Volume 340 — Connecticut Reports

15 The plaintiff, an employee of the defendant city, sought to resolve a dispute 16 concerning a lien the city placed on certain settlement proceeds that 17 he had received as a result of a motor vehicle accident that occurred 18 in 2016. At all relevant times, the city was self-insured and paid for the 19 medical care that the plaintiff received in connection with the accident. 20 In July, 2017, the legislature passed an amendment (P.A. 17-165, § 1) to 21 a statute (§ 7-464) concerning group insurance benefits for municipal 22 employees that allowed a self-insured city that provides health benefits 23 for its employees to file a lien on the portion of any settlement proceeds 24 that represents payment for medical expenses incurred by a city 25 employee when such expenses result from the negligence or reckless- 26 ness of a third party. Later in July, 2017, the plaintiff filed an action 27 against the third-party tortfeasor who had caused the plaintiff to sustain 28 injuries in the accident. Thereafter, on October 1, 2017, P.A. 17-165, § 1, 29 became effective. In October, 2018, the city filed a notice of lien, claiming 30 a right to reimbursement for amounts that it had paid for the plaintiff's 31 medical expenses from any judgment or settlement the plaintiff might 32 receive arising from the accident. Approximately one week later, the 33 plaintiff settled his civil action against the third-party tortfeasor. The 34 plaintiff then brought the present action, claiming that P.A. 17-165, § 1, 35 did not authorize the lien filed by the city because the plaintiff's injuries 36 occurred and his action against the third-party tortfeasor was com- 37 menced before the effective date of P.A. 17-165, § 1. The trial court 38 granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment and rendered judg- 39 ment thereon, concluding, inter alia, that the legislature did not expressly 40 indicate that it intended for P.A. 17-165, § 1, to apply retroactively to 41 pending actions and, therefore, that the statute (§ 55-3) precluding a 42 new law that imposes any new obligation from being construed to have 43 retroactive effect barred the city's lien. On the city's appeal from the 44 trial court's judgment, held that the trial court properly granted the 45 plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, as that court correctly deter- 46 mined that the city's lien stemmed from an improper, retroactive applica- 47 tion of P.A. 17-165, § 1: the legislature did not explicitly provide that 48 P.A. 17-165, § 1, should apply retroactively, and, because that public act 49 created a new right for a self-insured municipality to assert a lien to 50 recover medical expenses that it has paid and eliminated the right of a 51 municipal employee to retain sums that he or she recovers from a third- 52 party tortfeasor if those sums represent medical expenses paid by the 53 municipality, P.A. 17-165, § 1, was substantive, and, pursuant to § 55-3, 54 could operate prospectively only; moreover, there was no merit to the 55 city's claim that allowing it to place a lien on the plaintiff's settlement 56 proceeds would not effect a retroactive application of P.A. 17-165, § 1, 57 in view of the fact that the plaintiff settled his action against the third- 58 party tortfeasor after the effective date of that public act, as the settle- 59 ment was not independent of the motor vehicle accident that ultimately 60 led to the settlement and that occurred prior to the public act's effec- 61 62 tive date. 63 64 Argued December 8, 2020—officially released August 3, 2021 65 67 66

Pursuant to this court's decision in State v. Curcio (191 Conn. 27), certain interlocutory orders and rulings of a trial or habeas court may be appeal- able when the order or ruling terminates a separate and distinct proceed- ing or when the order or ruling so concludes the rights of the parties that further proceedings cannot affect them. The petitioner, who had been convicted, on a guilty plea, of murder and tampering with physical evidence, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claim- ing that his plea agreement was the result of the ineffective assistance of trial counsel. The respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, subse- quently filed a motion for the production of relevant materials from the petitioner's underlying criminal defense and investigative files. The habeas court rejected the petitioner's claim that those materials were protected by the attorney-client privilege, granted the respondent's motion, and ordered the petitioner to produce from the criminal defense file copies of any materials related to his ineffective assistance claim, as well as a privilege log identifying any undisclosed materials the petitioner contended were unrelated to that claim. The habeas court denied the petitioner's petition for certification to appeal, and the petitioner appealed to the Appellate Court, which granted the respondent's motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of a final judgment. On the granting of certification, the petitioner appealed to this court, claiming that the Appellate Court improperly dismissed his appeal for lack of a final judgment and claiming, alternatively, that this court should reach the merits of his privilege claims pursuant to the statute (§ 52-265a) allowing direct appeals from interlocutory orders in matters involving a substan- tial public interest. Held: 1. The Appellate Court properly dismissed the petitioner's appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, as the habeas court's discovery order was not an appealable final judgment under either prong of Curcio: an interlocutory discovery order terminates a separate or distinct proceed- ing under the first prong of Curcio only if the lower court has issued a clear and unequivocal order that is sufficiently definite, specific, and comprehensive concerning a discovery request served on a nonparty for information that is not required to resolve the underlying issue in the case, and, because the petitioner was a party to the habeas proceed- ings, the discovery order did not terminate a separate and distinct pro- ceeding concerning his property interest in his criminal defense file; moreover, the second prong of Curcio was not satisfied because the right that the petitioner sought to vindicate, namely, the right to confiden- tiality in his criminal defense file, could still be affected by further proceedings insofar as the habeas court would conduct, in response to the privilege log that it ordered the petitioner to produce, an in camera review of the petitioner's individual claims of privilege as to specific items within the file. 2. This court declined the petitioner's request to reach the merits of his privilege claims by treating his appeal as a direct appeal from an interloc- utory order on certification by the Chief Justice pursuant to § 52-265a, as the present case did not present a matter of substantial public interest or urgency. Argued February 17—officially released August 5, 2021

Convicted of sexual assault in the first degree in connection with the sexual abuse of M, the stepsister of the defendant's girlfriend, S, the defendant appealed. At trial, M testified that the defendant had sexually assaulted her on four occasions, the first three of which occurred when M was a minor and the defendant was in his twenties. The fourth incident, which led to the defendant's conviction, occurred when M was eighteen years old. With respect to the latter incident, M testified that she was home alone when the defendant knocked on the door and that, after she asked him to leave, the defendant entered the home, grabbed her arm, pushed her toward the living room couch, and sexually assaulted her. M further testified that, after the defendant was startled by an outside noise, he went into the kitchen, where he ejaculated into a paper towel that he threw into a garbage can. At trial, the defendant denied that he ever sexually assaulted M, but he admitted to having consensual sex with her during that incident. He also denied that he ejaculated into a paper towel and threw it in the garbage. N, a forensic biologist, testified at trial regarding tests she conducted on the paper towel, which M had provided to the police shortly after the incident. N testified that those tests revealed the presence of semen but were negative for spermatozoa. P, a forensic science examiner, testified that tests she performed on the paper towel revealed the presence of the defendant's skin cells but were inconclusive as to whether his sperm cells were also present. Neither N nor P could indicate how the various substances came to be on the towel. During closing arguments, defense counsel focused on attacking M's credibility and exposing her motive to falsely accuse the defendant. Specifically, defense counsel attempted to present the defen- dant's theory of the case that M had planted evidence by wiping herself with the paper towel after engaging in a consensual sexual encounter with the defendant and then presenting that paper towel to the police. The trial court nevertheless sustained the prosecutor's objection and precluded defense counsel from making that argument, concluding that it was not supported by any evidence in the record. On appeal, the defendant contended, inter alia, that the trial court had violated his constitutional right to the assistance of counsel by precluding defense counsel from arguing to the jury that M had planted physical evidence on the paper towel in an effort to falsely accuse the defendant. Held: 1. The trial court improperly precluded defense counsel from arguing to the jury during closing argument that M had planted physical evidence on the paper towel in an effort to substantiate her false allegations against the defendant, in violation of the defendant's constitutional right to the assistance of counsel, and, accordingly, this court reversed the judgment of conviction and remanded the case for a new trial: a. The trial court improperly restricted the scope of defense counsel's closing argument by barring him from presenting the defendant's theory of the case, as there was sufficient evidence in the record from which the jury reasonably could have inferred that M planted the evidence on the paper towel to substantiate her false allegations against the defendant: defense counsel relied on reasonable inferences from the facts in evi- dence, including the conflicting testimony of M and the defendant regard- ing the incident and whether the defendant ejaculated into the paper towel, testimony that it was M who provided the paper towel to the police, the testimony of N and P regarding their findings, and the testimony of one of M's stepsisters that M had a history of making false claims; moreover, the evidence presented at trial, namely, that M had a tumultu- ous relationship with her family, that she had a history of making false claims, and that she had been engaged in a consensual romantic relation- ship with the defendant, who married S only months after the incident in question, provided a basis for the jury to reasonably infer that M had a motive for planting evidence of the defendant's DNA on the paper towel. b. The trial court's improper limitation on the scope of defense counsel's closing argument deprived the defendant of his constitutional right to the assistance of counsel, and, accordingly, the defendant was entitled to a new trial; M's testimony was the only source of evidence from which the jury reasonably could have concluded that the sexual encounter with the defendant was not consensual, the only argument presented by defense counsel to establish reasonable doubt as to the defendant's guilt concerned M's credibility, and, because the evidence regarding the paper towel provided the strongest evidence, from the defendant's perspective, that M lied about the incident, depriving defense counsel of the opportu- nity to make that argument was to deprive the defendant of the full and fair participation of his counsel in the adversary process. 2. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction of sexual assault in the first degree on the ground that the state failed to prove that he used force or the threat of force; M's testimony with respect to the alleged sexual assault, including that the defendant grabbed her arm, pushed her toward the couch, removed her underwear, and inserted his penis inside of her as she tried to push him off and protested, was sufficient to establish the force element required for a conviction of first degree sexual assault. 3. This court declined to address the defendant's claim that the trial court had abused its discretion in admitting the testimony of an expert in the field of child and adolescent sexual abuse, insofar as the expert's expertise was in child sexual abuse and M was eighteen years old when the incident at issue occurred; although it was possible that the defendant's claim would arise during the defendant's new trial if the prosecutor elected to call the same expert, the trial court may further evaluate the issue on remand, as the prosecutor may call that expert and probe her experience in working with eighteen year olds or may call a different expert, in which case the record would look different from the one presently before this court. Argued May 6—officially released August 6, 2021

Pursuant to statute (§ 12-163a (a)), a municipality may request that the Superior Court appoint a receiver of rents or use and occupancy pay- ments for any property for which the owner is delinquent in the payment of real property taxes, and the ''receiver appointed by the court shall collect all rents or payments for use and occupancy forthcoming from the occupants of the [property] in question in place of the owner . . . .'' The plaintiff, which had been appointed, pursuant to § 12-163a (a), to serve as the receiver of rents for certain real property owned by C Co., sought to recover unpaid rent and use and occupancy fees from the defendants, M Co. and V Co., which have operated an automobile dealership on that property since 2001 without paying rent. C Co. leased the property to M Co. for a three year term, and M Co. thereafter exercised its option to renew the lease for another three year term, which expired in 2001. V Co., which is owned by M Co., subleased the property from M Co. pursuant to an agreement that incorporated the terms and rent obliga- tions of the lease. Shortly before the lease expired, C Co. effectively abandoned the property, which was allegedly contaminated and the subject of an ongoing enforcement action by the Department of Environ- mental Protection. The defendants thereafter continued to operate the dealership on the property, but, since 2001, they have failed to pay rent or to make use and occupancy payments to C Co., or to pay property taxes to the town in which the property is located. The parties filed separate motions for summary judgment. The defendants claimed that a receiver of rents appointed under § 12-163a has no authority to seek rent or use and occupancy payments with respect to an abandoned property, whereas the plaintiff claimed that it was entitled to seek rent and use and occupancy payments because, even though the lease with C Co. had expired, the defendants remained in possession as tenants, either at will or at sufferance. The trial court denied the plaintiff's motion and granted the defendants' motion, concluding that C Co., by abandoning the property and failing to pursue any of its rights against the defendants, had allowed the defendants to occupy the property without a rental obligation and that there was no rent for the plaintiff receiver to collect. On the plaintiff's appeal, held that the trial court correctly concluded that § 12-163a did not authorize the plaintiff to collect rent or use and occupancy payments from the defendants, as the remedy provided by that statute does not extend to situations in which a tax delinquent property owner is absent and not pursuing such rent or payments from the occupant, and, accordingly, the trial court properly granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment: because the language in § 12-163 (a) was ambiguous as to whether a receiver is limited to collecting rent or use and occupancy payments that are the product of an existing landlord-tenant relationship or whether a receiver has the authority to establish those payments in the first instance, this court considered extratextual sources, including case law interpreting the statute, and concluded that, under the circumstances of the present case, the narrow authority conferred on the receiver by § 12-163a did not permit the plaintiff to establish rent or use and occupancy payments in the first instance; moreover, that conclusion was supported by the legislative history, which indicated that the statute was viewed as a remedy that would avert the abandonment of properties, rather than being intended to apply to abandoned property or to authorize receivers to impose rent or use and occupancy payments in the place of a property owner who has abandoned the property; furthermore, the legislature, as the governmental body primarily responsible for formulating public policy, was best situated to address the unusual circumstances presented in this case, in which the town in which C Co.'s property was located sought to recoup unpaid property taxes on an abandoned property utilized by an apparently successful commercial enterprise. Argued November 23, 2020—officially released August 13, 2021

Convicted of criminal possession of a pistol or revolver and criminal trespass in the third degree, the defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, claiming, inter alia, that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction of criminal possession of a pistol or revolver. Police officers had been patrolling a housing complex when they entered a courtyard and saw six individuals, including the defendant. While two officers spoke with the defendant and three others, S, J and E, who were seated at a picnic table near a corner formed by cement walls, a third officer, L, stepped onto the wall behind the defendant and immediately saw in plain view a gun lying in the corner by some bushes. S and J were closest to the gun, and the defendant was approximately four to five feet away from it. A few days later, the defendant, S, J and E each voluntarily provided the police with a DNA sample, and, thereafter, the police used swabs to collect DNA from the gun and ammunition that was removed from the gun. The swabs and the DNA samples were delivered to the state forensics laboratory, where R, a forensic science examiner, generated a partial DNA profile from a small, partially degraded touch DNA sample extracted from the swabs and compared it with the DNA samples provided by the defendant, S, J and E. R's analysis produced scientifically viable and accurate results that elimi- nated S, J and E as possible contributors to the DNA profile but could not eliminate the defendant as a contributor. On appeal to the Appellate Court, the defendant specifically contended that there was insufficient evidence of his knowledge of the gun and no evidence to prove his dominion or control over it. The Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of conviction, concluding, inter alia, that there was sufficient circumstan- tial evidence from which the jury reasonably could have inferred that the defendant was in possession of the gun when he entered the court- yard, that he put it near the bushes when the police arrived so that it would not be found on his person, and that he intended to retrieve it when the police left the courtyard. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held that the Appellate Court incorrectly concluded that the state had adduced sufficient evidence at trial to support the defendant's conviction of criminal possession of a pistol or revolver: the fact that the gun was in plain view and appeared to have been placed there just before the police arrived did not support a reasonable inference that the defendant placed it there or had knowl- edge of it and the intent to exercise dominion or control over it, it was not reasonable to infer from the evidence that it was the defendant rather than one of the other individuals seated at the picnic table who, when alerted to the presence of the police, stashed the gun nearby to avoid being found with it, and mere proximity to contraband, in the absence of other incriminating conduct, statements, or circumstances, is insufficient to support a finding of constructive possession, and it was undisputed that the defendant did not display any incriminating conduct; moreover, the DNA evidence presented by the state, standing alone or in combination with other evidence, was insufficient to support the defendant's conviction insofar as there were too many unknowns for the jury to have found beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant had even touched the gun, much less that he was aware of its presence near where he was seated or that he intended to exercise dominion or control over it, R having indicated during her testimony that she was unable to determine how or when the defendant's DNA was deposited on the gun, that the DNA sample established that at least one other person's DNA was on the gun, that, although S, J and E had been excluded as contributors to the DNA sample, that did not mean that their DNA was not on the gun, but, rather, that it was not detected, that two individuals who were present in the courtyard were not DNA tested, and that she could not definitively say that the DNA profile found on the gun was that of the defendant, only that he could not be excluded as a contributor. (One justice dissenting) Argued February 17—officially released August 13, 2021

In State v. Purcell (331 Conn. 318), this court determined, as a matter of state constitutional law, that, if a suspect makes an equivocal statement that arguably could be construed as a request for counsel, interrogation must cease except for narrow questions designed to clarify the equivocal statement and the suspect's desire for counsel, or, alternatively, the officers conducting the interrogation may inform the suspect that they understand the suspect's statement to mean that he does not wish to speak with them without counsel and that they will terminate the interrogation, and, in either case, if the suspect thereafter clearly and unequivocally expresses a desire to continue without counsel present, the interrogation may resume. Convicted of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm, criminal posses- sion of a firearm, and carrying a pistol without a permit, among other crimes, the defendant appealed, claiming, inter alia, that certain state- ments he made during a custodial interrogation were improperly admit- ted into evidence because they were elicited by a detective, R, after he invoked his right to counsel, in violation of his state and federal constitutional rights. In response to a tip that that defendant was in possession of a firearm that had been used in a homicide earlier in the evening, the police stopped a vehicle in which the defendant and his girlfriend, T, were passengers. The driver consented to a search of the vehicle, and the police found a revolver in a box underneath the seat of the defendant, who was prohibited from possessing firearms or con- tacting T pursuant to a protective order. The police arrested the defen- dant and transported him to the police station, where R advised him of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436). Before signing a written waiver form, the defendant asked R why the form stated ''that I'm wavering . . . how I don't want the presence of an attorney or anything . . . .'' R explained that signing the form meant that the defen- dant agreed to speak to R but that he could stop answering questions whenever he wanted, and the defendant signed the form. Approximately three hours into the interview, during which the defendant denied pos- sessing the revolver or being involved in the shooting, the defendant asked R whether ''there [was] anybody I can talk to . . . [l]ike an attor- ney or something . . . .'' R responded that, if the defendant wanted an attorney, they would have to stop the interview. R also stated that, because attorneys ''have to make their money,'' an attorney would proba- bly prevent the defendant from speaking to R and giving his side of the story. R left the interview room for approximately twenty minutes to give the defendant time to consider. When R returned, the defendant inquired about T, who was being interviewed in another room, and R then resumed questioning the defendant. The defendant thereafter confessed to shooting the victim but claimed that he had acted in self- defense, and he signed a statement to that effect. At trial, the state sought to have the video recording of the interrogation and the defen- dant's written statement admitted into evidence, to which defense coun- sel replied he had no objection. The defendant subsequently testified that he had shot the victim but continued to maintain that he acted in self- defense. From the judgment of conviction, the defendant appealed. Held: 1. Defense counsel waived the defendant's unpreserved claim that his federal constitutional rights safeguarded by Miranda were violated by virtue of the admission of his written statement and the video recording of the interrogation, but did not waive the defendant's unpreserved claim under the state constitution: because the defendant's federal constitu- tional rights under Miranda and its progeny were well established at the time of his trial, defense counsel was presumed to have made a strategic decision when he waived the defendant's claim under the federal constitution by stating that he had no objection to the admission of the defendant's written statement and the video recording, and, accordingly, the defendant's claim under the federal constitution failed under the third prong of State v. Golding (213 Conn. 233), as this court was unable to conclude that the alleged constitutional violation existed and deprived the defendant of a fair trial; nevertheless, because the binding precedent in effect at the time of the defendant's trial required his invocation of the right to counsel to be clear and unequivocal, and because this court's decision in Purcell, which held for the first time that the Connecticut constitution (art. I, § 8) provides greater protection with respect to a criminal defendant's Miranda rights than the federal constitution, was not released until nearly six months after the jury returned its verdict in the defendant's case, this court could not presume that defense counsel knew that the state constitution would subse- quently be interpreted to provide an additional layer of prophylaxis, and defense counsel, therefore, did not make a knowing and intelligent waiver of the defendant's claim involving the state constitutional rule announced in Purcell. 2. The defendant's written statement and the latter portion of the video- recorded interview, after the defendant asked if there was ''an attorney or something'' he could speak to, should have been suppressed under article first, § 8, but the initial portion of the video recording, in which the defendant denied any involvement in the shooting, properly was admitted into evidence: a. With respect to the defendant's initial inquiry about why the waiver form stated that he was ''wavering,'' R sought clarification from the defendant, consistent with Purcell, and explained the meaning of the contents of the form before beginning the interview; accordingly, regard- less of whether that inquiry could arguably be construed as a request for counsel, the defendant's express waiver of his Miranda rights follow- ing R's explanation of the form's contents manifested the defendant's clear and unequivocal desire to proceed with the interview without counsel present. b. The defendant's question regarding whether ''there [was] anybody [he could] talk to . . . [l]ike an attorney'' was a conditional and equivocal inquiry that reasonably could be construed as a request for counsel, and R failed to stop the interview and to clarify whether the defendant desired the presence of counsel, in violation of the defendant's rights under article first, § 8: although R asked some questions to clarify the defen- dant's intent with respect to invoking his right to counsel, R went beyond the limited inquiry permissible after an equivocal request for counsel is made, as he plainly attempted to convince the defendant that it was against his interests not to continue the interview by stating that an attorney probably would not let him talk to R or tell his side of the story and by suggesting that an attorney's financial interest would induce the attorney to advise the defendant, contrary to the defendant's interests, to stop answering questions; moreover, after the twenty minute break, R did not limit his questions to narrow inquiries designed to clarify the defendant's desire for counsel but, rather, proceeded as if the equivocal request had never been made and simply resumed his questioning of the defendant, even though the defendant never clearly and unequivocally expressed a desire to continue without counsel present. 3. The state failed to satisfy its burden of establishing that the improper admission of the written statement and the inadmissible portion of the video-recorded interview, in which the defendant confessed to the shooting, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt with respect to the defendant's conviction of manslaughter in the first degree with a firearm, and, accordingly, this court reversed the defendant's manslaughter con- viction and remanded for a new trial on that charge: although the defen- dant testified at trial that he shot the victim, and that testimony was untainted by the state constitutional violation, the scope and content of the defendant's in-court testimony were not coextensive with his out- of-court statements, and the prosecutor relied substantially on the out- of-court statements, and discrepancies between them and the in-court testimony, to discredit the defendant's claim of self-defense, pointing to certain statements the defendant made to R to establish that he did not reasonably believe that the victim was using or about to use deadly physical force, or inflicting or about to inflict great bodily harm, and that he knew that he could avoid the use of deadly physical force with complete safety by retreating; moreover, the defendant's interview contained a significant amount of new material not heard from any other witness, and the prosecutor used that information in her closing and rebuttal arguments to urge the jury to find that the defendant had fabricated his self-defense claim in response to certain suggestions made by R and to highlight an instance in which the defendant berated himself and called himself a ''killer'' while alone in the interrogation room, which, according to the the prosecutor, reflected the defendant's con- sciousness of guilt and undermined his claim of self-defense; further- more, the prosecutor relied on the inadmissible out-of-court statements to undermine the defendant's credibility, emphasizing inconsistencies between those statements and his in-court testimony and urging the jury to find the defendant's testimony regarding justification unworthy of belief, and, because the defendant's credibility was critical to his self- defense claim in light of the absence of any eyewitness testimony or physical evidence to corroborate or contradict the defendant's account of the shooting, this court could not conclude that the defendant's in- court testimony obviated the harm caused by the improper admission of the inadmissible out-of-court statements; nevertheless, this court upheld the defendant's conviction of criminal possession of a firearm and carrying a pistol without a permit because the jury's verdict, as it related to those offenses, was not affected by the violation of the defen- dant's state constitutional rights, insofar as the inadmissible out-of-court statements were cumulative of the defendant's in-court testimony, in which he admitted to the essential elements of those offenses. Argued December 8, 2020—officially released August 18, 2021

The plaintiff, the owner of a hotel, sought to recover damages from the defendant municipal water authority for economic losses it incurred in connection with an explosion at the defendant's pumping station, which allegedly was caused by the defendant's negligence and resulted in an extended interruption of water service at the plaintiff's hotel and loss of revenue. The defendant moved for summary judgment, contending, inter alia, that the plaintiff's claim was barred by the economic loss doctrine. The trial court granted the defendant's motion for summary judgment and rendered judgment thereon, concluding that the defendant owed the plaintiff no legal duty of care. In reaching its decision, the court determined that, although the plaintiff's economic losses were reasonably foreseeable, imposing a duty on the defendant was inconsis- tent with public policy, as determined by the applicable four factor test first articulated in Jaworski v. Kiernan (241 Conn. 399), which requires a court to consider the normal expectations of the participants in the activity, the public policy of encouraging participation in the activity while weighing the safety of the participants, the avoidance of increased litigation, and the decisions of other jurisdictions. On the plaintiff's appeal from the judgment in favor of the defendant, held that the trial court correctly determined that the defendant owed the plaintiff no legal duty of care because, although it was reasonably foreseeable that an extended interruption of water service would cause economic losses for any of the defendant's customers whose livelihood depended on the constant supply of water, each of the four factors in Jaworski militated against imposing a duty on the defendant, as a matter of public policy, under the circumstances of the case: the normal expectations of the parties in the purchase and sale of water militated decisively against the imposition of a duty because the relevant statutory and case law compelled the conclusion that neither party reasonably could have expected that the defendant, a municipal corporation, would be liable in negligence for economic losses incurred by its customers as a result of an interruption in water service; moreover, imposing a duty on the defendant to prevent economic losses from interruptions in water ser- vice would result in a predictable increase in litigation without a corres- ponding increase in the physical safety of the defendant's customers, and, because water is an essential necessity of life, its use requires no encouragement by the law; furthermore, the vast majority of other jurisdictions bar recovery for economic losses in a negligence action arising out of damage to the person or property of another, and this court rejected the plaintiff's contention that this factor weighed in favor of imposing a duty because a number of jurisdictions recognize an exception to the general rule barring recovery when a special relation- ship exists between the parties, as the plaintiff did not identify any attribute of its relationship with the defendant that would bring the present case into the extremely limited class of negligence cases that do not bar recovery for economic losses. (One justice concurring separately) Argued January 15—officially released August 18, 2021

The plaintiff, N Co., sought to recover damages from the defendants, B Co. and E Co., for breach of a trademark licensing agreement, pursuant to which B Co. was granted a worldwide license to use N Co.'s trade name and certain of its trademarks in connection with certain products B Co. manufactured. N Co. is a Delaware company with its principal place of business in Connecticut, whereas B Co. and E Co. have their principal places of business in Austria and Germany, respectively. From 1990 to 2000, N Co. and B Co.'s predecessor were parties to a prior version of the licensing agreement. In 2000, after a period of negotiations during which B Co. sent various communications to N Co. in Connecticut, B Co. and N Co. executed a new licensing agreement, which continued from year to year until terminated. Pursuant to that agreement, B Co. agreed to maximize the production, marketing and sale of the licensed products and to send N Co. royalty payments at a bank in Wisconsin. The agreement also contained a choice of law provision designating Wisconsin law as controlling the agreement, but the agreement did not require that B Co. perform any of its contractual obligations in Connecticut. N Co. alleged that, in 2018, B Co., at the direction of E Co., violated the licensing agreement by launching its own trademark, which it used to replace N Co.'s trademarks for use with the licensed products. The trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and rendered judgment for the defendants. That court concluded that, because the defendants' alleged actions occurred in Europe, the defendants lacked sufficient minimum contacts with Connecticut such that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over them would offend principles of due process. On the plaintiff's appeal, held that the trial court correctly determined that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over the defendants would violate due process, as N Co. failed to establish that B Co., by virtue of its long-term contractual relationship with N Co., had sufficient minimum contacts with Connecti- cut, and, accordingly, properly granted the defendants' motion to dis- miss: considering the totality of the circumstances, including prior nego- tiations, contemplated future consequences, the terms of the parties' contract and the parties' actual course of dealing, this court could not conclude that B Co. had purposefully availed itself of the benefits of doing business in Connecticut such that it should have been foreseeable that it could be sued in this state, especially when the licensing agree- ment did not envision an interactive, highly regulated relationship or anticipate a relationship for a specific amount of time; moreover, despite the nearly twenty year business relationship between B Co. and N Co., there was no evidence that either B Co. or its predecessor initiated contact with N Co. in Connecticut, and B Co.'s purposeful contact with the forum was limited to a single visit to Connecticut by its chief executive officer in 2003 and occasional communications sent to N Co. in Connecticut that were ancillary to the performance of the contract, rather than demonstrative of continuous collaboration between the par- ties, such that N Co. did not establish that, during the course of their relationship, B Co. had contacts with or continuing obligations in Con- necticut; furthermore, B Co.'s physical presence in Connecticut was insubstantial and sporadic, it did not conduct business or maintain offices, employees, property or an agent for service of process in Con- necticut, aside from the chief executive officer's single visit to Connecti- cut, all meetings and negotiations between representatives of N Co. and B Co. and its predecessor occurred in Europe or states other than Connecticut, and the fact that B Co. knew that N Co. would perform its contractual obligations in Connecticut was of no consequence, as it is well established that it is the forum contacts of a defendant, not a plaintiff, that are relevant to the minimum contacts analysis; in addition, the licensing agreement did not contemplate performance in Connecticut but, rather, drew a connection to Wisconsin via its choice of law provi- sion and by requiring that B Co. send royalty payments to a bank located there, and, although the licensing agreement gave N Co. certain oversight over B Co.'s production of the licensed products, including the rights to receive samples of and to inspect the products and quality control test data, the parties' course of dealing called into question the extent to which N Co. exercised those limited rights. (Two justices dissenting in one opinion) Argued November 15, 2019—officially released August 20, 2021

Convicted of felony murder, robbery in the first degree, conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree, and criminal possession of a firearm in connection with the shooting death of the victim, the defendant appealed. At the defendant's trial, one of the state's witnesses, S, testified that the defendant knew that the victim had a significant amount of cash on him and that the defendant planned to steal it. S testified that, at the defendant's request, he drove the victim to the home of the defendant's mother, where the defendant, in S's presence, robbed and then shot the victim. The state presented additional evidence that was consistent with S's account of the events. Another witness, A, testified that she lived across the street from where the victim's body was found and that she saw the defendant push a person matching the victim's description against a wall and drag him toward the lawn of an abandoned house, and then A heard gunshots. The trial court also admitted into evidence, over defense counsel's objection, portions of A's written state- ment to the police. In addition, before calling the defendant's nephew, R, to testify, the prosecutor represented to the court that R had pending criminal charges against him. The court initially indicated that it would prohibit an inquiry by defense counsel into those charges, but, after hearing additional argument, the court revised its ruling by stating that defense counsel could question R about the existence of pending charges and the maximum penalty that could be imposed for those charges, so long as the questions were directed toward the issue of bias. Ultimately, the prosecutor presented R's testimony, which corroborated S's testi- mony, but the prosecutor did not mention the charges against R during direct examination, and defense counsel declined to cross-examine R. Held: 1. The trial court properly admitted the portions of A's written statement to the police because, even if the admission of that evidence was improper, any error was harmless: A's account of the events leading up to the shooting was not central to the state's case because the defendant admitted in his interview with the police that he witnessed the shooting and was in the area where the crime occurred, and, thus, the state did not need A's testimony to place the defendant at the crime scene; moreover, because the jury found the defendant not guilty of murder but guilty of felony murder, A's testimony did not substantially sway the jury's conclusion with respect to the question of whether the defen- dant was the person who actually killed the victim; furthermore, several independent pieces of evidence implicated the defendant in the robbery, and it was unlikely that any bolstering caused by the admission of the portions of A's written statement would have changed the way the jury viewed A's account of the events. 2. The trial court did not violate the defendant's constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him by precluding defense counsel from cross-examining R about R's pending criminal charges: the court expressly stated that defense counsel could cross-examine R about the fact that he had pending criminal charges and the maximum penalties that he was facing, and defense counsel's decision to forgo that opportu- nity was his own; moreover, even if the restrictions placed on defense counsel's cross-examination of R infringed on the defendant's confronta- tion rights, the state demonstrated that any such infringement was harm- less beyond a reasonable doubt, as R's testimony was not critical to the state's case because he was neither a participant in, nor a witness to, the attack on the victim, and the central points of R's testimony were consistent with the account of the events that the defendant had provided during his interview with the police. Argued March 22—officially released August 23, 2021

The defendant, who had been convicted of manslaughter in the first degree and risk of injury to a child, appealed to the Appellate Court from the trial court's denial of his motion to correct an illegal sentence. The defendant's conviction stemmed from an incident that occurred while he was watching the victim, a fifteen month old, when the victim's mother was at work. The defendant had alerted the victim's mother that something was wrong with the victim and picked her up from her place of employment. While the three of them were driving to the hospital, they were involved in a motor vehicle accident. The victim died at the hospital, and an autopsy revealed bruises on his cheek, one of his legs, and his chest, which occurred shortly before his death, and internal abdominal injuries, including a broken rib and a lacerated liver, the latter of which was determined to be the cause of the victim's death. Although the defendant ultimately was convicted of the lesser included offense of manslaughter in the first degree, the operative information had charged him with capital felony, alleging in relevant part that the defendant, ''with the intent to cause the death of [the victim], caused the death of [the victim] . . . by blunt trauma to the abdomen.'' As to the risk of injury charge, the information alleged in relevant part that the defendant ''did an act likely to impair the health of [the victim] . . . by inflicting multiple trauma to his face, head, chest, and abdomen and thereby causing: laceration of the liver, internal bleeding in the abdomen, fracture of the tenth right rib, and multiple contusions of the face, head, chest, and abdomen.'' In his motion to correct, the defendant claimed that his sentence imposed for manslaughter in the first degree and risk of injury to a child violated the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy. The Appellate Court reversed the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion to correct. The Appellate Court determined that, when a defendant claims that his conviction includes a lesser included offense, the court does not merely compare the elements of each offense under Blockburger v. United States (284 U.S. 299) but, instead, asks whether it is possible to commit the greater offense, ''in the manner described in the information,'' without having first committed the lesser offense. Accordingly, the Appellate Court concluded that, even though risk of injury was not a lesser included offense of manslaughter in the first degree under Blockburger, insofar as each offense required poof of an element that the other did not, it was a lesser included offense as charged by the state in the information because it was not possible for the defendant to have committed manslaughter in the first degree by inflicting blunt trauma to the victim's abdomen without also impairing the health of the victim by inflicting trauma to his abdomen. On the granting of certification, the state appealed to this court. Held that the Appellate Court incorrectly determined that the defendant's convictions of risk of injury to a child and manslaughter in the first degree were the same offense for double jeopardy purposes, as that court improperly considered the facts alleged in the information rather than confining its analysis to the statutory elements of the offenses, and, accordingly, this court reversed the judgment of the Appellate Court and remanded the case with direction to affirm the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion to correct: the Appellate Court improperly conflated the cognate pleadings approach, by which courts determine whether a defendant has received constitutionally adequate notice of the charges against him when a lesser included offense instruction has been requested, with the Blockburger test, which protects against cumulative punishments and under which two distinct statutory provisions constitute the same offense only if each provision requires proof of a fact that the other does not; moreover, although the language of the charging documents is relevant to whether the statutory elements of each offense are the same under Blockburger, federal and state precedent, including this court's own case law, confirmed that the statutory elements, rather than the factual allegations in the charging documents, drive the Blockburger inquiry, notwithstanding a substantial overlap in the proof offered to establish the crimes; furthermore, to the extent that this court has suggested that a court undertaking a double jeopardy analysis should consider the facts alleged by the state ''in the manner described in the information,'' that directive was relevant in determining whether one crime is a lesser included offense of another only insofar as the reviewing court is consulting the information in order to determine whether it alleges distinct elements for each offense, rather than in determining the particular factual predicate of the case; in the present case, man- slaughter in the first degree, which requires proof that the defendant, with intent to cause serious physical injury, caused the victim's death, and risk of injury to a child, which requires proof of the defendant's impairment to the health of a child less than sixteen years of age, each contained an element that the other did not, and it was therefore possible to commit either offense without committing the other. Argued April 1, 2021—officially released August 27, 2021

Convicted of robbery in the first degree and felony murder, among other crimes, the defendant appealed. The defendant's convictions stemmed from her involvement in the murders of the victims, B and B's son, P. Prior to the murders, the defendant and her husband, C, lived in B's home. The defendant devised a scheme in order to steal from B, pursuant to which the defendant instructed C to tell B that the defendant had been arrested and that he needed money to bail the defendant out of jail. B acquiesced and gave C the money, which C and the defendant used to buy drugs. Subsequently, the defendant and C returned to B's home, where the defendant heard an altercation and subsequently wit- nessed C stabbing P. The defendant did not intercede, and, according to a statement the defendant later made to the police, it was apparent to her at that point that B may have already been dead. After the killings, the defendant went through B's purse and removed money and personal items, and the defendant and C jointly sold B's and P's personal property for cash. In her appeal before the Appellate Court, the defendant claimed that the trial court's instructions violated her due process rights on the ground that the court, in referring to a larceny by false pretenses in its instructions on the first degree robbery and felony murder charges, improperly presented the jury with a legally invalid but factually sup- ported basis for finding her guilty with respect to those charges. In support of this claim, the defendant argued that a larceny by false pretenses could not, as a matter of law, serve as the predicate felony for robbery and felony murder. The Appellate Court concluded that the trial court's references to larceny by false pretenses presented the jury with a legally valid basis for conviction, albeit one that was factually unsupported by the evidence presented at trial, and that the improper inclusion of the factually unsupported theory was harmless because the post murder larcenies also presented the jury with a legally valid and factually supported alternative basis for finding the defendant guilty of robbery and felony murder. The Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of conviction, and the defendant, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court. Held that the jury having been instructed on an alternative theory of conviction that was legally valid and factually supported by the evidence, the Appellate Court properly upheld the defendant's conviction of first degree robbery and felony murder: a larceny by false pretenses that precedes the use of force can satisfy the larceny element of robbery if the force is used in order to retain the property immediately after the taking, and, therefore, the trial court's references to larceny by false pretenses in its instructions presented the jury with a legally valid theory for finding the defendant guilty of robbery and felony murder; nevertheless, because the evidence estab- lished that the defendant and C completed their scheme to take money from B under the pretense that it was to bail the defendant out of jail before B and P were murdered, that scheme could not serve as a factual basis for finding the defendant guilty of robbery or felony murder, and, accordingly, the trial court's references to larceny by false pretenses in its instructions in connection with that scheme was improper; however, the submission of this factually unsupported theory of guilt to the jury did not violate the defendant's due process rights because the jury was provided with a legally valid and factually supported alternative basis for conviction insofar as the jury was instructed that it could find the defendant guilty of first degree robbery and felony murder on the basis of her participation in the larcenies that occurred after the murders were committed, and this alternative theory of criminal liability was amply supported by the evidence. Argued March 24—officially released August 31, 2021

Pursuant to statute (§ 12-81 (7) (A)), ''the real property of . . . a corporation organized exclusively for . . . charitable purposes . . . and used exclusively for carrying out . . . such purposes'' is exempt from taxa- tion. Pursuant further to statute (§ 12-81 (7) (B)), ''housing subsidized, in whole or in part, by federal, state or local government . . . shall not constitute a charitable purpose . . . . '[H]ousing' shall not include real property used for temporary housing . . . the primary use of which property is . . . housing for . . . persons with a mental health disorder . . . .'' The plaintiffs, R Co. and G Co., tax-exempt charitable organizations, appealed to the trial court from the decision of the Board of Assessment Appeals of the defendant town. The board had denied the plaintiffs' appeal from the town assessor's allegedly improper denial of their appli- cation for a charitable property tax exemption under § 12-81 (7) (A), in connection with residential property that R Co. owns and leases to G Co. G Co. operates a ''supervised apartment program'' on the property. Through the program, G Co. provides housing to as many as five men at a time, all of whom are individuals with severe mental illness who are not able to function in a traditional group home setting. G Co. provides the residents with on-site supervision, as well as various psychi- atric, rehabilitative, and skill building services. Residents do not stay at the property for a fixed duration but, rather, remain only until their treatment has progressed to a point that they no longer need G Co.'s services. The Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services pro- vides G Co. with approximately 75 percent of its funding for the program. The parties stipulated to the relevant facts and filed separate motions for summary judgment. The town claimed that the assessor properly found that, under § 12-81 (7) (B), the property was not tax-exempt because the housing is subsidized in part by the department and is not temporary insofar as residency is not limited to any finite length of time. The plaintiffs claimed that the property was tax-exempt because they are organized exclusively for charitable purposes, the property is used exclusively for furthering those purposes, the housing provided thereon is not government subsidized housing, and the housing is temporary. The trial court agreed with the plaintiffs that the property qualified for tax exemption under § 12-81 (7) (A). Accordingly, the court granted the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment and rendered judgment thereon, from which the town appealed. Held: 1. The town could not prevail on its claim that the plaintiffs were not aggrieved by the denial of their application for tax-exempt status insofar as the plaintiffs failed to provide the assessor with sufficient information to demonstrate that the property qualified for an exemption under § 12- 81 (7) and, therefore, that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdic- tion; because the town stipulated in the trial court to certain facts that allowed for a finding of aggrievement, namely, that the plaintiffs had filed with the assessor a complete application that contained all of the information necessary for the assessor to ascertain whether the property qualified for an exemption under § 12-81 (7), the town could not chal- lenge that fact for the first time on appeal. 2. Contrary to the town's claim, the subject property was exempt from taxation because, regardless of whether the plaintiffs provide ''housing subsidized, in whole or in part, by federal, state or local government'' within the meaning of § 12-81 (7) (B), the housing the plaintiffs provided was temporary, and the property therefore qualified for the exemption on that basis: upon review of the statutory scheme governing charitable property tax exemptions and dictionary definitions of the word ''tempo- rary,'' this court concluded that the term ''temporary housing'' in § 12- 81 (7) (B) was ambiguous insofar as it refers to housing that is imperma- nent and limited in duration without specifying the length of the dura- tional limitation imposed; moreover, to resolve this ambiguity, this court considered the legislative history pertaining to the charitable tax exemp- tion for real property used for temporary housing, especially legislative hearing testimony from representatives of various charitable organiza- tions, which supported the conclusions that the term ''temporary'' does not entail a fixed durational limitation but, instead, varies depending on the particular purpose of the charitable organization and the needs of the residents being served, and that housing is ''temporary'' within the meaning of the statute, so long as the resident's stay is impermanent, transitional, and in furtherance of one of the charitable purposes enumer- ated in § 12-81 (7) (B); furthermore, the plaintiffs satisfied their burden of establishing that the housing provided by the program was ''temporary'' within the meaning of § 12-81 (7) (B), as the evidence demonstrated that a resident's stay was transitional insofar as its length depended entirely on the resident's treatment progress, the plaintiffs both had charitable purposes pertaining to ''housing for . . . persons with a men- tal health disorder,'' the supervised apartment program operated in furtherance of those purposes, and the town failed to produce any evidence to rebut the evidence demonstrating that the program's housing was temporary. (One justice concurring separately) Argued December 11, 2020—officially released September 1, 2021

Convicted of the crimes of murder and carrying a pistol without a permit in connection with the shooting death of the victim, the defendant appealed to this court. The state's theory was that the defendant and the victim were members of rival gangs, the ''150 gang'' and the ''Green Hollow Boyz,'' respectively, and that the defendant shot the victim in retaliation after the victim had been tried for and acquitted of the murder of H, another 150 gang member. At the time the victim was shot, the defendant's acquaintance, M, was in a nearby car driven by her friend, J. M saw the defendant, whom she knew as ''DT,'' cross the street and then heard gunshots. Meanwhile, J was having a phone conversation with her incarcerated boyfriend, D, on a recorded line. Within minutes of the shooting, M spoke to D and identified the defendant as the shooter. The police also executed a search warrant at the defendant's apartment on the night of the shooting. In one of the bedrooms, they found a mirror, on which someone had written ''150,'' ''GANG'' and ''DT.'' Prior to trial, the defendant sought to preclude evidence of his association with the 150 gang and a rap music video that had been posted on the Internet, which featured the defendant and two other members of the 150 gang, who were handling a gun. The trial court made preliminary rulings denying the defendant's motions. At trial, the state sought to present the expert testimony of A, a gang intelligence sergeant for the Bridgeport Police Department. Defense counsel objected, claiming that A's testimony was inadmissible because it was irrelevant insofar as there was no direct evidence that the defendant belonged to a gang or that the shooting was gang related. He also claimed that A's opinions were based on hearsay and that, as an expert witness, A was not allowed to testify as to hearsay. The trial court overruled the objection, and A testified that his duties included monitoring gang activity in Bridgeport through social media, where he discovered the rap music video, and by talking with community residents, informants and gang members. He stated that he was familiar with the rival gangs, that the defendant and H were members of the 150 gang, and that H's death contributed to a conflict between the two gangs. In conjunction with A's testimony, the state introduced the rap music video, which was played for the jury over defense counsel's renewed objection. Defense counsel also renewed his objection when the state sought to admit photographs of the writing on the mirror, but the trial court concluded that the photographs were admissible under the hearsay exception for statements of a party oppo- nent. Finally, defense counsel objected on hearsay grounds to the admis- sion of the recording of M's statements to D identifying the defendant as the shooter. The trial court concluded, however, that M's statements were admissible under the hearsay exception for spontaneous utter- ances, and the recording was played for the jury. From the judgment of conviction, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court improperly admitted A's expert testimony about gangs on the grounds that it was irrelevant and a violation of his constitutional right to confrontation: a. The defendant abandoned his nonconstitutional, evidentiary claim that A's expert testimony was irrelevant; it was the defendant's burden to establish that the allegedly improper admission of A's testimony was harmful, he failed to brief that issue, and, even if the single sentence in his brief relevant to that issue raised an argument that A's testimony was more prejudicial than probative, that argument did not address whether any alleged error was harmful in light of all of the other evidence adduced at the defendant's trial. b. The defendant failed to preserve his claim that A's testimony violated his constitutional right to confrontation insofar as it was a conduit for inadmissible, testimonial hearsay from contacts and informants who were not subject to cross-examination; defense counsel never argued before the trial court that the alleged hearsay was testimonial, as counsel challenged A's testimony only on the basis of relevancy, hearsay and prejudice, and, although the parties and the trial court might have been on notice of other constitutional claims relative to other evidence, that did not place them on notice as to this specific claim. c. Even if A served as a conduit for testimonial hearsay, any constitutional error in the admission of A's testimony regarding gangs was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of the strength of the state's case, evidence of the defendant's motive, and the cumulative nature of the witnesses' testimony: the jury reasonably could have inferred that the defendant shot the victim in retaliation for H's murder and that the shooting was gang related, as there was evidence that the defendant and H had been friends and that the victim had been arrested for the murder of H but was acquitted after a trial, which the defendant attended; more- over, the state linked the defendant to the 150 gang through the reference to 150 on his bedroom mirror and evidence that he used that number as part of his username for his Snapchat account; furthermore, the state's case was strong, as M, who had known the defendant for years, identified the defendant as the shooter within minutes of the shooting, the firearm used to shoot the victim and the sweatshirt that eyewitnesses had seen the shooter wearing were discovered near the location where the police apprehended the defendant, and testing could not eliminate the defendant as a contributor to the DNA that was found on the gun used in the shooting, which was similar to the gun that appeared in the rap music video. 2. The defendant failed to establish that any error in the admission of the rap music video was constitutional in nature, as he did not demonstrate the materiality of that evidence, especially in light of the other substantial evidence of his guilt that had been adduced at trial; moreover, the defendant's failure to brief the issue of harmless evidentiary error ren- dered any evidentiary claim with respect to the admission of the video abandoned. 3. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the photographs of the writing on the mirror, because, even if the writing constituted hearsay, it was admissible under the hearsay exception for statements of a party opponent: the state produced sufficient evidence from which the jury reasonably could have inferred that the defendant authored the writing on the mirror, as there was circumstantial evidence that the defendant was at least an occupant of the bedroom where the mirror was found, including documents found therein with his name and address on them, there was no evidence from which it could be inferred that a person other than the defendant resided in the apartment, and, at the time of the search by the police, the apartment was not open and no one else was present in the apartment; moreover, there was other circumstantial evidence that demonstrated the defendant authored the writings, including his initials on the mirror. 4. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the recording of M's statements to D under the spontaneous utterance exception to the hearsay rule: contrary to the defendant's assertion that M's statements were inadmissible because she had an opportunity for deliberation or fabrication, the few minutes between the shooting and her statements to D were insufficient to provide M with an opportunity to deliberate or to fabricate, especially in light of her proximity to the crime scene and her emotional state, evidenced by her crying, her rambling, and her distressed voice; moreover, it was of little significance that M's statement identifying the defendant as the shooter was in response to a question from D, as her response was a stream of consciousness that was spoken under emotional circumstances, she answered D's question regarding the shooter's identity without pause, and, although she was rambling and crying, she continued to provide D with additional information, unprompted, about what she had witnessed; furthermore, there was no evidence that J and M discussed the shooting prior to M's conversation with D, nothing J said to D, to the extent it was decipherable from the recording, identified the defendant as the shooter, and there was no evidence that M was influenced by anything she heard from J. Argued November 18, 2020—officially released September 8, 2021

Convicted, after a trial to a three judge panel, of two counts of murder in connection with the deaths of her two children, the defendant appealed to this court. The police reported to the defendant's home in response to a phone call from the defendant's friend, who had received an alarming letter from the defendant in the mail. When the defendant exited her home after the police arrived, she had lacerations on her wrists and told the police that she had ''saved them.'' While the defendant was transported to the hospital, the police entered the defendant's residence and found the children's bodies, as well as a suicide note written by the defendant, in which she stated that, ''if I burn for eternity at least I'll know why I deserve it.'' Autopsies revealed that the children died of acute intoxication from an antihistamine with sedative properties. At trial, the defendant did not dispute that she had killed her children but raised the affirmative defense of mental disease or defect, claiming that, at the time of the murders, she lacked the substantial capacity to either appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or to control her conduct within the requirements of the law. The defendant's version of events was admitted into evidence largely through the testimony and written report of her expert witness, A, a forensic psychiatrist. According to A, the defendant was suffering from psychosis and, as a result, devel- oped a ''religious delusion'' that killing her children and herself was ''God's plan.'' In A's opinion, at the time she killed her children, the defendant did not appreciate that what she was doing was wrong and was not able to control her conduct in accordance with the law. A recounted how, on the day in question, the defendant took the children to a store and then to a fast food restaurant, where she conceived of a method to end their lives. Specifically, because the children had not yet been baptized, she decided to drown them to accomplish their death and salvation. According to A, the defendant bought over-the-counter sleep aids, which she gave to the children upon returning home. While they were sedated, she held their heads underwater in the bathtub. The defendant purportedly heard the voice of God tell her that it was time to come home. The state presented the testimony of its own expert, L, a forensic psychiatrist. According to L, there was no evidence that the defendant had suffered from a serious mental disease or defect at the time of the murders but, instead, had killed the children because she was angry about raising them alone. According to L, the manner in which the defendant committed the murders, certain statements the defendant made in her suicide note, and other communications were inconsistent with a religious delusion and affirmatively reflected the defendant's appreciation of the wrongfulness of her actions. The trial court found that the defendant failed to satisfy her burden of proving that, as a result of mental disease or defect, she lacked substantial capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct or to control her conduct within the requirements of the law. The court determined that A's testimony was undermined by his failure to investigate or to adequately explain evidence of the defendant's behavior that the court found to be inconsistent with a religious delusion, including the defen- dant's communications exhibiting an appreciation of the wrongfulness of her conduct in the days leading up to the murders, her Internet research into the methods of poisoning children, and her provision of lethal amounts of medication to her children. On the defendant's appeal to this court, held that the trial court reasonably rejected the defendant's defense of mental disease or defect and the opinions of A related thereto, and, accordingly, this court affirmed the judgment of conviction: opinion testimony from mental health experts is central to a determination of the viability of the defense of mental disease or defect, and the credibility of expert witnesses and the weight to be given to their testimony on that issue are determined by the trier of fact, which may discount or reject expert testimony, so long as the discounting or rejection of such testimony is not arbitrary; in the present case, this court concluded that the trial court did not arbitrarily reject A's testimony, especially in light of the directly conflicting expert testimony of L, including testimony that the defendant's narrative of drowning her children while in the grip of a religious delusion was unsupported and contradicted by the defendant's organized and focused behavior during the relevant time period, including her Internet activity, her communications with friends and family, her purchasing and printing of a mailing label to send the letter to her friend, and the statements in her suicide note that she would ''burn for eternity'' for her actions; moreover, A's testimony was undermined by other evidence adduced at trial, including testimony from the defendant's friends and family that they had communicated with the defendant in the days immediately before or after the murders and did not observe any symptoms of psychosis or religious delusion, the defendant's text messages and Internet search history, and the autopsy reports, which conflicted with defendant's report that her children had died from drowning; furthermore, contrary to the defendant's claim, the fact that L conducted fewer interviews and spent less time with the defendant than A did was of no consequence, as the trial court, which was responsible for determining the credibility of the expert witnesses and the weight to be given to their testimony, reasonably credited L's testimony. Argued February 24—officially released September 13, 2021

The defendant was convicted, following a conditional plea of nolo conten- dere, of the crimes of conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to sell, conspiracy to possess narcotics with intent to sell by a person who is not drug-dependent, and conspiracy to operate a drug factory. During surveillance of a motel for illegal activity, a police officer, observing an individual, T, quickly enter and exit the defendant's motel room at around 1 a.m., believed that he had witnessed a drug transaction. After T exited the motel room, he entered a vehicle driven by another individual, which departed from the motel. A short distance from the motel, the police stopped the vehicle. When the police approached the vehicle, they smelled a strong odor of marijuana emanating from inside the vehicle. After T was removed from the vehicle, he admitted to possessing marijuana. A search of T's person revealed, inter alia, mari- juana and heroin. The police ultimately detained T, who, at that time, denied being in or having any connection with the defendant's motel room. The police then went to the house of T's grandmother, where T was living. After T's grandmother consented to a search of T's bedroom, the officers searched that room and found numerous plastic bags with the corners cut off, as well as other bags containing an off-white powder residue. The officers went back to the motel and spoke with the manager, who advised them that the defendant paid cash to rent a room there for a week and provided them with a copy of the defendant's driver's license. The manager also indicated that a guest registration card for that room included the name of an individual with T's surname, which the police believed was most likely T. The officers then went to knock on the defendant's motel room door. The officers observed a light on, but no one answered. One of the officers then retrieved a canine officer and conducted a canine sniff of the motel walkway in the vicinity of the defendant's room. The canine alerted that it had detected contraband at the bottom of the door to the defendant's room. On the basis of all that had transpired since observing T enter and exit the defendant's room, the police decided to apply for a warrant to search the defendant's room. Before the police submitted their application for a warrant, how- ever, one of the officers noticed the defendant walking away from the motel. The defendant was ultimately detained, and the officers found a large wad of cash on his person, as well as a motel room key. The police informed the defendant that T had admitted to them that he was storing his supply of marijuana in the defendant's motel room, and the defendant responded that nothing in the room was his. The defendant agreed to open the door to the room for the officers but then changed his mind and refused to grant them entry. The defendant also indicated at that time that no one was in the room. To ensure that there was no one in the room who might destroy evidence before the officers could obtain a warrant, one of the officers used the defendant's key to open the door. After opening the door, and without entering, an officer looked inside for approximately fifteen to thirty seconds and then closed the door. While the door was open, the officer observed evidence of drug activity. The defendant was then informed he could leave. Thereafter, the police prepared an application for and obtained a search warrant for the room. The application had been based on the results of the canine sniff of the door of the motel room, the observations made during the visual sweep of the room, and T's admission to the police that he had kept his supply of marijuana in the room. A search of the room revealed a large quantity of heroin, among other items related to drug activity. The defendant filed a motion to suppress the evidence that had been seized from the motel room, claiming, inter alia, that the search violated his rights under the Connecticut constitution (art. I, § 7) because the search warrant application contained information obtained from an allegedly unlawful, warrantless visual sweep of the motel room. The trial court denied the motion, concluding that the visual sweep was necessary to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence and, there- fore, was justified by the exigent circumstances exception to the warrant requirement. The court also determined that, even if the visual sweep was not justified under that exception, the evidence seized during the execution of the search warrant was admissible under the independent source doctrine. The defendant appealed to the Appellate Court from the judgment of conviction, claiming, as he had in the trial court, that he was entitled to suppression of the evidence found in the motel room because the search warrant derived from the allegedly unlawful visual sweep of the room. The defendant also asserted, for the first time, that he was entitled to suppression of the evidence because the search warrant application included information obtained from the warrantless canine sniff conducted by the police outside of the door of his motel room. The Appellate Court affirmed the trial court's judgment, conclud- ing that the visual sweep was constitutionally permissible under the exigent circumstances exception and that a warrant was unnecessary with respect to the canine sniff because the sniff was not a search under the state constitution. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The canine sniff of the exterior door to the defendant's motel room was a search for purposes of article first, § 7, of the Connecticut constitution: the protection against a canine sniff that is afforded to a resident of a multiunit condominium complex under the state constitution in accor- dance with State v. Kono (324 Conn. 80) also extends to the occupant of a motel room, as motel guests have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their rooms, the fact that motel guests typically do not keep all of their personal effects in their rooms did not mean that the personal effects that guests do keep there should be subject to less protection under the law, a room occupied by a motel guest is not more vulnerable to a warrantless canine sniff than an apartment, condominium or house simply because other guests occupy nearby rooms or because rooms may be entered by motel staff to perform certain functions, and motel guests reasonably do not expect that the foot traffic generally associated with an open-air walkway abutting the motel's guestrooms includes law enforcement officers trolling the walkway with a trained canine in search of contraband. 2. The state could not prevail on its claim that, even if the canine sniff of the door to the defendant's motel room was a search, such a search could be conducted without a warrant, as long as the search was based on reasonable and articulable suspicion that there were illicit drugs in the room: although cases from other jurisdictions hold that a canine sniff of the door to an apartment or a condominium unit in a multiunit building is lawful if it is based on reasonable and articulable suspicion rather than on probable cause, this court determined that those cases were incompatible with its reasoning and holding in Kono; moreover, under article first, § 7, searches conducted without a warrant based on probable cause are presumed to be unreasonable, the state's heavy burden of overcoming that presumption is met only in certain excep- tional or compelling circumstances, and the few recognized exemptions from the warrant requirement under the state constitution invariably have involved searches conducted under circumstances requiring imme- diate action by the police, generally, in the interest of police or public safety, a consideration that was not implicated by a canine sniff per- formed to ascertain whether a motel room contains unlawful drugs; accordingly, a canine sniff of the exterior door to a motel room satisfies state constitutional requirements only if it follows the issuance of a warrant founded on probable cause. 3. The information available to the police unrelated to the canine sniff was sufficient to establish probable cause for the search of the defendant's motel room, but a remand to the trial court was necessary to afford the state an opportunity to demonstrate that the evidence seized from that room was admissible under the independent source doctrine by estab- lishing that the police would have sought the warrant regardless of the results of the canine sniff: the facts, untainted by the results of the canine sniff, were sufficient, standing alone, to support the issuance of the warrant, as T previously had been staying in the motel room, T was involved with and likely selling drugs, T was likely engaged in a drug transaction when he entered and immediately exited the room in the middle of the night, and there were likely drugs or drug related items in the room in light of what the police found on the defendant's person and the defendant's denial that anything in the motel room belonged to him; nevertheless, because the defendant did not raise the issue of the constitutionality of the canine sniff in the trial court and, thus, the state had no reason to adduce evidence demonstrating that the police were prepared to seek a warrant prior to the canine sniff or that they otherwise would have done so if the canine sniff had not occurred, the record was not clear with respect to that issue, and it would have been unfair to the state if this court had resolved the state's independent source claim on the basis of an undeveloped record; moreover, the inadequacy of the record with respect to the state's independent source claim did not require this court to reject the defendant's constitutional challenge to the canine sniff under the first prong of State v. Golding (213 Conn. 233), which ordinarily would bar appellate review of the defendant's unpreserved constitutional challenge on the basis that remands to sup- plement the record are generally not permitted, as a remand to allow the state to present additional evidence was appropriate, under the unusual circumstances of this case, insofar as allowing the Appellate Court's decision to stand would be contrary to the unanimous determina- tion of this court that the canine sniff was unlawful, and vacating the Appellate Court's judgment would result in confusion with respect to the legality of a warrantless canine sniff of a motel room. 4. This court could not resolve, as a matter of law, the state's claim that the evidence seized from the motel room was admissible under the inevitable discovery doctrine on the ground that such evidence would have been discovered by lawful means in the absence of the canine search: although it was apparent that the investigating officers were seeking to develop enough evidence to obtain a warrant for the motel room even before the canine sniff was conducted and that their investiga- tion could have resulted in their obtaining a warrant even if the canine sniff never occurred, the evidence adduced at the defendant's suppres- sion hearing did not establish, as a matter of law, that the police would have sought a warrant irrespective of the canine sniff; moreover, because this court lacked the authority to find facts, it could not resolve the factual issue presented by the state's inevitable discovery claim, as the undisputed evidence did not lead to only one possible conclusion; nevertheless, as the state had no reason to adduce evidence in support of its inevitable discovery claim before the trial court insofar as the defendant did not challenge the propriety of the canine sniff in that court, this court concluded that, on remand, the state must be afforded the opportunity to present additional evidence in support of that claim. 5. The Appellate Court and the trial court incorrectly determined that the visual sweep of the defendant's motel room was justified by exigent circumstances, as the possibility that evidence would be destroyed was too speculative: the belief held by the police that an immediate visual sweep of the room was necessary to avert the destruction of evidence was not objectively reasonable, as the police knew that neither of the two individuals actually linked to the motel room was in a position to destroy evidence located inside the room because, at the time of the visual sweep, T was under arrest and the defendant was with the police, there was nothing in the record to suggest that the police had reason to believe that anyone else had a similarly direct connection to the room or its contents, the generalized possibility that an unknown person might be lurking inside was not sufficient to justify a visual sweep, and, except for the unremarkable fact that a light was on inside the room, the record was devoid of any evidence from which a police officer reasonably could have concluded that someone was inside the room; moreover, the determination of whether the state could prevail on its claim that any impropriety stemming from the visual sweep was obviated by the independent source doctrine required additional fact-finding, and, accordingly, this court directed that, on remand, the state must be afforded the opportunity to present additional evidence related to whether the police would have sought a warrant irrespective of the visual sweep, and the trial court's determination of that issue must be made in light of the fact that the canine sniff was also unlawful. Argued February 27, 2020—officially released September 15, 2021

The plaintiff, M Co., which had obtained a judgment in California against the defendants, J and G, sought to enforce that judgment in Connecticut and to recover damages in connection with a home staging services and lease agreement between the parties. Pursuant to the agreement, M Co., a California corporation, was to provide design and decorating services, including the delivery and installation of rental furniture and décor, for the purpose of making the defendants' Connecticut residence more attractive to potential buyers. J was the sole signatory to the agreement, but M Co. negotiated the agreement exclusively with G. The lease required an initial payment and had an initial term of four months. If the residence was not sold within that term, the lease would continue on a month-to-month basis at a monthly rate. One provision of the agreement contained both a choice of law clause, providing that Califor- nia law governed the agreement, and a forum selection clause, which vested courts in Los Angeles, California, with jurisdiction over disputes arising under the agreement and provided that the parties consented to the jurisdiction of that court. Beneath that provision, G amended the choice of law clause, writing in that, ''[s]ince this is a contract for an agreement taking place in the state of Connecticut, Connecticut laws will [supersede] those of California.'' Additionally, although G did not sign the agreement, he signed an addendum to the agreement authorizing M Co. to charge his credit card for the initial payment. G made the initial payment to M Co., which then delivered and installed the rental furniture and décor. Thereafter, the defendants defaulted on their pay- ment obligations. The defendants denied M Co. access to the premises when it attempted to repossess its furniture and décor, which ultimately remained in the residence for approximately three years. M Co. filed an action in California Superior Court, which rendered a default judgment against the defendants after they failed to appear. When the default judgment remained unsatisfied, M Co. filed the present action, seeking enforcement of the California judgment and alleging breach of contract and quantum meruit. As to the claim seeking enforcement of the Califor- nia judgment, the trial court concluded that the California court lacked personal jurisdiction over J, but not over G, and that the California court's judgment was entitled to full faith and credit as to G. As to the breach of contract claim, the court found that J had breached the home staging services agreement. In doing so, it rejected J's special defense that the agreement was unenforceable because it failed to comply with certain provisions of the Home Solicitation Sales Act (§ 42-134a et seq.) (HSSA). The court specifically determined that a home staging agree- ment, which involves the use of goods and services to facilitate the sale or rental or real property, was excluded from the purview of the HSSA, which exempts transactions ''pertaining to the sale or rental of real property'' from its requirements. Accordingly, the trial court rendered judgment for M Co. and against G in connection with the enforcement of the California judgment and awarded M Co. the full amount of that judgment. In connection with the breach of contract claim, the court rendered judgment for M Co. and against J, and awarded M Co. damages for the conversion of M Co.'s furniture and décor, as well as for the associated rental loss of that inventory. Having done so, the court declined to address M Co.'s quantum meruit claim as to J. Thereafter, M Co. withdrew the breach of contract and quantum meruit claims as to G, and the defendants appealed. Held: 1. The trial court correctly concluded that the California court had personal jurisdiction over G, G having consented to jurisdiction in California by virtue of the agreement's forum selection clause, and, accordingly, the trial court properly found that the California judgment was enforceable against G: although a nonsignatory to a contract generally is not bound by a forum selection clause contained therein, under the ''closely related'' doctrine, a nonsignatory may be bound by that clause if he was so intimately involved in the negotiation, formation, execution, or ratifica- tion of the contract that it was reasonably foreseeable that he would be bound by it, considering factors such as the nonsignatory's relation- ship to the signatory and whether the nonsignatory received a direct benefit from the agreement; in the present case, the defendants did not dispute that the forum selection clause in the agreement was valid and enforceable, and G was so closely related to the agreement that he was bound by its forum selection clause, especially when G was married to J and lived in the residence she owned, in which they wrongfully used M Co.'s inventory for three years; moreover, in addition to receiving a direct benefit under the agreement, only G, and not J, participated in the negotiations, he made a substantive change to the agreement prior to its execution, notably amending the choice of law clause while leaving the forum selection clause in that same provision untouched, and he executed an addendum to the agreement, pursuant to which he author- ized the sole payment made to M Co. that prompted M Co.'s full perfor- mance of its contractual obligations. 2. The defendants could not prevail on their claim that the home staging services agreement was unenforceable due to M Co.'s noncompliance with certain provisions of the HSSA, as the trial court correctly con- cluded that the transaction between the parties was not a ''home solicita- tion sale,'' as defined therein, and, therefore, was outside the purview of the HSSA: the provisions of the HSSA apply only to ''home solicitation sale[s],'' the statutory (§ 42-134a (a) (5)) definition of which excludes any transaction ''pertaining to the sale or rental of real property''; moreover, although a narrow construction of that language that applied only to contracts for the sale or rental of real property was inconsistent with the dictionary definitions of the phrase ''pertaining to,'' this court none- theless concluded that it would yield absurd results to construe the real property exception as applying to all transactions for goods and services that relate to, or are an adjunct or accessory to, the sale or rental of real property; accordingly, this court turned to extratextual sources, including legislative history, the federal regulations on which the real property exception was based, and sister state precedent, and, consistent with the liberal construction afforded to remedial statutes such as the HSSA, concluded that a ''home solicitation sale'' is not strictly limited to the sale or rental of real property but, instead, includes a limited category of consumer goods and services that may be excluded under the real property exception; in the present case, the sale of the residence was the stated purpose of the agreement, the duration of the agreement was defined by how long it took for the property to sell, and the sale of the property delimited the agreement's various terms by, for example, allowing M Co. to remove the furniture and décor if the defendants' residence was not listed for sale within a prescribed period of time, such that the terms of the agreement were so intertwined with the sale of the defendants' property that the agreement was inextricably related to, or an integral adjunct or accessory to, the sale of the home. 3. There was no merit to the defendants' claim that the award of damages was improper insofar as the trial court awarded M Co. double damages by rendering judgment against both G and J for the same loss and included the conversion value of the furniture and décor in the amount of damages for which J was liable in connection with the breach of contract claim; although a party may recover just damages for the same loss only once, it was undisputed that M Co.'s loss was wholly unsatisfied when the trial court rendered judgment in its favor on the claim against G concerning the enforceability of the California judgment and on the breach of contract claim against J, and the trial court was not foreclosed from rendering judgment in favor of M Co. against both defendants, jointly or separately, for injuries for which each is liable; moreover, the trial court's award of damages for the conversion value of the furniture and décor was not clearly erroneous in light of the fact that J caused M Co.'s total loss of that inventory by keeping and using it in her personal residence for three years, as M Co.'s loss of the furniture and décor was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of J's breach of the home staging services agreement. (Two justices concurring in part and dissenting in part in one opinion) Argued September 8, 2020—officially released September 22, 2021

Pursuant to statute (§ 16-50k (a)), ''no person shall . . . commence the construction or supplying of a facility . . . that may, as determined by the [Connecticut Siting] [C]ouncil, have a substantial adverse environ- mental effect in the state without having first obtained a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need . . . issued with respect to such facility or modification by the council.'' Pursuant further to statute (§ 16-50p (a) (3) (B)), ''[t]he council shall file, with its order, an opinion stating in full its reasons for the decision. The council shall not grant a certificate, either as proposed or as modified by the council, unless it shall find and determine . . . [t]he nature of the probable environmental impact of the facility alone and cumulatively with other facilities, including a specification of every significant adverse effect . . . .'' The plaintiff, a nonprofit association formed to promote environmental conservation in the town of Killingly, appealed to the trial court from the decision of the defendant council, which approved the application of the defendant energy company, N Co., for a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need in connection with an electric generating facility that N Co. sought to construct in the town. The plaintiff had intervened in the administrative proceeding pursuant to statute (§ 22a- 19 (a) (1)), claiming that approval of the facility would result in the unreasonable pollution and impairment of the public trust in the environ- ment. According to N Co.'s application, the facility would be supplied with natural gas by E Co., which owns a distribution pipeline that extends from a mainline to the site of the proposed facility. For the facility to function, however, E Co. would need to replace approximately two miles of its existing distribution pipeline with an upgraded pipeline that would cross or abut wetlands, a river, and certain preserved or undeveloped lands. The plaintiff moved to dismiss or to stay N Co.'s application, claiming that the council was required to consider the envi- ronmental impact of the upgraded pipeline when weighing the public benefit of the facility against the harm that it would cause to the environ- ment under § 16-50p (c) (1) of the Public Utility Environmental Standards Act (act) and that N Co. had neither obtained a commitment as to the design of the upgraded pipeline from E Co. nor fully assessed the environmental impact the upgraded pipeline would have. The council denied the plaintiff's motion and, after hearings, approved N Co.'s appli- cation for a certificate, without ever considering the potential environ- mental effects of the upgraded pipeline. The council found that the facility was necessary for the reliability of the electric power supply of the state and, therefore, would be a public benefit, and that the adverse impacts of the facility were not disproportionate, either alone or cumula- tively, when compared to the public benefit. On appeal to the trial court, the plaintiff claimed that the council had improperly segmented the project into two components, namely, N Co.'s electric generating facility and E Co.'s upgraded pipeline, to avoid a comprehensive review of the project's overall environmental impact. After rejecting N Co.'s special defense that the plaintiff lacked standing to appeal, the trial court con- cluded that, although the facility was intertwined with the upgraded pipeline insofar as the facility, as planned, could not operate without it, the council reasonably decided to consider them separately because, under the act, electric generating facilities and fuel transmission lines are separate facilities to be considered under different provisions and submitted by two unrelated parties. The court also observed that E Co. would need to apply for a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need under § 16-50k (a) to construct the upgraded pipeline and stated that it would consider the pipeline's environmental impact at that time. Further, the trial court concluded that the plaintiff had neither pointed to any environmental concerns with the facility itself nor claimed that combining the environmental impact of the facility with that of the upgraded pipeline would result in an increased environmental impact. Accordingly, the trial court rejected the plaintiff's improper segmentation claim, concluded that the plaintiff failed to establish that the council had improperly approved N Co.'s application, and rendered judgment dismissing the plaintiff's administrative appeal. On the plain- tiff's appeal, held: 1. The trial court correctly concluded that the plaintiff had standing to appeal under § 22a-19 (a) (1) from the council's decision, the plaintiff having asserted a colorable claim of potential impairment of or destruc- tion to the environment by alleging in its complaint that the council's improper segmentation of the project into two separate components, in order to avoid a comprehensive review of the project's overall impact, would result in a substantial likelihood of such impairment or destruc- tion. 2. The plaintiff could not prevail on its claim that the trial court incorrectly determined that the council's failure to consider the environmental impact of E Co.'s future, upgraded pipeline when weighing the public benefit of the electric generating facility against the harm that it would cause to the environment was not arbitrary and capricious: a. Contrary to the council's claim, the plaintiff did not waive its claim regarding the council's refusal to consider the environmental impact of the upgraded pipeline by failing to challenge the council's finding that the facility would provide a public benefit in the trial court; the very reason that the plaintiff argued that the council was required to consider the impact of the upgraded pipeline was that, if it had done so, it might have concluded that the adverse environmental impact of the facility and the upgraded pipeline together outweighed the public benefit, and the plaintiff's counsel expressly raised that argument in the trial court. b. The council was not prohibited under the act from considering the environmental impact of E Co.'s future, upgraded pipeline when consider- ing N Co.'s application for a certificate for the electric generating facility; the language of § 16-50p (a) (3) (B) specifies the environmental factors that the council must consider and address in its written decision, a review of the statutory scheme revealed that the act does not specify matters that the council may not consider when balancing the public benefit of the proposed facility against the harm it would cause to the environment, and this court could perceive no reason why the legislature would have wanted to prohibit the council from considering any informa- tion that would be relevant to this balancing process; accordingly, when determining whether a facility under review will have a public benefit, the council is authorized to consider the facts that that facility is interde- pendent with another facility that does not yet exist and that there is a significant likelihood that the nonexistent facility ultimately may not be approved because its harmful effects, considered together with the harmful effects of the facility under review, could outweigh the public benefit of the facilities considered as a whole; moreover, although the council cannot, as a practical matter consider the actual environmental impact of a future project, the nature and scope of which has yet to be determined, the general notion that the council should weigh the overall benefits that interdependent projects will provide to the public against their overall impact on the environment was supported by both common sense and federal case law disfavoring the use of improper segmentation. c. The council's decision not to consider the potential environmental impact of the upgraded pipeline during the proceedings on N Co.'s appli- cation for a certificate for the facility was not arbitrary and capricious: although this court disagreed with the trial court's determination that the plaintiff did not claim that combining the environmental impact of the electric generating facility with that of the upgraded pipeline would result in an increased environmental impact, the plaintiff having very clearly claimed that the sum of their effects would be greater than the effect of either project considered alone and that the cumulative effect should be weighed against the public benefit, the trial court correctly determined that the council did not improperly segment the project on the grounds that the environmental impact of the upgraded pipeline would necessarily be considered by the council in a future proceeding and that the risk and cost of failing to obtain approval of the upgraded pipeline would be borne solely by N Co., which would have to post a decommissioning bond and to develop a decommissioning plan for restoring the facility site if the council did not ultimately approve the upgraded pipeline. 3. The plaintiff could not prevail on its unpreserved claim that the trial court based its conclusion that the council and N Co. did not improperly segment the project on the incorrect assumption that, under § 16-50k (a), E Co. would be required to apply for a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need in connection with the upgraded pipeline; to the extent that the plaintiff claimed that the trial court failed to recognize that E Co. could evade the council's review by seeking review of the pipeline by another state or federal agency, the plaintiff made no such claim in the trial court, where the plaintiff's counsel expressly stated that she had every reason to believe that the council would thoroughly evaluate the environmental impacts of the pipeline and that her only concern was that the council would not be evaluating the cumulative impact of the facility and the upgraded pipeline, and, accord- ingly, any such claim was waived; moreover, any error with respect to the trial court's failure to recognize that, under § 16-50k (a), E Co. could file a petition for a declaratory ruling from the council that the upgraded pipeline would not have a substantial adverse environmental effect, rather than applying for a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need, was harmless, as the statutory and regulatory provisions governing petitions for a declaratory ruling from the council were not facially inadequate to ensure that the council would fully and fairly consider the issue, and any claim that the council would not do so in the present case was not ripe for review. (One justice concurring separately; two justices concurring in part and dissenting in part in one opinion) Argued September 10, 2020—officially released September 28, 2021

Pursuant to statute ((Rev. to 2015) § 53a-83 (c) (2) (A)), patronizing a prosti- tute is a class C felony if the individual guilty of that offense ''knew or reasonably should have known at the time of the offense that such other person . . . was the victim of conduct of another person that consti- tutes . . . trafficking in persons . . . .'' Pursuant further to statute ((Supp. 2016) § 53a-192a (a) (1)), ''[a] person is guilty of trafficking in persons when such person . . . compels or induces another person to engage in conduct involving more than one occurrence of sexual conduct with one or more third persons'' by means of fraud or coercion. Convicted of multiple counts of the felony of patronizing a prostitute and of one count of trafficking in persons as an accessory, the defendant appealed, claiming that the state had presented insufficient evidence to convict him of those offenses. The defendant's conviction stemmed from his involvement with K, whom the defendant had known for more than twenty years and had employed to perform odd jobs for him. During that time, K arranged for the defendant to meet with men K had recruited. The defendant would then engage in sexual conduct with those men for a fee. The defendant did not communicate with the men directly to coordinate their meetings. Instead, K would phone or text the defendant, sometimes including photographs of the men, to gauge his interest and then arrange for them to meet. The defendant paid the men directly but knew that K would receive a portion of the fee. Altogether, the defendant had engaged in more than 100 sexual encounters with approximately eight to ten men, several of whom testified at the defendant's trial. On appeal from the judgment of conviction, held: 1. The evidence was insufficient to convict the defendant of the felony of patronizing a prostitute, as the state did not produce sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known that the men with whom he engaged in sexual conduct for a fee were victims of K's trafficking: to prove that the defendant was guilty of patronizing a prostitute who was a victim of another person's conduct that constitutes trafficking, in violation of § 53a-83 (c), the state was required to show that the defendant knew or should have known that K compelled or induced the men to have sex with the defendant by means of fraud or coercion; in the present case, there was no direct evidence that the defendant knew that the men were trafficked in such a manner, and it was too speculative to infer that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known that K was coercing or defrauding the men into prostitution, notwithstanding the length of his relationship with K and the number of encounters that were arranged, as there was no evidence that the defendant ever witnessed or otherwise knew of K's recruitment tactics, or that he was told by any of the men that they felt forced, coerced or defrauded into engaging in sexual conduct; moreover, the state could not prevail on its claim that it could reasonably be inferred that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known that K was engaged in trafficking on the basis that the defendant employed and was wealthier than K, because, although K's trafficking venture may have depended in some part on the fees paid by the defen- dant, there was no evidence that the defendant knew anything about the expenses incurred by K in connection with that venture or that the defendant made any financial contributions thereto, aside from being one of K's frequent customers; furthermore, the fact that the men had mental health issues or were often under the influence of drugs during their encounters with the defendant was insufficient to support a finding that the defendant knew or had reason to know that K was engaged in trafficking, as there was no evidence that any of the men used drugs in front of the defendant or that he was aware of their drug use, the defendant's interactions with the men were limited, and at least one of the men hid his drug use from the defendant because he knew that the defendant would disapprove. 2. The evidence was insufficient to prove that the defendant was guilty of trafficking in persons as an accessory, as the state did not demonstrate that the defendant had the specific intent necessary for accessorial liability with respect to that offense; in light of this court's conclusion that the evidence was insufficient to prove that the defendant knew or had reason to know that the men whom K arranged for the defendant to meet were the victims of K's trafficking, a jury reasonably could not have found that the defendant knowingly and wilfully assisted K in trafficking those individuals. Argued October 14, 2020—officially released September 29, 2021