Volume 217 — Connecticut Appellate Reports

Convicted of criminal violation of a restraining order, stalking in the second degree and harassment in the second degree, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant had been in a relationship with A, and, when A ended the relationship, the defendant began posting photographs of her and private details about their affair on social media. A obtained an ex parte restraining order against the defendant, and, a few days after he was served with it, the defendant had a conversation with a third party on his Facebook page relating to the affair. The defendant did not refer to A by name in this conversation, but he referenced A's workplace, details of the affair, his alleged evidence of the same, and his desire to tell A's husband about the affair. A's friend, W, took screen- shots of the conversation and sent them to A. On the sole basis of that Facebook conversation, the state charged the defendant. At trial, the state admitted into evidence the screenshots of the Facebook conversa- tion, along with screenshots of posts and messages relating to A and the affair from various other social media accounts that allegedly belonged to the defendant. Held: 1. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it admitted into evidence screenshots of the social media posts and messages attributed to the defendant because the screenshots were properly authenticated: the screenshots were admitted through W and A, who both testified that they knew the defendant and that they were able to directly link the defendant to the posts and messages in the screenshots on the basis of the content and distinctive characteristics of the posts, messages, and social media accounts, despite that the majority of the posts and mes- sages were not directly received or authored by W or A; moreover, the state was not required to conclusively prove that the defendant wrote and published the posts and messages, and concerns that the social media accounts associated with the defendant were either fake or hacked and concerns regarding the irregularity of the date stamps on the screenshots were not enough to bar their authentication, as such concerns went to the weight of the evidence, not its admissibility. 2. This court concluded that the applicable criminal statutes (§§ 53a-181d and 53a-183) for stalking in the second degree and harassment in the second degree, respectively, as applied to the defendant, violated his rights under the first amendment and, accordingly, reversed the judg- ment with respect to his conviction of stalking in the second degree and harassment in the second degree: a. The state's claim that, although the defendant's Facebook conversation did not fall into the unprotected categories of speech of true threats, fighting words or obscenity, the speech in question was unprotected because it fell within the speech integral to criminal conduct exception to the first amendment was unavailing, as the defendant's actions of logging into his Facebook account and posting on his own page did not constitute nonspeech conduct for purposes of the exception, rather, those actions constituted the means by which he spoke, such that the defendant's posts contained in the Facebook conversation were not integral to the criminal conduct but, instead, were the criminal conduct; moreover, because the defendant's conviction was based solely on the Facebook conversation, in the absence of that protected speech, there was insufficient evidence to sustain the defendant's conviction under § 53a-181d. b. The state could not prevail on its claim that the Facebook conversation consisted of speech and nonspeech elements and that, under the test set forth in United States v. O'Brien (391 U.S. 367), the government had a sufficient interest in regulating the nonspeech element to justify the incidental limitations on the defendant's first amendment freedoms, as the Facebook conversation consisted solely of speech; moreover, the state did not argue that the speech was unprotected under any exception to the first amendment, and our Supreme Court's decision in State v. Moulton (310 Conn. 337), made clear that the reach of § 53a-183 was limited to speech that was not protected by the first amendment; further- more, because the defendant's conviction was based solely on the Face- book conversation, in the absence of that protected speech, there was insufficient evidence to sustain the defendant's conviction under § 53a-183. 3. Contrary to the defendant's claim, he was not deprived of his due process right to a fair trial as a result of alleged prosecutorial improprieties: a. The state's violations of discovery orders did not constitute prosecu- torial improprieties and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in fashioning its remedies for the state's noncompliance: there was no indication that the state's disclosure of additional discovery on the eve of jury selection was done in bad faith, as the state turned over the information shortly after it had come to its attention, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in failing to impose a severe sanction on the state for its late disclosure because it granted defense counsel's request for a recess to review the new discovery and then granted his motion for a continuance, which sufficiently protected the defendant's rights by ameliorating any prejudice caused by the late disclosure; moreover, the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to preclude W from testifying as a result of the state's failure to provide the defendant with W's criminal history and address because it determined that such a severe sanction was inappropriate, given the minimal prejudice caused by the state's noncompliance; furthermore, the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it failed to grant a mistrial after the state attempted to offer a statement of a party opponent at trial without previously disclosing such statement to the defendant because the court's ruling precluding the admission of the statement as evidence clearly amelio- rated any prejudice stemming from the state's late disclosure of the statement. b. The defendant could not prevail on his claims that the prosecutor committed prosecutorial impropriety during his closing argument: the prosecutor's use of the term ''red herring'' in his closing argument was intended to rebut a portion of the defendant's theory of defense, specifi- cally, that A was not credible, and was not directed at defense counsel's character or credibility and did not impugn or disparage him; moreover, the prosecutor's statement that it would have taken effort for the defen- dant to get to A's home was permissible because it properly referred to facts in evidence, namely, that A lived in a rural area and that the defendant's primary mode of transportation was a bicycle, and then invited the jury to draw a reasonable inference based on those facts. Argued May 11—officially released December 20, 2022

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 trial court denied the defendant's motion in limine to preclude the state from introducing testimony from his former probation officer, D, regarding her identification of him in a surveillance video taken from the store and in a still photograph from that video. This court affirmed the defendant's conviction, and the defendant filed a petition for certifi- cation to appeal to our Supreme Court, which granted the petition in part and vacated this court's judgment in part and remanded the case to this court to consider whether, under our Supreme Court's recent decision in State v. Gore (342 Conn. 129), the trial court abused its discretion by admitting D's testimony. The court in Gore articulated a new standard requiring courts to consider, under the totality of the circumstances, whether a witness was more likely than the jury to correctly identify the defendant from surveillance video or photographs, thereby meeting the requirements of the provision (§ 7-1) of the Connect- icut Code of Evidence, and set forth four factors to be used in that consideration. Held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting D's testimony, as the four factors outlined in Gore weighed in favor of admitting D's testimony: under the first factor, which consid- ers the witness' general familiarity with the defendant's appearance, D clearly had more than a minimal degree of familiarity with the defendant that enabled her to identify him more reliably than the jury based on the frequency, number and duration of their past contacts, the duration of their relationship and time since their last meeting, the relevant viewing conditions and the nature of their relationship; moreover, the second factor, which assesses the witness' familiarity with the defen- dant's appearance, weighed in favor of admitting D's testimony in light of her familiarity with his appearance at the time the video was taken and with a lanyard worn by the defendant in the video that resembled a similar lanyard that D had seen the defendant wear, the third factor, which assesses whether there had been a change in the defendant's appearance between the time the surveillance video or photographs were taken and trial, weighed in favor of admitting D's testimony because the defendant wore eyeglasses at trial but was not known to wear eyeglasses when the video was recorded and this change in the defen- dant's appearance put D in a better position to identify the defendant than the jury, which had only seen the defendant wearing eyeglasses, and, finally, the fourth factor, which addresses the quality of the video or photographs, as well as the extent to which the subject is depicted in the surveillance video or photograph, weighed in favor of admitting D's testimony because the video contained multiple views from inside and outside of the store, the defendant was not clearly, fully or solely depicted in either the video or photograph, the video and the photograph were neither unmistakably clear nor hopelessly obscure, and they fell in the range of quality that favors admissibility. Argued October 25—officially released December 20, 2022

The plaintiff property owners brought an action against the defendants, a contractor and an architect, alleging, inter alia, breach of contract. The plaintiffs owned real property in Westport and hired the defendants to design and build a new home on the property with the goal of selling the redeveloped property for a profit. During the course of their working relationship, the parties executed a contract for the construction of the new residence. Pursuant to the construction contract, the defendants agreed to design and construct the new home and provide related ser- vices for a fee. Later that month, the defendants agreed, by letter, as a part of the parties' ongoing discussions, to reduce their fees (fee reduc- tion letter). More than one year later, the parties entered into a separate agreement titled ''Additional Fee and Profit Sharing Agreement'' (2019 agreement), which incorporated by reference the construction contract and the fee reduction letter. The 2019 agreement included a section titled ''Additional Fee and Profits/Losses,'' which provided that the par- ties would share in ''all profits . . . and all losses'' associated with the sale of the property, defined ''profits'' as net profits and set forth in detail how net profits would be calculated, and provided that the previously reduced fees would be reinstated and that, after certain enumerated expenses were paid, any remaining funds would be allocated among the parties on a percentage basis. The 2019 agreement did not contain language defining the term ''losses'' or explaining how losses, if any, would be determined and calculated or apportioned among the parties. The property was ultimately sold at a loss, and the parties disagreed about what effect this shortfall meant relative to the parties' financial stakes as expressed in their contracts. The defendants claimed that they had no obligation under the terms of the 2019 agreement to share in any shortfall. The plaintiffs took the position that the ''net profit'' calcula- tion, if made in accordance with the intent of the 2019 agreement, resulted in a negative number or ''losses,'' which the parties had intended to share at the same percentages that they would have shared with respect to net profits. After the plaintiffs filed their application for a prejudgment remedy and commenced this action, the defendants asserted a counterclaim against the plaintiffs for breach of contract; in addition, they filed their own application for a prejudgment remedy. The trial court denied the plaintiffs' application for a prejudgment remedy, finding that there was no ambiguity in the contract language and that, read as a whole, it did not require the defendants to share in the loss attributed to the sale of the property. The court concluded that the defendants had shown probable cause that they would prevail on their counterclaim and granted the defendants' application for a prejudgment remedy. In the alternative, the court found that, even if there was ambigu- ity in the 2019 agreement, the parol evidence offered by the parties also supported a conclusion that the contract could not be interpreted reasonably to require the sharing of losses. In reaching its alternative conclusion, the court relied heavily on its factual finding that, as part of the 2019 agreement, the defendants agreed to risk, and ultimately lost, the fees owed to the defendants under the construction contract as modified by the fee reduction letter. On the plaintiffs' appeal to this court, held: 1. The trial court improperly concluded that the 2019 agreement unambigu- ously provided that the parties would share only in net profits and did not reflect an intent to share in all losses resulting from the sale of the property: although the 2019 agreement contained no definition for the term ''losses'' and was silent as to how the parties would treat a situation in which the proceeds from the sale of the property were insufficient to satisfy each of the enumerated categories of expenses, the parties' use of express language that the parties would share in all profits and all losses associated with the property and their failure to define pre- cisely what they intended by that language created a clear ambiguity in the contract that necessitated looking beyond the four corners of the contract to determine the parties' intent and, accordingly, the trial court's conclusion could not stand as a basis for finding that the defendants would prevail on their counterclaim. 2. The trial court relied on clearly erroneous factual findings in support of its alternative conclusion that, even if the contract was ambiguous regarding the parties' intent, the parol evidence offered by the parties established probable cause that the defendants would prevail on their counterclaim: there was no dispute that, contrary to the trial court's findings, the fees owed to the defendants under the construction contract as modified by the fee reduction letter never were at risk and, in fact, were paid in full to the defendants; moreover, although the defendants pointed to other extrinsic evidence in the record that may have supported the trial court's alternative holding, there was no indication in that court's decision to what extent, if any, that court considered or credited any other extrinsic evidence and, accordingly, because the court relied primarily on its erroneous factual finding in reaching its alternative conclusion, not the evidence advanced by the defendants, this court was left with no confidence in the trial court's assessment of probable cause that the defendants would prevail on their counterclaim; accord- ingly, the prejudgment remedy awarded could not stand and a new hearing on the defendants' application was warranted. Argued October 5—officially released December 20, 2022

The plaintiff bank sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain of the defen- dants' residential property after they had defaulted on a loan secured by a mortgage deed. The defendants had executed a promissory note in favor of W Co., secured by the mortgage deed, and, subsequently, the plaintiff acquired W Co. and its assets, including the defendants' loan. Following a bench trial in 2015, the trial court rendered a judgment of strict foreclosure in favor of the plaintiff, and the defendants appealed to this court, which affirmed the judgment of the trial court. The defen- dants then appealed to our Supreme Court, which reversed in part the judgment of this court and ordered the case remanded to this court with direction to reverse the trial court's order directing the defendants to reimburse the plaintiff for certain property taxes and homeowners insurance premiums and to remand the case to that court for the purpose of setting a new law day. On remand, the trial court denied the defen- dants' motion to dismiss, which was predicated on two alleged deficienc- ies with the statutory (§ 8-265ee) Emergency Mortgage Assistance Pro- gram (EMAP) notice provided by the plaintiff in 2009, a copy of which was introduced into evidence at the trial in 2015. The court then set new law days in accordance with the remand order from the Supreme Court, and the defendants appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendants could not prevail on their claim that the trial court improp- erly construed the remand order from our Supreme Court in a narrow manner; the directive from the Supreme Court was specific in nature, limited in scope and was clear that this court was ordered to remand the case to the trial court for the purpose of setting a new law day, and this was not a case in which the Supreme Court remanded the matter for further proceedings in accordance with law. 2. The trial court properly denied the defendants' motion to dismiss that claimed that court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the foreclosure proceeding due to the plaintiff's noncompliance with the EMAP notice requirements set forth in § 8-265ee, as the motion constituted an imper- missible collateral attack on the judgment of strict foreclosure: the defendants' first alleged deficiency, that their counsel was unable to obtain tracking information for the EMAP notice on the website of the United States Postal Service for a mailing that was sent twelve years earlier, did not demonstrate an absence of subject matter jurisdiction that made the judgment of strict foreclosure entirely invalid, the court having taken judicial notice of the undisputed fact that the United States Postal Service stores tracking information for certified mail only for a period of two years; moreover, in rendering its judgment of strict foreclosure in favor of the plaintiff in 2015, the court necessarily rejected the second claimed deficiency, namely, that the EMAP notice furnished by the plaintiff bore the name of W Co., the plaintiff's predecessor in interest, rather than that of the plaintiff itself, the defendants thereafter did not request an articulation of the court's judgment in that regard, and, because that claimed deficiency was at issue before the trial court in 2015, it was incumbent on the defendants to raise any claim of error in their prior appeal with respect thereto, which they failed to do, and, as a result, they abandoned that claim; furthermore, this court concurred with the trial court's observation that a motion to dismiss was a procedur- ally impermissible substitute for failing to appeal the issue. Argued October 6—officially released December 20, 2022

The plaintiff, who was a remainder beneficiary of a revocable trust, which included a corpus of, inter alia, antique automobiles, sought damages from the defendants, his sisters, B and R, and from D, the administrator of the estate of S, the plaintiff's mother, in connection with the adminis- tration of the trust. The plaintiff claimed, inter alia, that B and S, who had been cotrustees of the trust, had breached their fiduciary duties to him. D and B filed motions to strike the counts that alleged that a contract had been breached, which the trial court granted, and, thereafter, the defendants filed separate motions for summary judgment on the ground that the plaintiff's claims were time barred pursuant to the three year tort statute of limitations (§ 52-577). While the motions for summary judgment were pending, the plaintiff filed a revised complaint that added a count against B sounding in unjust enrichment, alleging that B, by a continuing course of conduct, breached the trust agreement by, inter alia, misappropriating and diverting assets, principal and income from the plaintiff. The trial court granted the motions for summary judgment filed by R and D, having determined that they met their burden of showing that the plaintiff's claims were time barred by § 52-577. The trial court also granted in part the motion for summary judgment filed by B; the count of unjust enrichment was not adjudicated in that ruling. The court determined that there was no evidentiary basis for the plain- tiff's claims that the statute of limitations in § 52-577 was tolled by the continuous course of conduct doctrine, and it concluded that no genuine issues of material fact existed as to when the plaintiff's cause accrued and when his action was commenced. On the plaintiff's prior appeal to this court, this court affirmed the trial court's granting of summary judgment in favor of R and D but did not address on the merits the plaintiff's challenges to the trial court's rendering of summary judgment in part in favor of B, reasoning that a final judgment as to B was lacking because the unjust enrichment count of the complaint remained pending. Thereafter, the trial court granted B's motion to strike the unjust enrich- ment count on the ground that it was time barred by § 52-577, and the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court improperly granted B's motion to strike the unjust enrich- ment count of the revised complaint on the ground that it was time barred by § 52-577: a claim of unjust enrichment sounds neither in tort nor in contract but is an equitable claim for relief, not subject to any statute of limitations, and, instead, is subject to the equitable doctrine of laches; moreover, B's argument that § 52-577 applied because the unjust enrichment claim contained tort like allegations was unsupported by our jurisprudence. 2. The plaintiff could not prevail on his claim that the trial court improperly granted B's motion for summary judgment, that court having determined that no genuine issues of material fact existed as to whether § 52-577 was tolled by the operation of the continuing course of conduct doctrine; in the present case, B's alleged failure to account for antique automobiles and unspecified automobile parts did not constitute a continuous series of events that gave rise to a cumulative injury, and the plaintiff failed to establish the existence of a genuine issue of material fact as to whether B committed a continuous breach of the fiduciary duty she owed to remainder beneficiaries that resulted in an enhanced injury to the plaintiff. Argued October 11—officially released December 20, 2022

Pursuant to statute (§ 31-294c (b)), whenever liability to pay workers' com- pensation is contested by an employer, the employer shall file with the Workers' Compensation Commissioner, on or before the twenty-eighth day after receipt of a written notice of claim, a proper notice denying lia- bility. The plaintiff employee appealed to this court from the decision of the Compensation Review Board affirming the decision of the Workers' Compensation Commissioner denying his motion to preclude the defen- dant employer from contesting liability as to his injuries pursuant to § 31-294c (b). The plaintiff filed a form 30C notice of claim with the Workers' Compensation Commission and, on the same day, the plaintiff's counsel sent by certified mail a copy of the form 30C to the defendant. The envelope was returned to the plaintiff with a marking indicating that it was undeliverable as addressed. Shortly thereafter, the plaintiff's counsel personally provided a copy of the form 30C to the defendant's counsel, who filed a form 43 denying the claim that same day. The plaintiff's motion claimed that the defendant was precluded from con- testing liability on the ground that the defendant never accepted the certified mail containing the form 30C and that the form 43 filed by the defendant was untimely. In denying the plaintiff's motion, the commis- sioner concluded that the form 30C sent by certified mail was not delivered to the defendant and, therefore, that the defendant did not receive proper notice of the plaintiff's claim at that time. On appeal, the board affirmed the commissioner's decision, concluding that the commissioner's determination that the defendant did not receive proper notice of the form 30C until it was provided personally to the defendant's counsel was supported by the finding that the mail carrier never deliv- ered the form 30C to the defendant, a finding that the board determined was supported by the record. Held that the board properly affirmed the commissioner's denial of the plaintiff's motion to preclude: the commis- sioner found that the defendant did not receive the form 30C that was sent by certified mail, rather, the defendant received the form 30C for the first time by way of subsequent personal service on its counsel, such that its form 43 was timely filed, and this court agreed with the board's conclusion that the commissioner's findings were supported by evidence in the record, including that the envelope containing the form 30C was returned to the plaintiff with a marking reflecting that the envelope was undeliverable as addressed; moreover, this court declined to disturb the commissioner's determination that the testimony of the plaintiff's expert witness, a retired postal worker, which, according to the plaintiff, demonstrated that the form 30C was delivered to the defendant but the defendant rejected it, was not credible; furthermore, this court rejected the plaintiff's reliance on the mailbox rule and his assertion that the board and the commissioner improperly imposed on him the burden to establish that the form 30C was returned to him because the defendant had rejected it, even assuming that the mailbox rule applied, the presumption of delivery could not withstand the com- missioner's determination, as supported by the record, that delivery of the form 30C never occurred because, as the board stated in its decision, the ''undeliverable as addressed'' marking on the envelope containing the form 30C that was returned to the plaintiff suggested that the form was never presented to a responsible party who refused to accept it. Argued October 11—officially released December 27, 2022

The petitioner, who had been convicted, on a plea of guilty, of, inter alia, arson in the first degree, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that her trial counsel, S, rendered ineffective assistance by failing to properly advise her about the immigration consequences of her pleading guilty. The petitioner was born in Ukraine, entered the United States on a temporary visa that had expired, and was not lawfully residing in the country at the time of her arrest and conviction. S testified at the habeas trial that he advised the petitioner that arson in the first degree consti- tuted an aggravated felony that subjected the petitioner to deportation and removal, that the assumption and the presumption should be that she would be deported or removed, and that he made no representation to the petitioner that anything could occur aside from her being deported for an aggravated felony conviction. S further testified that he informed the petitioner that a plea pursuant to North Carolina v. Alford (400 U.S. 25) ''may or may not'' have an effect on the matters considered by immigration officials, but it would not rescue her from being deported or reduce the strength of the case the immigration authorities had against her. The petitioner ultimately pleaded guilty pursuant to the Alford doctrine. Following trial, the habeas court denied the petition for a writ of habeas corpus, finding that S had unequivocally conveyed to the petitioner that the immigration consequences of her guilty plea to a charge of arson in the first degree was deportation mandated by federal law, that there was no credible evidence that S failed to adequately advise or affirmatively misadvised the petitioner about the deportation consequences of her plea agreement, and that the likelihood of deporta- tion was sufficiently explained to the petitioner. On the petitioner's appeal to this court, held that the habeas court properly concluded that S did not render deficient performance in advising the petitioner of the immigration consequences of her Alford plea and properly rejected her claim of ineffective assistance of counsel: S made no representation to the petitioner that anything could occur aside from her being deported for an aggravated felony conviction and, therefore, S's advice to the petitioner regarding the likelihood of her deportation resulting from her plea to an aggravated felony was accurate, unequivocal, and comported with the requirements of state and federal law; moreover, even assuming that S's advice expressed equivocation as to the likelihood of enforce- ment, that advice did not negate the import of S's repeated and unequivo- cal advice stating that, regardless of his uncertainty as to the effect of the Alford plea on immigration authorities, the clear consequence of the petitioner's Alford plea was deportation. Argued September 15—officially released December 27, 2022

The defendant appealed from the trial court's financial orders issued in connection with the judgment dissolving his marriage to the plaintiff. During the parties' marriage, the defendant was the primary wage earner for the family while the plaintiff remained at home and raised their two minor children. At the time of dissolution, the defendant earned, inter alia, a base salary and was eligible for a cash bonus targeted at 30 percent of his base salary. The defendant's weekly net income exceeded $4000. The trial court attributed to the plaintiff an earning capacity of $40,000 per year, and, in light of the plaintiff's earning capacity, a devia- tion criterion under the Child Support and Arrearage Guidelines set forth in the applicable regulations (§ 46b-215a-1 et seq.), the court used that deviation in its calculation of the defendant's child support obliga- tion. The court added the plaintiff's earning capacity to the defendant's net weekly income to arrive at a new, combined weekly income and used the guidelines to determine a basic child support range. Rather than adjusting the defendant's basic child support obligation downward from the original range to account for the plaintiff's earning capacity, the court ordered the defendant, the noncustodial parent, to pay a weekly child support award of $1000 per week, which reflected a 5 percent deviation upward from the top of the basic child support range based on the parties' combined weekly income. The court also ordered the defendant to pay a supplemental child support payment equal to 17.71 percent of the after-tax amounts of any bonuses and other income he earned. The court awarded the plaintiff alimony and a supplemental alimony award in the amount of 17.71 percent of the after-tax amounts of any bonuses and other income earned by the defendant in any year in which he has an alimony obligation to the plaintiff. Held: 1. The trial court abused its discretion in calculating the defendant's initial child support obligation: a. The trial court erred by increasing, rather than reducing, the defen- dant's obligation based on the plaintiff's earning capacity; although the court was permitted in its application of the deviation criteria to consider the plaintiff's earning capacity, its application of the criteria was inconsis- tent with its reason for the deviation and with the principles on which the guidelines are based, which contemplate that the noncustodial par- ent's basic child support obligation will account for each party's pro rata share of child support as calculated by the guidelines and should not reflect the parties' total child support obligation; moreover, once the court decided to factor in the plaintiff's earning capacity to determine the parties' child support obligations, it should have assigned at least a portion of the joint obligation to the plaintiff based on her earning capacity, rather than assigning the entire child support obligation to the defendant. b. The trial court abused its discretion in ordering the defendant to pay the plaintiff $1000 per week as basic child support as part of its initial child support order without making the required findings to support its application of the deviation criteria: although the court made a finding of the presumptive child support amount in which consideration of the plaintiff's earning capacity erroneously justified an upward deviation in the defendant's basic child support obligation from $705 to $955 per week, it did not make a specific finding to justify its further increase of the defendant's obligation from $955 to $1000 per week, and failed to provide an explanation as to the deviation criteria on which it relied; moreover, the court's reliance on a statute (§ 46b-86) in finding that the upward deviation from $955 to $1000 per week was permitted, as it represented a deviation of less than 15 percent of the total amount, was improper, as § 46b-86 governs modification of child support orders, not initial child support orders. 2. The trial court's supplemental child support order, which awarded the plaintiff 17.71 percent of the defendant's undetermined future income above his base salary, was based on a clearly erroneous factual finding and was in error: in the present case, although it was within the court's discretion to make a supplemental order with respect to income of an indeterminate amount as the parents' net weekly income exceeded $4000, the error was not the amount awarded in the court's order but, rather, the court's failure to provide an explicit justification as to how the additional funds would be used for the benefit of the children and how the award was related to the factors identified in the applicable statute (§ 46b-84 (d)); moreover, there was no evidence in the record to support the trial court's factual finding that the defendant's annual cash bonus was ''capped'' at 30 percent of his base salary, as that finding conflicted with the only evidence presented on that issue, the defendant's employment contract, and, thus, the court's finding was clearly errone- ous. 3. This court concluded that the trial court's supplemental alimony award failed for the same reason the supplemental child support award failed, namely, because the order was based, in part, on the trial court's errone- ous finding that the defendant's annual bonus was capped at 30 percent of his annual salary; there was no evidence in the record to support the court's finding that the defendant's bonus was capped at 30 percent of his annual salary and, thus, the supplemental alimony order did not have a reasonable basis in fact. 4. This court concluded that, because the trial court's error with respect to the supplemental alimony award was not severable from that court's property distribution, on remand, the court must reconsider the entirety of the mosaic of financial orders: although under some circumstances a child support award may be severable from the other financial orders, in the present case, the court misapplied the child support guidelines and improperly ordered supplemental child support and alimony awards on an erroneous finding of fact, and, given the potential size of the supplemental child support order and its link to the supplemental ali- mony order, the court's child support orders also were part of the mosaic of financial orders issued by the court; accordingly, because it was uncertain whether the court's other financial awards would remain intact after the court reconsidered the child support orders and the supplemen- tal alimony order in a manner consistent with this court's opinion, the trial court, on remand, must reconsider all of the financial orders, including the property distribution orders. Argued September 13, 2022—officially released January 17, 2023

The petitioner, who had been convicted, on a plea of guilty, of the crime of kidnapping in the second degree, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming, inter alia, that he was actually innocent and that his court- appointed standby counsel, R, had rendered ineffective assistance when the petitioner represented himself during his second criminal trial. At the petitioner's first criminal trial, the state introduced evidence that the petitioner had lured the victim into his car by promising her money in exchange for sex and then drove to a market where video footage from two surveillance cameras showed the victim getting out of the car, entering the market to make a purchase and then reentering the car before it was driven away. When the victim told the petitioner that she had changed her mind and asked that he drop her off, he refused and drove to a parking lot where he sexually assaulted her. After the petition- er's first criminal trial ended in a mistrial, the petitioner invoked his right to represent himself at his retrial and proceeded with R acting as standby counsel. During jury selection, the trial court ordered the petitioner removed from the courtroom because of his belligerent con- duct and directed R to continue with jury selection. The petitioner resumed self-representation before the completion of jury selection and his acceptance of the state's plea offer. The habeas court granted in part the motion filed by the respondent Commissioner of Correction to dismiss the petitioner's habeas petition. At the habeas trial, the petitioner claimed, inter alia, that inconsistencies in the victim's recounting of events and discrepancies in the video surveillance footage that under- mined the victim's testimony that she was at the market with him consti- tuted newly discovered evidence that established his claim of actual innocence. The petitioner further claimed that R had rendered ineffective assistance by failing to inform him of a potential legal claim pertaining to the interception by the Department of Correction of his mail that contained his defense strategy, which thereafter was provided to the state's attorney. The habeas court denied the petitioner's actual inno- cence claim, concluding that he had not presented any newly discovered evidence that was not available at the time of the underlying criminal proceedings. The court also determined that the petitioner's ineffective assistance claim was without merit, reasoning that, once he decided to represent himself, he had no right to the effective assistance of counsel in any capacity. The habeas court thereafter rendered judgment dismiss- ing the habeas petition, from which the petitioner, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court. Held: 1. The habeas court did not err in rejecting the petitioner's claim that he was actually innocent, as he failed to present any newly discovered evidence to establish his innocence by clear and convincing evidence: a. This court rejected the petitioner's assertion that evidence need not be newly discovered to establish a claim of actual innocence, as that assertion was flatly contradictory to this court's binding precedent that an actual innocence claim must be based on newly discovered evidence. b. This court concluded that, even if there were no requirement that evidence must be newly discovered to establish an actual innocence claim, the petitioner's efforts to undermine the credibility of the victim's testimony by calling into question the reliability of the surveillance video was unavailing, because, even if the reliability of the surveillance video were called into question, undermining one piece of evidence did not constitute affirmative evidence of his actual innocence; moreover, the evidence the petitioner adduced concerning the surveillance video merely attempted to discredit a portion of the state's evidence at his underlying criminal trial and would not negate the other ample evidence of his guilt that was admitted at that trial, which included evidence that his DNA was found in the victim, evidence of tire marks at the crime scene that matched the petitioner's vehicle, cell phone location data placing him near the scene at the relevant time, and evidence that the police found him in the same location several days later with another sex worker in a car that matched the vehicle described by the victim. 2. There was no merit to the petitioner's claim that the habeas court improp- erly failed to conclude that R had rendered ineffective assistance in his role as standby counsel, as the petitioner had no right to the effective assistance of counsel in any capacity after he waived his sixth amend- ment right to counsel and exercised his right to represent himself: the petitioner cited no legal authority to support his contention that R had a duty to inform him of potential legal issues in connection with his intercepted prison mail, the evidence showed that R's role as standby counsel was limited in that he neither examined witnesses nor argued to the jury but mostly responded to requests from the petitioner, R's actions readily fell into the category of assisting the petitioner with overcoming routine procedural obstacles to the completion of tasks the petitioner wanted to complete, and, despite the assistance R provided by offering the petitioner unsolicited advice and conducting voir dire on the day the petitioner was removed from the courtroom, the petitioner unmistakably represented himself through the conclusion of his criminal matter, during which he filed and argued numerous motions, represented himself at multiple hearings and, on several occasions, reaffirmed to the trial court his desire to represent himself; moreover, nothing in the record indicated that the petitioner was confused about the role of standby counsel, he never expressed to the trial court any uncertainty about R's role, and he presented no evidence to the habeas court that he relied on R to provide unsolicited advice or to identify and inform him of potential legal issues. 3. The petitioner could not prevail on his claim that the habeas court improp- erly dismissed that count of his habeas petition in which he alleged that his rights to due process and the assistance of counsel were violated as a result of the interception of his prison mail: contrary to the petitioner's contention that those allegations related to the knowing and voluntary nature of his guilty plea, they did not sufficiently demonstrate an interre- lationship between the plea and the alleged ineffective assistance by R such that it could be said that the plea was not made knowingly and voluntarily, as there could be no ineffective assistance of counsel because the petitioner represented himself, the count at issue could not reasonably be read to set forth a claim that the plea was not made knowingly and voluntarily, and this court declined to consider the peti- tioner's memorandum of law opposing the respondent's motion to dis- miss, in which he argued for the first time that his plea was not made knowingly or voluntarily, as a memorandum of law is not a proper vehicle for supplementing factual allegations in a habeas petition; moreover, a plain reading of the allegations at issue showed that they asserted only a claim that the petitioner had lost an opportunity to have the charges against him dismissed because of the interception of his mail, as the count at issue contained no allegations relating to the knowing and voluntary nature of his guilty plea, at no point did he amend his habeas petition to allege that the plea was unknowingly and involuntarily made due to the interception of his mail, and, as alleged in the count at issue, the petitioner was fully aware of the interception of his mail prior to entering his guilty plea; furthermore, because a plea is made knowingly and voluntarily regardless of whether a defendant is made aware of every motion being waived by entering the plea, the petitioner knowingly and willingly assumed that risk and had been advised of it by the trial court when he chose to represent himself. Argued October 3, 2022—officially released January 17, 2023

Convicted of assault of an elderly person in the second degree, the defendant appealed to this court. The defendant regularly sold illegal drugs to the victim, who was sixty-four years old. After the victim failed to pay off an outstanding debt, the defendant went to her residence and struck her multiple times on the head with a handgun. The victim reported the incident to the police, and, a few weeks later, in an attempt to apprehend the defendant, the police arranged for a confidential informant to con- duct a controlled purchase of illegal drugs from him. When the defendant arrived at the agreed upon location, the informant identified him to the police officers who were observing the transaction from unmarked vehicles. The officers arrested the defendant, handcuffed him, and placed him into a police car. At the time of his arrest, the defendant had a key fob to a vehicle in his pocket, and the police used it to find the vehicle the defendant had arrived in, which was parked in a visitor's spot of the parking lot of a nearby apartment building. One of the vehicle's windows was down, and the smell of marijuana emanated from it. The police officers determined that the vehicle was registered to the defendant's foster mother and then conducted a warrantless search of it, seizing illegal drugs, a scale, and a handgun. After finding clothing consistent with that worn by a suspect in an unrelated shooting that had occurred earlier that month, the police officers stopped their search, towed the vehicle to the police department, and subsequently obtained a warrant to seize the clothing and the handgun. The defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence recovered from the vehicle, claiming that the police had lacked probable cause to search it. The trial court denied the motion, and the state introduced into evidence the handgun and a photograph of it. On the defendant's appeal to this court, held that the defendant was not entitled to a new trial because the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion to suppress was not improper, as the court properly relied on the automobile exception to the fourth amendment's warrant requirement to determine that the police were not obligated to obtain a warrant before searching the vehicle: the defendant's claim that the state was required to prove that he was in or near the vehicle at the time he was detained by the police in order for the automobile exception to apply was unavailing, as the defendant did not cite to any cases in his brief that were decided under the fourth amendment that imposed such a proximity requirement and, even though most Connecticut cases that arose under the exception typically involved factual scenarios in which the warrantless search of a vehicle was conducted immediately after observing the defendant in or near the vehicle, the policy justifications that underlie the exception, namely, the reduced expectation of privacy in the contents of a vehicle and the inherent mobility of a vehicle, applied regardless of whether the defendant was near the vehicle at the time of the search or otherwise lacked access to it because he was in the custody of law enforcement, and, in the present case, any expectation of privacy the defendant may have had in the contents of the vehicle was further reduced by the fact that the vehicle was left in a public place with the window of the vehicle open; moreover, the defendant's reliance on State v. Miller (227 Conn. 363) was misplaced because he raised a claim pursuant only to the federal constitution, whereas Miller specifically addressed a claim under our state constitution and, by its own terms, was limited to situations in which a vehicle was searched at a police station and, therefore, did not govern situations in which a vehicle remained in public and was potentially mobile; furthermore, the totality of the facts supported the conclusion that probable cause existed to search the defendant's vehicle, as the police had ample evidence to infer that the vehicle was the one that the defendant had driven to the scene to complete a narcotics transaction, including that the defendant had agreed to meet the confi- dential informant to engage in a narcotics transaction, the defendant was in possession of cocaine and marijuana at the time of his arrest, other individuals to whom the defendant had previously sold drugs told the police that he typically would park his vehicle near the agreed upon location and then walk the remainder of the way, the key fob found on the defendant operated the vehicle's lights, the vehicle was located less than 500 yards from where the defendant was arrested, and the vehicle was registered to his foster mother, and, although the police did not observe the defendant in or near the vehicle, that did not undermine the factual nexus between the defendant and the vehicle; additionally, the police had a reasonable basis to conclude that there was a fair probability of finding contraband or evidence of a crime in the defen- dant's vehicle, as it was found by the police within minutes of the defendant's arrest, the police knew that the defendant had arrived in the vehicle with the intent to sell illegal drugs, the defendant had illegal drugs on his person when he was taken into custody, and the police could smell marijuana emanating from the vehicle. Argued September 12, 2022—officially released January 24, 2023

Pursuant to the rules of practice (§ 17-25 (b) (1)), an affidavit of debt in support of a motion for default and judgment must be signed by ''the plaintiff or by an authorized representative of the plaintiff who is not the plaintiff's attorney.'' The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendant for his breach of a promissory note. The trial court granted the plaintiff's motion to default the defendant for failure to appear. Subsequently, the plaintiff filed a motion for judgment based on the defendant's failure to appear, which was signed the plaintiff's counsel, G. G also signed an affidavit of debt in support of the motion. The trial court granted the motion for judgment and rendered judgment in favor of the plaintiff, from which the defendant appealed to this court. Held that the trial court, in render- ing the judgment, improperly relied on the affidavit of debt signed by G in contravention of Practice Book § 17-25; in the present case, because it was undisputed that the only affidavit of debt filed in support of the plaintiff's motion was signed by G, the court should have denied the motion for failing to comply with § 17-25 (b) (1) or required the submis- sion of additional information pursuant to § 17-25 (c), and it did neither. Argued November 7, 2022—officially released January 24, 2023

Convicted, on pleas of guilty, of the crimes of robbery in the first degree and conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree, the defendant appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court, claiming, inter alia, that the trial court improperly concluded that it lacked the authority to award him presentence confinement credit pursuant to statute (§ 18-98d). The defendant had been incarcerated on other convic- tions when he entered into an agreement with the state under which he would plead guilty to charges of robbery in the first degree and conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree in exchange for the entry of a nolle prosequi as to all other charges he was facing. The trial court accepted the pleas after canvassing the defendant, who indicated that he understood the terms of the agreed upon sentence. At sentencing, the defendant, for the first time, claimed that he was entitled to certain presentence confinement credit. The court declined to award presen- tence confinement credit and imposed the agreed upon sentence. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court, in structuring his sentence, had the authority and discretion to account for presentence confinement credit that the court determined to be appropriate: under § 18-98d (c), the Commissioner of Correction has the sole responsibility and authority to calculate and apply presentence confinement credit toward the sentence that actually was imposed by the court, as presentence confinement credit is not a part of a sentence but a calculation of the amount of credited time a defendant already has served toward completing that sentence, and, although § 18-98d contains no language that explicitly bars a sentencing court from award- ing presentence confinement credit, our courts have clearly established that presentence confinement credit is a creature of statute; moreover, the defendant presented no appellate authority in support of his assertion that, because the trial court has broad authority to craft and impose sentences, it also has the inherent authority to award presentence con- finement credit, the legislature having expressly placed the authority to apply presentence confinement credit in the hands of the Commissioner of Correction; furthermore, although sentencing courts differ in their views about how to address issues concerning presentence confinement credit, including, as did one of the courts that imposed a prior sentence against the defendant, by placing an order on the judgment mittimus that the defendant was to be given presentence confinement credit, that notation was not binding on the Commissioner of Correction, who has, in the first instance, the authority to calculate and apply presentence confinement credit. 2. The defendant failed to present any evidence to support his claim that the trial court improperly accepted his guilty pleas and thereafter denied his motion to withdraw them because there was no meeting of the minds regarding the terms of the pleas: the plea agreement between the defendant and the state did not include any offer or acknowledgment by the state regarding presentence confinement credit, which defense counsel acknowledged on the record, the prosecutor indicated that presentence confinement credit was never part of the plea bargaining discussions, and the defendant acknowledged more than once during the court's initial plea canvass that he understood the terms of the agreed upon sentence. 3. The defendant could not prevail on his unpreserved claim that the trial court's plea canvass was constitutionally invalid because he was not advised that his guilty pleas would operate as a waiver of his right to a jury trial; although the court did not indicate that the waiver included the right to a jury trial, the defendant acknowledged during the canvass that he was waiving his right to a trial by pleading guilty, and, because he was represented by counsel and had elected a jury trial as part of his initial plea of not guilty, the record was sufficient to infer that he understood that his waiver of a right to a trial meant the right to a jury trial. Argued November 8, 2022—officially released January 31, 2023

The plaintiffs sought to recover damages from the defendants for, inter alia, breach of fiduciary duty in connection with the defendant B's alleged tortious interference with the business expectancies of the plaintiff companies, T Co. and H Co. The decedent, T, founded the plaintiff companies and, following T's death, R was elected as their sole director. While employed by the plaintiff companies, B established the defendant companies, W Co. and D Co., to engage in the same business as the plaintiff companies. B covertly removed equipment and records from the plaintiff companies' place of business and, subsequently, R termi- nated B's employment. Before trial, the court granted the plaintiffs' application for temporary ex parte relief, ordering, inter alia, that the defendants were enjoined from transferring the defendant companies' assets. The court also granted the plaintiffs' motion for a temporary receiver to monitor the defendants' compliance with the terms of the temporary injunction. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiffs against B as to certain counts of the complaint. The remaining counts were tried to the court, which determined that the plaintiffs had not established a prima facie case for a claim under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act (CUTPA) (§ 42-110a et seq.) against the defendant companies. The court, in a supplemental memorandum of decision, concluded that B had violated CUTPA and that the plaintiffs were entitled to punitive damages. The court thereafter awarded punitive damages against B in the form of attorney's fees and costs. The plaintiffs filed an application for a financial institution execution directed to B. B filed a motion to vacate the execution and a judgment lien encumbering his real property, arguing that the court had not rendered a final judgment because the temporary injunction and temporary receivership had not been made permanent or further modified, and because there had been no ''formal entry of judgment.'' The court denied B's motion, concluding that it rendered a final judgment when it awarded punitive damages and that the defendants failed to appeal within the ensuing twenty day appeal period. The court also granted the plaintiffs' application for a turnover and charging order. On the defendants' appeal to this court, held: 1. D Co. was not aggrieved by the trial court's denial of B's motion to vacate or by the court's turnover and charging order and, accordingly, this court dismissed the portion of the appeal filed by D Co.; D Co. did not have a specific personal and legal interest that had been specially and injuriously affected by the judgment from which the defendants appealed, as the execution and the judgment lien affected only B's property interests and the turnover and charging order imposed obliga- tions only on B and W Co. 2. The trial court correctly concluded that it had rendered a final judgment that gave rise to the postjudgment enforcement remedies pursued by the plaintiffs: the court rendered a final judgment when it determined the amount of the punitive damages awarded to the plaintiffs with respect to their CUTPA claim against B because, at that juncture, all of their claims had been resolved, no appeal had been filed on or before the expiration of the appeal period and, accordingly, the plaintiffs were authorized to seek postjudgment enforcement remedies in the form of the execution, the judgment lien, and the turnover and charging order, all of which originated following the expiration of the appeal period and the automatic appellate stay of execution; moreover, contrary to the claim of B and W Co., no legal authority mandates that, as a prerequi- site for the rendering of a final judgment in a civil case, a trial court must issue a ''formal written and signed judgment.'' 3. The trial court properly ordered injunctive relief and continued a receiver- ship as part of its turnover and charging order: a. B and W Co. could not prevail on their claim that the turnover and charging order improperly subjected them to injunctive relief; B and W Co. conflated the plaintiffs' prejudgment requests for injunctive relief with their postjudgment request for temporary injunctive relief in connec- tion with their application for a turnover and charging order, and the court did not abuse its discretion in temporarily enjoining B and W Co. from taking certain actions relating to W Co.'s operations pending B's turnover of his interest in W Co. to the plaintiffs or the satisfaction of the judgment debt. b. B and W Co.'s claim that the turnover and charging order improperly continued the receivership pending B's turnover of his interest in W Co. to the plaintiffs or the satisfaction of the judgment debt was unavailing because an application for a receiver is a civil action sounding in equity and, thus, the court did not require express statutory authorization to continue the receivership temporarily. Argued November 15, 2022—officially released February 14, 2023

The plaintiff landlord sought to recover damages from the defendant city for the defendant's alleged breach of a tax abatement agreement in regard to certain residential properties the plaintiff owned in Hartford. The agreement provided that the plaintiff agreed to maintain and rent a specified number of dwelling units at the properties for low and moderate income persons or families in order to receive a certain tax abatement. In response to complaints about a variety of deteriorating and hazardous living conditions at the properties, the defendant's hous- ing code inspector, K, conducted several inspections of the dwelling units and discovered numerous housing code violations. K gave the plaintiff notice of the violations and specified a date by which the plaintiff needed to correct them. A few months later, K conducted additional inspections, revealing nearly identical violations as those found pre- viously. K again sent violation notices to the plaintiff, specifying when the violations had to be corrected. Following the second round of inspec- tions, the defendant's tax abatement committee held a meeting, at which it unanimously voted to terminate the agreement. In accordance with the agreement, the committee issued a termination letter to the plaintiff, stating that, if the alleged code violations were not cured within ninety days, the agreement would be terminated. The defendant took the posi- tion that after the ninety day period passed without correction of the code violations, the agreement automatically terminated. Several months later, the plaintiff sold the properties, and, as part of the closing, was required to pay the defendant a certain amount of real property taxes. If the agreement had not been terminated, the plaintiff would have had to pay abated taxes in a lesser amount. The plaintiff thereafter sought to collect the amount of the property taxes it claimed to have overpaid due to the allegedly improper termination of the agreement. Following a trial to the court, the trial court found for the defendant on the plaintiff's claims, and the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. Contrary to the plaintiff's claim, the trial court properly read into the agreement certain provisions of the General Statutes (§§ 47a-1 and 47a- 7) and the Hartford municipal code (§ 18-2) regarding maintenance obli- gations in effect at the time of the agreement's formation: this court concurred with the trial court's determination that the agreement was unambiguous and that the plaintiff had a contractual duty to ''maintain'' the properties, which encompassed the obligation to provide repair and general upkeep to the dwelling units, it was undisputed that these statutory and code provisions were in effect at the time the agreement was formed, they plainly addressed the same subject matter, namely, a landlord's duty to maintain residential rental properties, and, because the obligation to maintain the properties already existed in the express terms of the agreement, importing the statutory and code provisions served only to define the scope of that obligation and did not create a new substantive duty; moreover, the plaintiff's interpretation that the term ''maintain'' referred only to the continued use of the properties for the purpose of low and moderate income housing, regardless of the condition of such dwelling units, suggested that maintaining the properties allowed the plaintiff to provide housing that did not meet minimum standards of habitability, a suggestion that was patently unrea- sonable; furthermore, in order to construe the agreement as the plaintiff suggested, there would had to have been an express provision in the agreement to the contrary to relieve the plaintiff of the duties contained in the existing statutory and code provisions, which there was not. 2. This court concluded that, because the trial court properly read the statutory and municipal code provisions into the agreement and the plaintiff cited no additional authority and made no additional argument that the court's factual findings were clearly erroneous, the plaintiff's claims that the court incorrectly found that the defendant had the con- tractual right to terminate the agreement based on violations of §§ 47a- 1 and 47a-7 and § 18-2 of the code, and that the plaintiff failed to prove that the defendant breached the agreement, necessarily failed. Argued October 17, 2022—officially released February 14, 2023

The plaintiff technology services provider sought to recover damages from the defendant for, inter alia, breach of contract on the basis of the defendant's alleged failure to pay amounts owed under two agreements, a managed technologies service agreement and a disaster recovery ser- vices agreement. The evidence submitted at trial included exhibit 5, a billing statement from the plaintiff to the defendant representing invoices generated by the plaintiff and payments made by the defendant, and exhibit 13, an accounts receivable from the plaintiff showing amounts unpaid by the defendant. The trial court rendered judgment for the defendant based on its findings that the defendant paid in full the amounts due to the plaintiff under the terms of the agreements. On appeal to this court, the plaintiff argued that the court erred in finding that the defendant had paid in full the amounts owed on both agreements and that the term of the disaster recovery services agreement had been one year rather than three years. Held: 1. The trial court's finding that the defendant tendered payments in full under the terms of the managed technologies service agreement was clearly erroneous: although the court cited to exhibits 5 and 13 in support of its finding, this court found that those exhibits demonstrated that the defendant failed to make payments through the end of the agreement, and no other evidence in the record supported the trial court's finding; moreover, a witness for the defendant testified that the defendant stopped paying the plaintiff under the agreement, and the court's conclu- sion that the defendant did not untimely terminate the agreement was predicated on its clearly erroneous finding that the defendant tendered payment in full under the agreement; accordingly, because this court concluded that the trial court's error was harmful, the plaintiff was entitled to a new trial on the count of the complaint alleging breach of this agreement. 2. The trial court's finding that the term of the disaster recovery services agreement was one year was clearly erroneous: record evidence, includ- ing written information on the agreement itself as well as testimony from the plaintiff's president and chief executive officer, supported the plaintiff's contention that the term of the agreement was three years, and no evidence supported the court's finding that the term was one year; moreover, evidence in the record, including exhibits 5 and 13, revealed that the defendant did not tender payments in full on the agreement during the three years following its effective date; accord- ingly, because the trial court's clearly erroneous findings undermined this court's confidence in the court's fact-finding process, the plaintiff was entitled to a new trial on the count of the complaint alleging breach of this agreement. Argued November 7, 2022—officially released February 14, 2023

The plaintiff appealed to this court from the judgment of the trial court dissolving his marriage to the defendant and making certain financial orders. Following a trial, the court ordered the plaintiff to pay the defendant a certain amount per month in alimony for ten years. In a subsequent articulation, the court clarified that, in determining the amount and sources of the plaintiff's income, it took into account funds received by the plaintiff as temporary unemployment assistance due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Held that the trial court abused its discretion in making an excessive award of alimony and the case was remanded for a new trial on all financial orders: the trial court improperly included the plaintiff's temporary pandemic unemployment assistance benefits in its calculation of his income because those benefits did not occur with enough regularity due to their temporary nature and, thus, could not form the basis for determining the amount of income available for support purposes for the court's ten year alimony award; moreover, when this court subtracted the plaintiff's temporary pandemic unemploy- ment assistance benefits from the court's calculation of the plaintiff's income, the alimony order would have consumed most of the plaintiff's income, which was contrary to the long settled principle that the plain- tiff's ability to pay is a material consideration in formulating financial awards, and both common knowledge at the time of the court's 2021 decision, as well as common sense, indicated that the plaintiff would stop receiving temporary pandemic unemployment assistance benefits soon after the court's order of a ten year alimony award. Argued October 17, 2022—officially released February 21, 2023

The petitioner, who had been convicted, on a plea of guilty, of the crime of murder, sought a writ of habeas corpus, alleging ineffective assistance of his trial counsel. As a result of a head injury the petitioner sustained during the commission of the underlying offense, as well as his claims of amnesia both before and after the incident, the petitioner's trial counsel requested that he be evaluated for competency to stand trial. Following a competency evaluation and hearing, the trial court found the petitioner competent to stand trial. Subsequently, the petitioner pleaded guilty pursuant to Alford v. North Carolina (400 U.S. 25), and was sentenced in accordance with the plea agreement. In his habeas action, the petitioner alleged that his trial counsel's representation of him was constitutionally deficient in that counsel failed to advise him not to plead guilty and that his guilty plea was not made voluntarily. The habeas court denied the petition, and, on the granting of certification to appeal, the petitioner appealed to this court. Held that the habeas court properly denied the petition for a writ of habeas corpus, the petitioner having failed to demonstrate that, but for his trial counsel's conduct, he would not have pleaded guilty, thereby failing to prove that he suffered prejudice under Strickland v. Washington (466 U.S. 668): the habeas court's findings were supported by the evidence in the record, and this court was not left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake had been committed, as, at the habeas trial, the petitioner testified that he did not want to put his wife and children through a trial because he believed his wife would have had to testify about weap- ons and illegal drugs in their home, his wife would go to jail as a result, and that his children would end up in the foster care system; moreover, the habeas court found that no credible evidence supported the petition- er's bare assertion at the habeas trial that, had he been properly advised, he would have insisted on entering a conditional plea of nolo contendere in order to preserve an appeal of the trial court's competency determina- tion, the habeas court having found the petitioner's testimony in that regard not to be credible, and, as it was the habeas court's function to weigh the evidence and determine credibility, this court gave great deference to its findings. Argued October 12, 2022—officially released February 21, 2023