************************************************
The “officially released” date that appears near the
beginning of an opinion is the date the opinion will be
published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it
is released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the
beginning of all time periods for the filing of postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion.
All opinions are subject to modification and technical
correction prior to official publication in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut
Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event
of discrepancies between the advance release version of
an opinion and the version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut
Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest
version is to be considered authoritative.
The syllabus and procedural history accompanying
an opinion that appear in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or
Connecticut Appellate Reports are copyrighted by the
Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may
not be reproduced or distributed without the express
written permission of the Commission on Official Legal
Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut.
************************************************
Page 0 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL 0, 0
2 ,0 0 Conn. App. 1
Shear v. Shear
DANIEL SHEAR v. YUPAPORN SHEAR
(AC 47263)
Alvord, Elgo and Keller, Js.
Syllabus
The plaintiff, whose marriage to the defendant previously had been dissolved, appealed from the trial court’s judgment granting the defendant’s
motion for modification of custody and awarding the parties’ joint legal
custody of their minor child and the defendant primary physical custody
of the child. The plaintiff challenged, inter alia, the propriety of the court’s
custody order. Held:
This court dismissed the appeal as moot, as there was no practical relief
this court could afford the plaintiff because, during the pendency of the
appeal, the challenged custody order had been superseded by a subsequent
court order addressing the custody of the parties’ child.
Argued September 3—officially released October 14, 2025
Procedural History
Action for the dissolution of a marriage, and for other
relief, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of Hartford, where the court, Carbonneau, J., rendered judgment dissolving the marriage and granting
certain other relief in accordance with the parties’ separation agreement; thereafter, the court, Nastri, J.,
granted the defendant’s motion for modification of custody, denied the plaintiff’s motion to vacate and issued
certain orders, and the plaintiff appealed to this court;
subsequently, the court denied the plaintiff’s motion
for reconsideration, and the plaintiff filed an amended
appeal. Appeal dismissed.
Daniel Shear, self-represented, the appellant (plaintiff).
Yupaporn Noipeng, self-represented, the appellee
(defendant).
0, 0 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL Page 1
0 Conn. App. 1 ,0 3
Shear v. Shear
Opinion
PER CURIAM. In this postjudgment dissolution matter, the self-represented plaintiff, Daniel Shear, appeals
from the judgment of the trial court resolving several
motions filed by the plaintiff and the self-represented
defendant, Yupaporn Shear.1 The plaintiff sets forth a
myriad of claims in support of his efforts to reverse the
judgment of the court as to custody of the parties’ minor
child. We dismiss the plaintiff’s appeal.2
The following facts and procedural history are relevant to our resolution of this appeal. The parties’ marriage was dissolved in 2012, and the court, Carbonneau,
J., incorporated the terms of the parties’ written separation agreement into the judgment. That agreement provided that the parties would have joint custody of their
child, with her primary residence with the defendant.
Following the dissolution of their marriage, the parties
engaged in extensive litigation. The parenting plan,
however, remained in place until August, 2022, with the
exception of an agreement, approved in May, 2015, that
the defendant would have final decision-making authority as to the child’s medical and dental issues and extracurricular activities. On August 16, 2022, following a
hearing on the plaintiff’s application for an emergency
ex parte order of custody, which alleged that the plaintiff had not had physical contact or telephone calls with
the child in more than eight months, the court issued
an order awarding the plaintiff sole legal and physical
1
The trial court noted that the defendant is now known as Yupaporn
Noipeng.
2
Because we dismiss the appeal as moot, we need not discuss at length
the other impediments to review of the plaintiff’s twelve issues identified
preliminarily in his appellate briefing. We briefly note, however, that the
bulk of the plaintiff’s claims are inadequately briefed and unpreserved.
Additionally, the plaintiff provided this court with only partial transcripts,
which would have rendered the record inadequate to review many of the
plaintiff’s claims. See Practice Book § 61-10 (it is responsibility of appellant
to provide adequate record for review).
Page 2 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL 0, 0
4 ,0 0 Conn. App. 1
Shear v. Shear
custody of the child. On January 27, 2023, the parties
agreed to a parenting time schedule pursuant to which
the defendant would have unsupervised parenting time
with the child of short duration, gradually increasing
to unsupervised parenting time every other weekend
(January, 2023 agreement). On February 10, 2023, the
defendant filed a motion for modification, seeking joint
custody and primary physical custody of the child. On
February 14, 2023, the defendant filed an amended
motion to vacate and stay the August 16, 2022 order
awarding the plaintiff sole legal and physical custody
of the child. On March 24, 2023, the plaintiff filed a
motion to vacate the January, 2023 agreement, alleging
that he would not have entered into it had he known
that the defendant would continue to pursue her motion
to vacate the order providing him sole custody.
The court, Nastri, J., held a hearing over the course
of five dates. In its January, 2024 memorandum of decision, the court described the proceedings as follows:
‘‘Both parties testified. In addition, the court heard testimony from Keona Leary, the minor child’s former therapist at the Klingberg Family Centers; Lindsey Miller, a
therapy supervisor at the Klingberg Family Centers;
Sossi Derrien, the minor child’s former, occasional caregiver; Kathleen McDaniel, [the defendant’s] friend; and
[the guardian ad litem, Attorney Robert] McLaughlin.’’
(Footnotes omitted.) The court made findings with
respect to each of the parties and the child, concluded
that it was in the child’s best interest to reside primarily
with the defendant, and, among other orders, awarded
the parties joint custody of the child and set forth a
parenting time schedule. This appeal followed. The
plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration, which was
denied. The plaintiff thereafter amended his appeal.
We conclude that the plaintiff’s appeal challenging
the court’s January, 2024 custody order is moot. ‘‘Mootness implicates [the] court’s subject matter jurisdiction
0, 0 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL Page 3
0 Conn. App. 1 ,0 5
Shear v. Shear
and is thus a threshold matter for us to resolve. . . .
It is a well-settled general rule that the existence of an
actual controversy is an essential requisite to appellate
jurisdiction; it is not the province of appellate courts
to decide moot questions, disconnected from the granting of actual relief or from the determination of which
no practical relief can follow. . . . An actual controversy must exist not only at the time the appeal is taken,
but also throughout the pendency of the appeal. . . .
When, during the pendency of an appeal, events have
occurred that preclude an appellate court from granting
any practical relief through its disposition of the merits,
a case has become moot.’’ (Internal quotation marks
omitted.) Christensen v. Christensen, 232 Conn. App.
299, 302–303,
335 A.3d 89 (2025).
In the present case, following the filing of this appeal,
in April, 2024, the plaintiff filed a motion for modification of custody. In May, 2024, the plaintiff filed an application for an emergency ex parte order of custody,
which was denied. After a hearing, on June 4, 2024,
the court, Alfano, J., denied the plaintiff’s motion for
modification, finding that ‘‘there has been no material
change in circumstances since the court issued its
orders on January 3, 2024. Moreover, based upon the
testimony of the parties and the guardian ad litem, the
court cannot find that it is in the best interest of the
child to modify the court’s current orders.’’
The court’s June, 2024 order addresses custody of
the parties’ child, the same issue that was decided by
the court, Nastri, J., in its January, 2024 memorandum
of decision. Consequently, the January, 2024 custody
order has been superseded. Thus, we conclude that
there is no practical relief that this court can afford the
plaintiff with respect to his numerous challenges to the
court’s January, 2024 custody order, and this appeal is
Page 4 CONNECTICUT LAW JOURNAL 0, 0
6 ,0 0 Conn. App. 1
Shear v. Shear
moot. See, e.g., J. Y. v. M. R., 215 Conn. App. 648, 662,
3
283 A.3d 520 (2022) (challenge to interim custody and
visitation orders was moot in light of subsequent orders
in which court ‘‘reiterat[ed]’’ orders or left them ‘‘largely
unchanged,’’ and proper recourse was to challenge later
orders (internal quotation marks omitted)); Santos v.
Morrissey, 127 Conn. App. 602, 605,
14 A.3d 1064 (2011)
(appeal challenging earlier ruling on custody was moot
in light of subsequent order addressing same issues).
The appeal is dismissed.
3
In this appeal, the plaintiff also raises a claim with respect to three
motions for contempt that he filed. The plaintiff’s January, 2022 motion
alleged, inter alia, that the defendant had picked the child up from school
on a date that the plaintiff was to have parenting time in January, 2022. The
plaintiff’s February, 2022 motion alleged seventy instances in which the
defendant allegedly had violated court orders between 2019 and February,
2022, primarily involving claims of missed visitation and good night phone
calls. The third motion was filed during the final day of the hearing, December
15, 2023, and alleged that the defendant did not comply with court-ordered
visitation on fifty-nine dates in 2022.
The plaintiff contends in this appeal that the court improperly failed to
address his three motions for contempt in its January, 2024 memorandum
of decision and directs this court’s attention to a brief remark made by the
trial court that it would ‘‘rule on the contempts.’’ However, it is clear upon
a careful review of the court file that the three motions for contempt were
historical, in that all allegations of contempt predate the court’s August,
2022 order, in which the plaintiff obtained relief in the form of the court’s
awarding him sole legal and physical custody of the child. Thus, we are not
convinced that the trial court acted improperly in not adjudicating the alleged
violations of orders with respect to visitation and good night phone calls,
which alleged violations that occurred prior to the court’s awarding the
plaintiff sole custody of the child in August, 2022, and the parties’ subsequent
January, 2023 agreement.
Moreover, we note that the plaintiff’s primary contention with respect to
the motions for contempt is that the motions should have been adjudicated
before the court issued its January, 2024 custody order because otherwise
it ‘‘violates the standard of taking into account each party’s willingness to
follow the court’s orders when deciding custody.’’ To the extent that the
plaintiff’s argument ultimately seeks to attack the court’s January, 2024
custody order, that argument is moot for the reasons expressed in this
opinion. See Christensen v. Christensen, supra, 232 Conn. App. 303–304.
