiary basis to establish the existence of a genuine issue of material fact regarding their unclean hands special defense and, therefore, the trial court properly determined that the plaintiff's alleged misconduct failed to sufficiently relate to the making, validity, or enforcement of the mortgage; the defendants failed to allege any conduct by the plaintiff that would have challenged the plaintiff's legal authority to bring the foreclosure action, the defendants conceded that the plaintiff had the right to commence foreclosure on the ground that the defendants defaulted on their mortgage debt, the requirement that the defendants obtain a small business loan to pay down the mort- gage debt had been contemplated and agreed to in the original loan documents, and the plaintiff's alleged actions pertaining to the small business loan were not directly and inseparably connected to the foreclo- sure action, as the small business loan was separate and distinct from the mortgage. Argued March 3—officially released July 28, 2020

The plaintiffs sought to recover damages from the defendant for private nuisance and negligence as a result of harm they allegedly suffered when the parties had been abutting property owners and the real prop- erty owned by the defendant allegedly had been in a dangerous condition that the defendant had failed to prevent or to abate. The defendant's predecessor lessors executed a ground lease of the property with U Co., a federal agency, and, subsequently, the defendant became the sole owner and sole lessor of the subject property. The trial court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment. On the plaintiffs' appeal to this court, held: 1. The trial court properly granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment as to the claim of negligence and determined that the defendant did not maintain control of the property and, thus, did not owe a duty of care to the plaintiffs: the ground lease, in clear and unambiguous terms, demised full control of the property to U Co. and divested any control of the property from the defendant; moreover, this court declined to consider whether the defendant exercised de facto control over the property, as the ground lease clearly and unambiguously provided that U Co. maintained control of the property. 2. The trial court properly granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment as to the plaintiffs' private nuisance claim; the ground lease demised full control of the property to U Co. and provided that U Co.'s responsibility for maintenance shall be fulfilled at such time and in such manner as U Co. considers necessary and provided the defendant no right to enter the property to perform maintenance or repairs or to demand that U Co. maintain the property and, thus, the defendant's inaction with regard to the condition of the property could not be characterized as causing a negligent or intentional interference with the plaintiffs' use and enjoyment of their property. Submitted on briefs April 22—officially released July 28, 2020

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendant dentist, D, and his business entity M Co., for medical malpractice in connection with a dental procedure performed on the plaintiff by D. The plaintiff alleged in his complaint that D held himself out as a specialist in endodontics and attached to his complaint a good faith certificate from what he alleged was a similar health care provider, S, an endodontist. The defen- dants moved to dismiss on the ground that the opinion letter did not comply with the requirements of the statute (§ 52-190a) because S was not a similar health care provider as defined by statute (§ 52-184c). The defendants attached an affidavit of D, in which he attested that he is a general dentist. The plaintiff objected to the motion to dismiss and attached a supplemental affidavit of S, which further elaborated on S's qualifications as a similar health care provider. The trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss on the ground that the plaintiff had failed to provide an opinion letter from a similar health care provider as required by §§ 52-190a and 52-184c. Specifically, because the plaintiff had attached an opinion letter authored by S, a specialist in endodontics, and D was a general dentist, the trial court determined that S's opinion letter was not that of a similar health care provider because D was not a specialist as defined by § 52-184c (c) and, thus, the opinion letter was required to be authored by a general dentist. Moreover, the court concluded that there was no information to establish that S had been involved in the teaching or practice of general dentistry in the five year period before the procedure so as to be a similar health care provider as defined by § 52-184c (b). The court rendered judgment in favor of the defendants and the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendants could not prevail on their unpreserved claim that the trial court should not have considered the supplemental affidavit submitted by the plaintiff because it was obtained after the statute of limitations had expired and the court failed to state a factual basis for its application of the accidental failure of suit statute (§ 52-592), which would have extended the statute of limitations for an additional year from the date judgment of dismissal was rendered in the plaintiff's prior action; although the defendants labeled their claim as an alternative ground for affirmance, they were seeking to alter the court's judgment to an extent that would actually require reversal and the defendants failed to file a cross appeal and likely could not have done so, given the fact that they prevailed and that they failed to seek reconsideration or articulation of the court's ruling that § 52-592 applied; moreover, to afford the defen- dants relief with respect to this claim would be prejudicial to the plaintiff, who has repeatedly briefed and argued his claim that the opinion letter is compliant with § 52-190a (a), with or without the supplemental affidavit. 2. The trial court properly determined that D was a nonspecialist practicing general dentistry; it was undisputed that D was not certified by the appropriate American board as a specialist and that he was not trained or experienced in a specialty, as the plaintiff failed to allege this in his complaint, and D attested in an affidavit that he was general dentist and that the dental procedure was performed in that capacity, and the plaintiff did not submit any counteraffidavits. 3. The judgment of the trial court was affirmed on the alternative ground that the trial court should not have considered the supplemental affidavit and the opinion letter was legally insufficient because it did not establish that S was a similar health care provider pursuant to the statutory nonspecialist definition in § 52-184c (b); the plaintiff was required to properly amend his complaint to make the allegations in the supplemen- tal affidavit a part of the pleading process, as correcting deficiencies in process requires more than the filing of an affidavit, and, in failing to do so, the opinion letter that was attached to the plaintiff's complaint was insufficient to establish that S was someone teaching in the nonspe- cialty field of general dentistry, so as to qualify as a similar health care provider under § 52-184c (b). Argued January 6—officially released August 4, 2020

The petitioner, who had been convicted on a guilty plea in 2009, of the crime of robbery in the first degree in connection with a robbery he committed in 2008, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming, inter alia, a violation of the ex post facto clause of the United States constitution. In 2011, the legislature enacted a statute (§ 18-98e) that permitted certain inmates, including the petitioner, to earn risk reduction credit toward the reduction of their sentences, at the discretion of the respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, and amended the statute (§ 54-125a (b) (2)) governing parole eligibility to permit risk reduction credit to be applied to advance the parole eligibility date of inmates convicted of certain violent offenses. In 2013, the legislature enacted an amendment (P.A. 13-3, § 59) to § 54-125a (b) (2) that removed the language that permitted the risk reduction credit earned under § 18-98e to advance the parole eligibility date of violent offenders. The petitioner claimed, inter alia, that the 2013 amendment, as applied retroactively to him, violated the ex post facto clause of the federal constitution. The habeas court rendered judgment declining to issue a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to the applicable rule of practice (§ 23-24 (a) (1)) on the ground that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction. Thereafter, the habeas court denied the petitioner's petition for certification to appeal, and the peti- tioner appealed to this court. Held: 1. The habeas court did not abuse its discretion in denying the petition for certification to appeal, as the petitioner failed to demonstrate that his claims were debatable among jurists of reason, that a court could have resolved the issues in a different manner or that the questions were adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further. 2. The petitioner's claim that the habeas court improperly failed to conduct a hearing before declining to issue a writ of habeas corpus under Practice Book § 23-24 (a) (1) was outside the scope of this court's appellate review; pursuant to the applicable statute (§ 52-470 (g)), this court's review was confined to the issues presented in the petitioner's petition for certification to appeal, which incorporated two grounds for appeal, and, because neither ground indicated that the petitioner sought to challenge the habeas court's judgment on the basis that the court did not conduct a hearing, review pursuant to State v. Golding (213 Conn. 233) was unavailable because permitting a petitioner, in an appeal from a habeas judgment following the denial of a petition for certification to appeal, to seek Golding review of a claim that was not raised in, or incorporated into, the petition for certification to appeal would circum- vent the requirements of § 52-470 (g) and undermine the goals that the legislature sought to achieve in enacting it. 3. The petitioner could not prevail on his claim that the habeas court improp- erly concluded that it lacked subject matter over the claims in his habeas petition: a. The habeas court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the petitioner's claim that the retroactive application of the 2013 amendment to § 54- 125a (b) (2) to him violated the ex post facto clause of the federal constitution, the petitioner having failed to raise a cognizable ex post facto claim in the habeas petition; the petitioner made no claim that legislation regarding eligibility for parole consideration became more onerous after the date of his criminal behavior but, rather, claimed that new legislation enacted in 2011, after his criminal conduct, conferred a benefit on him that was taken away in 2013, which did not implicate the ex post facto prohibition because the changes that occurred between 2011 and 2013 had no bearing on the punishment to which the petitioner's criminal conduct exposed him when he committed the robbery in 2008, and, with regard to parole eligibility, the 2013 amendment merely returned the petitioner to the same position that he was in at the time of his offense. b. The habeas court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the petitioner's claim that the retroactive application of the 2013 amendment to § 54- 125a (b) (2) to him violated his right to due process, as the petitioner lacked a vested liberty interest in the risk reduction credit that he had earned that, following the enactment of the 2013 amendment, was no longer being applied to advance his parole eligibility date. Argued March 12—officially released August 4, 2020

The petitioner, a Polish national, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his criminal trial counsel, K, had provided ineffective assistance by failing to advise him adequately as to the immigration consequences of his plea of guilty to a certain offense that subjected him to deportation. After the petitioner entered the guilty plea, federal authorities detained him and initiated deportation proceedings against him. The petitioner claimed that, if he had been properly advised by K as to the immigration consequences of entering a guilty plea, he would not have accepted the plea offer. The habeas court rendered judgment denying the habeas petition and granted the petition for certification to appeal, and the petitioner appealed to this court. Held that the habeas court properly concluded that the petitioner was not prejudiced by the advice of his attorney, K, regarding the immigration consequences of pleading guilty: although the petitioner highlighted the actions that he took subsequent to accepting the plea offer, including the motions that he had filed contesting his conviction following his guilty plea and the amount of money he spent in avoiding deportation, the petitioner's post hoc asser- tions on appeal that he would not have pleaded guilty but for K's advice were insufficient to establish prejudice in light of the absence of substan- tial, contemporaneous evidence to support such assertions, the credibil- ity determinations made by the habeas court regarding the concerns of the petitioner that were contemporaneous to his acceptance of the offer support the conclusion that the court credited K's testimony that the length of incarceration, not deportation, was the petitioner's main con- cern, and that the petitioner accepted the plea that would ensure that he would spend less than one year in jail, and the court did not credit the petitioner's testimony that he would not have taken the plea deal had he known that he would be deported. Argued March 12—officially released August 11, 2020

The plaintiff property owner sought to recover damages from the defendants, two churches, for alleged oil contamination of his property. Inspections by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection revealed the presence of fuel oil in the soil and in the groundwater of the plaintiff's property. The department's report further indicated that the source of the fuel oil originated from an underground oil tank that had been removed from the defendants' property, but the report could not rule out a secondary source of oil contamination originating from the plaintiff's property. Although the defendants paid for some environmental remedia- tion of the plaintiff's property pursuant to a contract, they declined to pay for additional remediation, despite recommendations by the department and the plaintiff's consultant that such additional remediation was neces- sary. During a trial to the court, the plaintiff and the defendants offered competing expert testimony as to the cause of the oil contamination that existed on the plaintiff's property, including potential sources of the contamination other than the defendants' underground storage tank. The trial court expressly rejected the testimony of several expert wit- nesses as not credible. The trial court subsequently concluded that the defendants demonstrated that there was a secondary source of the oil contamination of the plaintiff's property and, therefore, the plaintiff failed to prove his allegations that the defendants caused the pollution beneath the plaintiff's residence. The trial court rendered judgment in favor of the defendants, and the plaintiff appealed to this court, claiming that the court's determination that there was a secondary source of oil contamination in his basement was clearly erroneous and that the court's decision was based on speculation and was legally unsound. Held that the trial court improperly rendered judgment in favor of the defendants, as there was no credible evidence to support the court's finding that the defendants had established that there was a secondary source of the contamination on the plaintiff's property that emanated from beneath his basement, there was no expert who testified, with a reasonable degree of probability, that a secondary source of oil contamination existed in or beneath the plaintiff's basement, or that possible secondary sources identified by witnesses during the trial were likely the cause of the oil contamination on the plaintiff's property, and, therefore, that finding was clearly erroneous, and, accordingly, a new trial was ordered; even if there was some evidentiary basis for the court's secondary source finding, such finding did not legally and logically support the court's ultimate conclusion that the plaintiff failed to prove that the defendants caused contamination beneath his house, as the existence of a secondary source of contamination in the plaintiff's basement was wholly unrelated to the question of whether the plaintiff had proven that the defendants were an additional source or the primary source of the contamination, and there no support in the record for the determination that the defen- dants had no responsibility for any contamination in the present case, the court's reliance on its secondary source finding as the basis for its conclusion that the plaintiff failed to meet his burden of proof was illogical and deprived the court's judgment of a sufficient legal founda- tion, as the existence of a secondary source of contamination may have impacted the damages to which the plaintiff may be entitled, but it did not mean that the plaintiff had failed to prove that the defendants were also a source of the contamination, as the questions of damages and causation, while related, are different, involve separate burdens of proof, and require independent analysis. (One judge dissenting) Argued December 4, 2019—officially released August 18, 2020

The petitioner, who had been convicted of the crime of murder when he was seventeen years old, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that the respondent Commissioner of Correction failed to advance his parole eligibility date by applying statutory (§ 18-7a (c)) good time credit he had earned. The petitioner had been sentenced to a term of fifty years imprisonment without the possibility of parole. In 2015, the legislature amended the parole eligibility statute (§ 54-125a) to retroactively provide parole eligibility to juvenile offenders sentenced to more than ten years imprisonment. In 2016, the Board of Pardons and Paroles (board) informed the petitioner of his parole eligibility date, a calculation that did not reflect a reduction for the number of days of statutory good time credit he had earned. The habeas court granted the motion to dismiss filed by the respondent for failing to state a claim on which habeas corpus relief could be granted. On the granting of his petition for certification to appeal, the petitioner appealed to this court. Held: 1. Contrary to the respondent's claim, the habeas court properly determined that it had subject matter jurisdiction over the petition because the petitioner had a cognizable liberty interest in parole eligibility under § 54- 125a (f): the legislature intended to vest the petitioner with a cognizable liberty interest in parole eligibility, as the language of § 54-125a (f) (1) (A) requires that the board shall consider the person for parole, and the text of § 54-125a (f) (3) reinforces the requirement that the board shall consider a person for parole by requiring that the board shall hold a hearing to determine a person's suitability for parole release when that person becomes eligible for parole; moreover, the language of § 54- 125a (f) (2) provides that parole eligibility for juvenile offenders is unique, and such language evidences that the legislature intended for the petitioner to have a liberty interest in parole eligibility; furthermore, the language of § 54-125a (f) (5) serves to accentuate the mandatory nature of initial parole eligibility for individuals like the petitioner, as compared to subsequent parole eligibility, which is not guaranteed. 2. The petitioner could not prevail on his claim that the statutory good time credit he had earned reduced the sentence used to calculate his parole eligibility date, as the language of § 18-7a (c) and § 54-125a (f) is clear and unambiguous that it does not support such a claim: § 18-7a (c) contains no language providing that good time credit earned under that subsection operates to reduce a person's parole eligibility date, and there is no language to suggest that the legislature intended that a person's sentence, after it has been reduced by the application of good time credit, should serve as the sentence that is used to calculate their parole eligibility date under § 54-125a (f); moreover, there are no refer- ences to § 18-7a (c) in § 54-125a, and such omission implies that the legislature did not intend for the term ''sentence,'' as used in § 54-125a (f) (1) (A), to be a person's sentence as reduced by the statutory good time credit they may have earned under § 18-7a (c), and the phrases ''definite sentence'' and ''total effective sentence'' in § 54-125a (f) (1) refer to the maximum term of imprisonment imposed by the sentencing court; furthermore, in § 54-125a (a) and (d) and in a parole eligibility statute (§ 54-125) for prisoners serving indeterminate sentences, the legislature expressly stated whether credit applied to shorten a person's sentence before that sentence was used to calculate their parole eligibil- ity date, and, because the legislature did not include any such language in § 54-125a (f), it did not intend for statutory good time credit earned by a person under § 18-7a (c) to reduce the sentence that would serve as the basis for calculating his parole eligibility date. 3. The petitioner could not prevail on his claim that the statutory good time credit he had earned under § 18-7a (c) was not applied properly in violation of his right to due process; the petitioner was not entitled to have the statutory good time credit he had earned under § 18-7a (c) applied to reduce the sentence from which his parole eligibility date will be calculated, and, because he did not have a liberty interest in his earned statutory good time credit advancing his parole eligibility date, he was not being deprived of a liberty interest and, thus, was not being deprived of due process. Submitted on briefs April 17—officially released August 18, 2020

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendant city of Bridge- port, for, inter alia, negligence, in connection with a fire that destroyed its warehouse and caused substantial environmental damage to the surrounding area. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant was negligent in failing to inspect the warehouse as required by statute (§ 29-305) and that, as a result, its fire department used water rather than foam to extinguish the fire, which caused the fire to spread, when an inspection would have revealed the presence of chemicals. After a series of amended and revised complaints, the plaintiff filed a proposed complaint in June, 2018, on the same day the defendant's motion for summary judgment was scheduled to be argued. In its proposed complaint, the plaintiff newly alleged that the defendant's failure to inspect resulted in undiscovered code violations, and that these code violations were the cause of the damages. The defendant argued that the court should not consider the proposed complaint when deciding its motion for summary judgment because it was untimely and the new theory of liability was outside the statute of limitations and did not relate back to the previous complaints. The court did not decide these issues but, instead, addressed the merits of the defendant's motion and granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment on the ground that it was entitled to statutory (§ 52-557n) governmental immunity and rendered judgment thereon, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. This court affirmed the judgment of the trial court on the alternative ground that the plaintiff's proposed June, 2018 complaint was not prop- erly before the trial court; the June, 2018 complaint was not the operative complaint for purposes of the defendant's motion for summary judgment because the complaint was to be in response to a request to revise but, instead, the plaintiff made substantive changes that set forth a new theory of liability and were outside the scope of the requested revisions, the plaintiff did not seek leave to amend its complaint to add this new theory of liability, and the trial court neither explicitly granted the plaintiff such leave nor indicated that it weighed the relevant considera- tions for determining whether to grant a plaintiff leave to amend a complaint; moreover, the plaintiff does not challenge the court's judg- ment to the extent it was based on its previous theory of liability but only on the basis of the new theory set forth in the June, 2018 complaint which was not properly before the court. 2. This court affirmed the judgment of the trial court on the alternative ground that, even if the June, 2018 complaint were the operative complaint, the new allegations contained therein did not relate back and, therefore, were barred by the statute of limitations; all prior iterations of the plaintiff's complaint alleged that the acts and omissions of the defendant resulted in it improperly using water rather than foam to extinguish the fire, thereby causing damage, whereas the allegations in the June, 2018 complaint alleged that the defendant's failure to inspect the warehouse led to undiscovered code violations and that those code violations caused the damages and constituted reckless disregard for health and safety, an entirely new set of facts never previously alleged that did not relate back to the prior, timely filed complaints. Argued March 11—officially released August 18, 2020

The plaintiff lot owners sought a judgment declaring that a certain amend- ment to a declaration of easements, covenants and restrictions, which created a business park common ownership interest community, was invalid, and for injunctive relief. The declaration provided that each lot owner in the business park would be a member of an owner's association and would receive a vote that was proportional to its percentage owner- ship in the business park. The plaintiffs owned four of the seven lots in the business park, and brought the action against several defendants, including M Co. and D. M Co. owned lot 2, R Co. owned lot 1, and O Co. owned lot 7. M Co. proposed to sell lot 2 to D, who intended to use the lot to build a crematorium. Believing that the plaintiffs would oppose D's plan to build a crematorium, M Co., O Co. and R Co., the holders of more than 50 percent of the votes of the association, executed an amendment to the declaration that withdrew lots 1, 2, and 7 from the association and recorded it on the town land records. D thereafter purchased lot 2 from M Co., and sought zoning approval for the cremato- rium, a process in which the plaintiffs participated and confirmed that the defendants had withdrawn from the association. The town zoning commission denied D's application to build the crematorium and D appealed; D and the zoning commission reached a settlement agreement and filed a motion for approval of their settlement. The plaintiffs filed a motion to intervene as of right in the zoning appeal, taking the position that the defendants were not members of the association. The trial court denied the motion to intervene. D commenced construction of the crematorium and the plaintiffs thereafter sought, inter alia, to enjoin him from connecting lot 2 to the association's drainage system and a judgment declaring that the amendment to the declaration was void and unenforceable. After a trial to the court, the court rendered judgment in favor of the defendants, from which the plaintiffs appealed to this court. Held: 1.The trial court properly concluded that the declaration did not prevent lot owners from withdrawing their lots from the association, and, accord- ingly, the recorded amendment withdrawing lots 1, 2 and 7 from the association was proper, D was not required to be a member of the association when he purchased lot 2 from M Co. and his lot was no longer subject to the declaration's restrictions; the plain language of the declaration stated that it may be modified or terminated, and a modification or termination resulting in a lot owner's withdrawal from the association was not prohibited by the language in the declaration, the plaintiffs' prior conduct in acknowledging O Co.'s withdrawal from the association and its argument to the zoning commission that D was not a member of the association supported the trial court's determination that lot owners were permitted to withdraw their lots and was contradic- tory to the plaintiffs' argument on appeal that D was not permitted to withdraw his lot and was a member of the association; moreover, the plaintiffs could not prevail on their claim that, because R Co. had been permitted to withdraw from the association prior to the execution of the amendment, the lots owners signing the amendment held less than 50 percent of the lots, as the association failed to record R Co.'s with- drawal from the association on the land records, and the record reflected that, at the time the amendment was executed, R Co. was still a member of the association; furthermore, the plaintiffs could not prevail on their claim that the amendment did not comply with a provision (§ 47-236 (a) (1)) of the Common Ownership Interest Act that requires that an amendment to a declaration to be approved by at least 67 percent of the votes in the association, as that provision is inapplicable to a situation in which the properties that are part of an association are not used for residential purposes. 2. The trial court did abuse its discretion in declining to grant the plaintiffs' request for an injunction preventing D from connecting lot 2 to the association's drainage system, the drainage system having been created as part of the subdivision approval, prior to the creation of the declara- tion and the easements created therein, and, in D's settlement with the zoning commission in his zoning appeal, the commission incorporated a proposal that D would utilize the drainage system. Argued February 13—officially released August 18, 2020

The plaintiff sought to recover damages for breach of fiduciary duty from the defendant, his brother, in connection with his sale of shares repre- senting a minority interest in a family business, S Co. The parties were often at odds with each other, and the plaintiff approached the defendant about selling his shares of S Co. to him. The parties ultimately agreed on a price of $200,000 for the plaintiff's shares. The defendant stated that he would revisit the compensation he had paid if he later sold S Co. for ''millions.'' More than one year later, the defendant sold S Co. for $8 million. Subsequently, although the plaintiff and the defendant arranged to meet, they were unable to agree on the plaintiff's request for additional compensation. Following a trial to the court, the trial court found in favor of the defendant on all counts of the plaintiff's complaint and in favor of the plaintiff on a counterclaim brought by the defendant, from which the plaintiff appealed and the defendant cross appealed to this court. Held: 1. The plaintiff could not prevail on his claim that the trial court's finding that the defendant proved by clear and convincing evidence that he engaged in fair dealing and full disclosure was clearly erroneous and was inconsistent with its finding that the defendant had made false representations to the plaintiff that S Co. was a ''dinosaur'' and was falling apart; the court rejected the plaintiff's claims of misrepresenta- tion, which the plaintiff had not claimed as error, and the evidence demonstrated that the plaintiff knew that his shares would be worth more if and when the defendant sold S Co., he knew that his shares were worth more at the time he sold them to the defendant, the plaintiff wanted to sell his shares to remove himself from family disputes, he willingly accepted only $200,000 because he was planning to build a new home and that this was his mistake, not based on misrepresentations made by the defendant, the court clearly found that this ''misrepresenta- tion'' was not material and that it was not truly a misrepresentation, and that the plaintiff did not rely on the defendant's representation that S Co. was a ''dinosaur.'' 2. The plaintiff could not prevail on his claim that the trial court erred in finding that the defendant proved by clear and convincing evidence that he engaged in fair dealing and full disclosure as to his purchase of the plaintiff's minority shares of S Co. stock when the evidence demon- strated that the defendant failed to disclose all relevant information to the plaintiff, including that he was applying a minority discount to his purchase of the plaintiff's shares, and that he would be seeking to profit from the purchase of those shares upon a future sale of S Co., as the trial court's finding that the defendant had met his burden of proving fair dealing by clear and convincing evidence was not clearly erroneous; the court specifically found that the defendant explained to the plaintiff the significance of the minority discount in practical terms, and the evidence demonstrated that the defendant told the plaintiff that he did not need his shares because he already had control of S Co., and that the defendant disclosed all relevant information and gave the plaintiff access to S Co.'s financial documents and tax returns and advised him to speak to S Co.'s accountant, and was honest and fair in his interaction with the plaintiff. 3. The plaintiff could not prevail on his claim that the evidence demonstrated that the defendant did not prove fair dealing and full disclosure with clear and convincing evidence under each of the four requirements set forth in Konover Development Corp. v. Zeller (228 Conn. 206) for fiduciaries, as the Zeller framework, which permits a more relaxed fiduciary duty in certain situations, was inapplicable: given that the Zeller framework is more forgiving to the fiduciary than is the traditional analysis applied by the court, this court failed to see how the plaintiff could have benefitted from its application; moreover, the court fully considered, while applying the correct legal test, all of the facts relied on by the plaintiff in support of his breach of fiduciary claim. 4. The trial court did not improperly render judgment in favor of the plaintiff on the defendant's counterclaim seeking attorney's fees pursuant to a certificate of satisfaction signed by the plaintiff when he transferred his shares to the defendant, as the language of the certificate was clear and unambiguous, and, pursuant to the plain language, it did not apply to the case; read in its entirety, the language of the certificate clearly set forth the plaintiff's obligation to defend his interest and rights in the shares from claims made by third parties to those shares, and to hold the defendant harmless and to protect him from such third-party claims, and the plaintiff properly characterized the certificate as applicable only to a third-party claim challenging the plaintiff's unencumbered interest, title, and right to his shares and his absolute right to sell his shares to the defendant. Argued March 4—officially released August 25, 2020

The plaintiff, who had been hired by the defendants to perform certain home construction site work, sought to recover damages for, inter alia, breach of contract, after the defendants failed to make an installment payment under the parties' contract. The contract set forth a schedule of six installment payments. Work was scheduled to begin on March 9, 2015, and was to be completed on May 11, 2015. As a result of delays, work did not begin until May, 2015. In October, 2015, the plaintiff ceased working for the defendants; the plaintiff maintained that he was termi- nated whereas the defendants claimed the plaintiff walked off the job. The plaintiff claimed he was entitled to the fourth installment payment. The defendants then hired V Co. to complete the work. The plaintiff thereafter brought the present action seeking damages for the defen- dants' failure to remit the fourth installment payment. The defendants filed a counterclaim. Following a trial to the court, the trial court ren- dered judgment for the defendants on the complaint and on their counter- claim, from which the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court properly determined that the contract violated the Home Improvement Act (§ 20-418 et seq.) and was unenforceable against the defendants; the plaintiff failed to follow the statutorily (§ 42-135a (1) and (2)) prescribed language and form for the cancellation notice in the contract and failed to furnish the defendants with a detachable notice of cancellation as required by § 42-135a (2) and (3), and these failures amounted to material noncompliance with the act. 2. The trial court's finding that the plaintiff caused the delay in the completion of the work was not clearly erroneous; the court had before it the testimony of the defendants' expert regarding the percentage of work completed by the plaintiff and how much work was left to complete, which the court was free to credit, and the court did not have to credit the plaintiff's testimony regarding his reasons for the project's delay. 3. This court declined to review the plaintiff's inadequately briefed claim that the trial court improperly refused to admit certain evidence proffered by the plaintiff; the plaintiff failed to identify with any specificity the exhibits he claims were improperly excluded and did not provide any legally relevant analysis as to why the court's alleged refusal to admit certain evidence was error. 4. The trial court's finding that the defendants did not receive a copy of the cancellation notice was not clearly erroneous; the court reasonably could have credited the defendant homeowner's testimony and it was within its province as trier of fact to make credibility determinations and to find the homeowner credible and the plaintiff not credible. 5. This court declined to review the plaintiff's unpreserved claim that the trial court should not have permitted the defendants' expert witness to testify because he was not qualified as an expert; the plaintiff did not file a motion in limine to preclude or limit the testimony of that witness nor did he object to the witness' testimony at trial. 6. The plaintiff could not prevail on his claim that the trial court failed to consider the defendants' duty to mitigate their damages; the defendants promptly sought of the services of V Co. to complete the work and the court expressly credited the testimony of the defendants' expert with respect to the amount of work necessary to complete the project and it implicitly found the expert's estimates and V Co.'s pricing reasonable by virtue of its damages calculation; moreover, the burden of proving the defendants' purported failure to mitigate rested with the plaintiff and he failed to present evidence beyond his argument that the pricing of V Co., the company the defendants hired to complete the work, was unreasonable. 7. The plaintiff could not prevail on his claim that the trial court erred with respect to its calculation of damages; the court's damages calculations were supported by the evidence, and the court properly subtracted the unpaid balance due on the plaintiff's contract from the adjusted cost of completion based on V Co.'s estimate, to come to the total actual loss that it awarded in damages to the defendants. 8. There was no merit to the plaintiff's unpreserved claim of judicial bias and, under a comprehensive review of the record, reversal under the plain error doctrine was not appropriate. Argued October 22, 2019—officially released August 25, 2020

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendant restaurant owner for personal injuries she allegedly sustained when she fell on a stairway in the restaurant as a result of loosely affixed carpeting and uneven padding under the carpeting. The trial court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment, concluding that the plaintiff's amorphous descriptions of the alleged defect failed to present sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to conclude that the allegedly defective condi- tion was the proximate cause of her injuries. Held that the trial court improperly rendered summary judgment for the defendant, as the plain- tiff established the existence of a genuine issue of material fact as to causation through the affidavits of two guests who used the same stair- way and her deposition testimony that her heel caught in the carpeting, which was squishy, uneven and bumpy, and that her shoe remained in the carpeting as she stepped forward while descending the stairway; moreover, the trial court's characterization of the plaintiff's descriptions of the alleged defect as amorphous suggested that it failed to consider the evidence in the light most favorable to her, and a singular instance of inconsistency in the plaintiff's deposition testimony could not be given dispositive weight over her other largely consistent statements. Argued June 19—officially released August 25, 2020

The plaintiff trustee sought to collect on a promissory note executed by the defendant and to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property securing the defendant's obligations under the note. In accordance with a stipulation entered into by the defendant and her former husband, D, which was incorporated into the judgment dissolving their marriage, D transferred his interest in the property to the defendant and the defen- dant executed a promissory note in the amount of $160,000 in favor of D. The note provided that it was payable by the defendant until the sale of the property or her death and that, if the property were transferred, the unpaid principal with accrued interest would become due and payable at the option of the holder of the note. Thereafter, the plaintiff, as trustee, brought an action against D for, inter alia, breach of fiduciary duty for actions he had taken as the original trustee of the trust. The trial court rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff and, following its granting of the plaintiff's motion for postjudgment modification of a prejudgment attachment that had been granted in her favor, ordered that the plaintiff could ''garnish'' the note from the defendant and that a copy of the original note was to be turned over to her. D never turned over the original note to the plaintiff. The defendant subsequently quitclaimed title to the property to her daughter for no consideration and retained a life use of the property. The plaintiff then filed a judgment lien on the property, claiming that the defendant's transfer of the prop- erty to her daughter triggered her obligation to pay the note in full. After the defendant did not respond to the plaintiff's demand that she make full payment on the note, the plaintiff commenced the present two count action. The trial court rendered summary judgment in favor of the defendant on both counts of the complaint, and the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held that the plaintiff lacked standing to enforce the note and to foreclose on the mortgage, and, therefore, the trial court should have dismissed both counts of her complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction: because the plaintiff never possessed the original note, she lacked standing to enforce it, and her contention that she was entitled to enforce the note as D's successor pursuant to the order of attachment and garnishment issued by the trial court in her action against D was unavailing, as it was contrary to the plain language of the statute (§ 42a-3-309) that governs the enforcement of lost, destroyed or stolen instruments, which was directly applicable to the situation underlying the present case; moreover, there was no merit to the plain- tiff's argument that her possession of a copy of the note was sufficient to confer standing on her to enforce the note, as she could not meet the requirements of § 42a-3-309 because the statute clearly and unambig- uously provides that to enforce a lost note, the person seeking to enforce it must have had possession of it when it was lost; furthermore, there was no basis to conclude that the plaintiff had standing to foreclose on the mortgage, as she failed to produce any necessary and proper second- ary evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact that she was the owner of the debt underlying the mortgage, and this court was not persuaded by the plaintiff's contention that she had standing pursuant to the statute (§ 52-329) providing for the garnishment of a debt as a prejudgment remedy or the trial court's common-law powers of equity, as she neither pursued the statutory (§ 52-381) procedure to execute on the garnishment nor brought a scire facias action against the defen- dant, and she failed to explain what common-law powers of equity would permit a court, on the facts of this case, to grant an ownership interest in a debt without following the required statutory procedures. Argued December 3, 2019—officially released September 1, 2020

Convicted, after a jury trial, of the crimes of risk of injury to a child in violation of statute (§ 53-21 (a) (1)) and cruelty to persons in connection with his actions in beating and whipping the victim, his minor child, with an electrical cord, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court erred by restricting his cross-examination of three of the state's expert wit- nesses, B, M and W, thereby violating his constitutional right to confron- tation: contrary to the defendant's claim that that court improperly prevented him from cross-examining B, who had diagnosed the victim with post-traumatic stress disorder, about whether she had considered alternative diagnoses, the record revealed that the defendant was able to inquire of B as to how she reached her diagnosis, to explore whether she had considered other disorders and to scrutinize the methods she used, and, therefore, the court's ruling on the scope of the defendant's cross-examination of B was not constitutionally defective; moreover, this court concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in sustaining the prosecutor's objections to defense counsel's line of questioning with respect to B, as the defendant failed to meet his burden of showing that the restrictions imposed on cross-examination were clearly prejudicial; furthermore, this court declined to review the defen- dant's claims as to M and W, as those claims were not adequately briefed. 2. The defendant's claim that the trial court erred in admitting into evidence unredacted medical records and testimony addressing the ultimate issue in the case was unavailing: that court did not abuse its discretion because it properly admitted the unredacted medical records and related testi- mony under the medical diagnosis or treatment exception to the hearsay rule, as the medical reports were created by medical practitioners in the furtherance of the victim's medical treatment and the testimony at issue likewise was related to his medical diagnosis and treatment; moreover, the record was inadequate to review the part of the defen- dant's claim related to a motion in limine filed by the defendant that sought to preclude the state from eliciting testimony from witnesses that went to the ultimate issue of whether the defendant abused the victim, as there was no indication in the record that the court ruled on that motion. 3. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the prosecutor made several improper statements during her closing argument, thereby vio- lating his constitutional right to a fair trial: a. Contrary to the defendant's claim, the prosecutor did not disparage defense counsel, as the challenged statements did not rise to the level of improper conduct because they were directed at challenging and criticizing the theory of defense that the victim's behavioral issues existed before the alleged abuse by the defendant. b. The prosecutor did not improperly express her personal opinion and allude to facts outside of the evidence; the prosecutor's comment about whether the victim's behavioral problems were caused by the defen- dant's actions referred to issues addressed in testimony by various witnesses throughout the trial, and her comments about why certain children are ''bad'' similarly referred to evidence presented during the trial about the victim's behavioral problems stemming from the post- traumatic stress disorder caused by the defendant's abuse, and the comments encouraged the jurors to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence and their own experiences and common knowledge about children. c. Although the prosecutor's statement comparing the defendant's actions to cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the government under the eighth amendment to the United States constitution was a misstatement of the law and therefore improper, this court, applying the factors set forth in State v. Williams (204 Conn. 523), concluded that it did not deprive the defendant of his due process right to a fair trial. 4. The defendant's claim that the trial court erred in failing to give the jury an instruction on the statutory (§ 53a-18 (1)) parental justification defense with respect to the situation prong of the risk of injury to a child charge in count two of the information was unavailing, as that court properly concluded that the defense did not apply to the situation prong of § 53-21 (a) (1): this court declined to extend the holding in State v. Nathan J. (294 Conn. 243), that the parental justification defense may be applied to conduct under the act prong of § 53-21 (a) (1), to the situation prong of that statute; moreover, the plain language of § 53a- 18 (1) demonstrates that the parental justification defense is available only for the specific circumstance in which a defendant uses reasonable physical force that he believes to be necessary to discipline or promote the welfare of a child, and, therefore, it does not apply to the situa- tion prong. Argued February 6—officially released September 1, 2020

The plaintiffs sought, by way of summary process, to regain possession of certain premises occupied by the defendant. The plaintiffs served on the defendant a pretermination notice, alleging that the defendant had violated her lease agreement, the house rules of the apartment building where the defendant resided, and several statutory provisions (§ 47a- 11 (a) through (g)). Subsequently, a kitchen fire started in the defendant's apartment after she began cooking on her stove and then fell asleep. Thereafter, the plaintiffs served on the defendant a notice to quit posses- sion of the premises. The trial court rendered a judgment of immediate possession in favor of the plaintiffs. Thereafter, the court denied the defendant's motions to open the judgment and to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and the defendant appealed to this court, claiming that the plaintiffs served an insufficient notice to quit. Held that the trial court properly denied the defendant's motions to open and to dismiss and the court had subject matter jurisdiction to render judgment on the ground of nuisance: notwithstanding the defendant's claim that the notice to quit did not adhere to statutory requirements (§ 47a-23) in the absence of a new pretermination notice regarding the kitchen fire, a landlord is required to provide only the statutorily required notices, the notice to quit was required to state only that the pretermina- tion notice had been served and that the lease had terminated on the ground of nuisance, and the notice to quit included language that the defendant violated § 47a-11, which states that the defendant shall not conduct herself in a manner that constitutes a nuisance, and, thus, the pretermination notice provided the defendant with necessary informa- tion, and the notice to quit satisfied jurisdictional requirements. Argued January 22—officially released September 1, 2020

The plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that proposed boundary line adjustments with respect to certain real property in Wilton did not require subdivision approval from the town zoning commission. The plaintiffs proposed to utilize a certain parcel of abutting land to adjust the size of three lots in an existing resubdivision. The defendant municipality maintained that dividing the parcel into four parts constituted a subdivi- sion of the property, as well as a resubdivision, pursuant to the applicable statute (§ 8-18). The trial court concluded that the boundary line adjust- ments did not constitute a subdivision under § 8-18, but did constitute a resubdivision thereunder. The court rendered judgment in favor of the defendant, from which the plaintiffs appealed to this court. Held: 1. Contrary to the defendant's claim, the trial court properly concluded that the plaintiffs' proposed boundary line adjustments did not constitute a subdivision pursuant to § 8-18; because the plaintiffs' proposal merely reconfigured the contours of four existing lots and did not divide the abutting parcel into three or more lots, the court properly concluded that the line adjustments did not constitute a subdivision under § 8-18. 2. The trial court improperly concluded that the plaintiffs' proposal consti- tuted a resubdivision under § 8-18, as no additional building lot would be created under the plaintiffs' proposal: prior to the boundary line adjustments proposed by the plaintiffs, there existed twelve lots in the resubdivision, as well as two separate parcels on abutting land that are unrelated to the resubdivision, and only three of those twelve lots and one of those parcels are relevant to this appeal, those four properties presently exist and will continue to exist under the reconfiguration contemplated by the plaintiffs; moreover, although one of the abutting parcels would be reduced in size, it would nonetheless continue to exist as the remainder parcel, and that reduction in size cannot constitute a resubdivision under § 8-18; furthermore, the defendant could not prevail on his claim that, because the plaintiff's survey map included not only revised depictions of the three lots of the resubdivision, but also the abutting remainder parcel, it reflected the creation of an additional building lot in the resubdivision, the defendant having failed to provide this court with any authority, and this court was aware of none, in which the mere inclusion of an abutting and previously existing building lot on a map, which was not part of either a prior subdivision or resubdivi- sion, was held to constitute the creation of an additional building lot under § 8-18. Submitted on briefs April 17—officially released September 1, 2020

The plaintiff appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court granting the motion filed by the defendant to modify custody of the parties' minor child. The trial court had previously approved the parties' written agreement under which they agreed to share joint legal custody of the child, with the child living with the plaintiff and the defendant having visitation rights. The parties had further agreed that, in the event of an impasse, the plaintiff would have final decision-making authority in certain matters pertaining to the child. The defendant alleged that the plaintiff was incapable of fostering a healthy relationship between him and the child and that she continuously interfered with his access to and time with the child. The court ordered that primary physical custody was to be transferred to the defendant, who would have final decision-making authority in matters pertaining to the child. Held: 1. The plaintiff could not prevail on her claim that the trial court improperly modified custody without first finding that a material change in circum- stances had occurred and improperly determined that modification was in the best interests of the child: although the court did not explicitly find a material change in circumstances, an implicit finding of a change in circumstances will satisfy the threshold predicate for modification, as there was ample evidence that the plaintiff's efforts to embroil the child in the custody dispute and alienate him from the defendant had intensified, which constituted a material change in circumstances; fur- thermore, it was not improper for the court to agree with most of the findings of the psychologist who conducted a child custody psychologi- cal examination but to decline to follow his recommendation that the child should continue to reside with the plaintiff, as the psychologist testified that the plaintiff's efforts to interfere with the defendant's rela- tionship with the child had not curtailed and that the custody arrange- ment would need to be changed if the plaintiff's behavior continued unabated; moreover, in granting the motion to modify, the court did not abuse its discretion in placing more weight on certain statutory (§ 46b- 56 (c)) factors other than ones the plaintiff believed may have been favorable to her, and the order transferring final decision-making author- ity to the defendant was not improper, as the court reasonably could have concluded that, coupled with the practical rationale of affording such authority to the primary physical custodian, the plaintiff's emo- tional difficulties and untreated mental health issues would interfere with her role as the final decision maker. 2. The plaintiff's unpreserved claim that the trial court violated her right to due process by unduly limiting her case-in-chief was unavailing, as she failed to raise a claim of constitutional magnitude and, thus, failed to establish the existence of a constitutional violation: although the plaintiff asserted that the court limited her ability to put on evidence by continu- ally admonishing and bullying her, the admonitions by the court were necessary to keep her focused on the issues, she identified only a single comment by the court as an example of its conduct, and she did not identify evidence that she was prevented from presenting; moreover, despite the plaintiff's claim that the court unduly limited her case-in- chief by affording her only one hour to present her case, she could not claim that her constitutional right to be heard was violated, as she was afforded more time to present her case than she requested, she did not identify evidence that she would have introduced if she had been afforded more time, and she did not allege how she was harmed by the time limitation imposed by the court. Argued May 13—officially released September 8, 2020