Volume 347 — Connecticut Reports

The plaintiff, who was an undergraduate student at Yale College, sought to recover damages in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut in connection with statements the defendant D, a classmate of the plaintiff, made during a disciplinary hearing conducted by the named defendant university's committee on sexual misconduct (commit- tee). In 2015, D accused the plaintiff of sexually assaulting her in her dormitory, and the university suspended the plaintiff. The committee, however, stayed the disciplinary proceedings against the plaintiff pend- ing the outcome of a criminal case that the state had filed against him. The plaintiff subsequently was acquitted on multiple counts of sexual assault, and, in 2018, he resumed full-time student status at Yale. Shortly thereafter, however, as a result of the reporting in a student newspaper of additional allegations of sexual assault involving the plaintiff, the plaintiff agreed to undergo a mental health consultation, but he refused a request that he meet with university administrators. Subsequently, the university again suspended the plaintiff on the ground that it was necessary for the safety and well-being of the plaintiff and the university community. Thereafter, the committee convened a hearing in connection with D's 2015 sexual assault complaint. At the hearing, D, who had since graduated, provided a statement via teleconference, but she did not testify under oath or provide any sworn statement. The plaintiff and his counsel were not permitted in the hearing room when the hearing panel questioned D and, instead, listened to an audio feed from an anteroom. The plaintiff's counsel was not permitted to speak, question D or any other witness, or raise objections, and the hearing panel denied the plaintiff's request for a recording or transcript of the hearing. Addition- ally, the committee's procedures allowed the parties to submit questions that they wanted the hearing panel to ask and to request that the panel call witnesses to testify, but the panel had the sole discretion to reject the proposed questions or witnesses. The university ultimately expelled the plaintiff. In his complaint filed in the District Court, the plaintiff alleged, inter alia, defamation and tortious interference with business relations as to D in connection with the sexual assault allegations that she had made during the disciplinary proceedings. He also alleged that D had made false accusations in an effort to have him expelled as part of the MeToo political movement and a personal vendetta stemming from D's alleged romantic advances toward the plaintiff. The District Court, however, granted D's motion to dismiss the plaintiff's claims, concluding that the disciplinary proceedings were quasi-judicial in nature and that D, therefore, enjoyed absolute immunity under Connecti- cut law for any statements that she had made in the course of those proceedings. The plaintiff appealed from the District Court's granting of D's motion to dismiss to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which concluded that the outcome of the plaintiff's appeal depended on whether the absolute immunity afforded in connec- tion with quasi-judicial proceedings extends to proceedings of nongov- ernmental entities and certified certain questions to this court regarding the requirements that must be satisfied for a proceeding to be deemed quasi-judicial for the purpose of affording absolute immunity to proceed- ing participants, whether the disciplinary proceedings at issue properly were recognized as quasi-judicial, and, if not, whether Connecticut law extends qualified immunity to D for statements that she had made during the disciplinary proceedings. Held: 1. This court addressed the requirements that must be satisfied for an adjudicative proceeding to be recognized as quasi-judicial: a. A proceeding is quasi-judicial for the purpose of affording its partici- pants absolute immunity when the proceeding is specifically authorized by law, the entity conducting the proceeding applies law to fact in an adjudicatory manner, the proceeding contains adequate procedural safe- guards, and there is a public policy justification for encouraging absolute immunity for proceeding participants: A review of this court's case law revealed that a threshold requirement of any quasi-judicial proceeding is that the proceeding must be specifically authorized by law, meaning that the proceeding is governed by or con- ducted pursuant to a state or federal statute, and that requirement was consistent with the purposes of absolute immunity insofar as the imposi- tion of absolute immunity is intended to be a public benefit and a societal necessity, and a proceeding that is not specifically authorized by or conducted pursuant to law provides little foundation for a court to determine that the public has an interest in encouraging participation and unfettered candor in the proceeding. Moreover, in Priore v. Haig (344 Conn. 636), which was decided after the Second Circuit certified questions to this court, this court explained that a quasi-judicial proceeding is one in which the entity conducting the proceeding has the power of discretion in applying the law to the facts within a framework that contains procedural protections against defamatory statements, and that courts charged with determining whether a proceeding is quasi-judicial in nature may consider, in addition to the six factors set forth in Kelley v. Bonney (221 Conn. 549), any other factors that are relevant to the particular proceeding, including whether there are procedural safeguards in place to ensure the reliability of the information presented at the proceeding and the authority of the entity to regulate the proceeding, and courts must carefully scrutinize whether there is a sound public policy justification for affording absolute immunity in any given context. b. With respect to the law to fact requirement, the entity conducting the proceeding must apply some form of public law, rather than its own internal policies, to facts in rendering an adjudicatory decision: The public law that the entity applies may be constitutional, statutory, administrative, municipal, or common law, so long as it is promulgated by a public official or entity, and the application of the law must either be subject to judicial review or to alteration or repeal by a public official or entity. Accordingly, although a private entity may adopt publicly created law to govern its affairs, the law applied must be controlled and formulated by the public and be designed to benefit the greater public, and, when an entity creates and applies only its own internal policies, there is a lack of the necessary components of public participation and approval to characterize its proceedings as quasi-judicial for the purpose of affording participants absolute immunity. c. A quasi-judicial proceeding, for the purpose of affording absolute immunity, requires sufficient procedural safeguards to ensure reliability and to promote fundamental fairness, and, the more robust the safe- guards, the more likely the proceeding will be deemed quasi-judicial: This court reviewed its case law, especially Priore, and identified various procedural safeguards that it has considered in determining whether a proceeding is quasi-judicial, including whether the declarant testifies under oath or certifies to the truth of his or her statements, whether there is an opportunity to cross-examine witnesses or to hold declarants accountable for false or misleading statements, whether the accused individual received notice, whether there is a right to appeal the adjudica- tor's decision, and, relatedly, whether there is an adequate record of the proceeding. d. In determining whether a proceeding is quasi-judicial, a court should consider the factors enumerated in Kelley, but it need not conclude that they are dispositive: The Kelley factors, which concern the various powers of the entity conducting the proceeding and which were intended to assist in the determination of whether a proceeding is quasi-judicial in nature, are not exclusive and supplement and function in addition to the other procedural safeguards that this court identified in Priore. e. In determining whether a proceeding is quasi-judicial, a court must always carefully scrutinize whether there is a sound public policy justifi- cation for the application of absolute immunity in any particular context: Courts should consider public policy, and the attendant balancing of the public interest of encouraging public participation with the private interest of protecting individuals from false and malicious statements, in addition to the law to fact requirement and the Kelley factors, such that, even if an entity applies law to facts in a proceeding with adequate procedural safeguards, the proceeding should not be deemed quasi-judi- cial for purposes of conferring absolute immunity on its participants if there is no discernable public policy supporting absolute immunity for those participants. 2. The disciplinary proceeding at issue was not quasi-judicial for the purpose of affording absolute immunity to D's statements because it lacked sufficient procedural safeguards necessary to ensure the reliability of the information presented: a. As a threshold matter, this court recognized that the disciplinary proceeding was specifically authorized by statute (§ 10a-55m (b)), pursu- ant to which each institution of higher education in Connecticut is required to adopt policies regarding sexual assault, including policies providing for an investigation and disciplinary proceedings for allegations of sexual violence, and policies requiring that, if a disciplinary hearing is held, certain procedures be followed. b. Nonetheless, even if this court assumed that the hearing panel that conducted the plaintiff's disciplinary proceeding satisfied the law to fact requirement, the collective absence of certain features during the proceeding led this court to conclude that the proceeding did not have adequate safeguards to ensure reliability and promote fundamental fair- ness: D did not testify under oath or certify to the truth of her statements, she could not have been disciplined for failing to testify truthfully because she had graduated from Yale before the hearing, and those shortcomings undermined the reliability of D's statements in view of how fundamental the oath requirement is to the reliability of the information presented. The committee's procedures, which vested the hearing panel with discre- tion to ask the questions submitted by the plaintiff, did not afford the plaintiff or his counsel a meaningful opportunity to cross-examine or otherwise to confront D in real time, there was nothing in the record to indicate that the hearing panel varied from its procedures in a manner that afforded the plaintiff fundamental fairness, those procedures ham- pered the plaintiff's ability to ask legitimate questions or sequence ques- tions in a way that he believed would have tested the veracity of D's testimony, and, in view of the importance that the opportunity to mean- ingfully cross-examine adverse witnesses has to the truth-seeking func- tion of any judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding, the plaintiff was denied a fundamental procedural protection inherent in such proceedings. Likewise, the committee's procedures did not afford the parties a reason- able opportunity to call witnesses, insofar as the parties could not inde- pendently call a witness but were required to submit names to the hearing panel, which had the sole discretion to decide whether to call those proposed witnesses for questioning, and, therefore, failed to comport with the protections typical of quasi-judicial proceedings. Moreover, although the plaintiff was accompanied by counsel at the disciplinary hearing, the committee's procedures prohibiting counsel from submitting documents or arguing on the plaintiff's behalf, raising objections, or participating in the questioning of witnesses materially limited the assistance of counsel to the point that counsel was effectively rendered irrelevant, and those restrictions, although not dispositive, also supported the conclusion that the disciplinary proceeding was not quasi-judicial. Furthermore, there was no adequate record of the proceeding because the committee's procedures did not require the keeping of record state- ments, testimony, or questions, the hearing panel specifically denied the plaintiff's request that it make a transcript or other electronic recording of the hearing for the purpose of further review, the plaintiff's ability to appeal was severely constrained by the lack of a transcript or recording, and the restriction was especially prejudicial in light of the fact that the plaintiff's counsel was not permitted to object when members of the hearing panel allegedly assumed facts not in evidence or otherwise vio- lated core evidentiary principles. 3. A qualified, rather than an absolute, privilege is available to alleged victims of sexual assault who report their abuse to proper authorities at institu- tions of higher education, but the allegations of malice in the plaintiff's complaint were sufficient to defeat D's entitlement to qualified immunity as a matter of law at the motion to dismiss stage of the proceeding: a. The public policy of this state, as articulated in § 10a-55m, supported a qualified privilege for statements made by alleged victims of sexual assault to proper authorities at institutions of higher education: The legislature had responded aggressively to address concerns sur- rounding the issue of hesitation by victims to report sexual misconduct on college campuses when it enacted a series of measures reflecting a strong public commitment to protecting such victims, those measures served to encourage alleged victims to report claims of sexual violence and to enable them to obtain justice with dignity and privacy, and, in view of the legitimate public interests articulated by the legislature, it was appropriate to afford a qualified privilege to the statements of alleged victims of sexual assault who report their abuse to proper authorities at institutions of higher education. b. Accepting the factual allegations in the plaintiff's complaint as true and drawing all inferences in the plaintiff's favor, as the court was required to do at the motion to dismiss stage, this court concluded that the plaintiff alleged sufficient facts to establish that D acted with malice when making the statements at issue so as to defeat D's qualified privilege at this stage of the plaintiff's federal action: The plaintiff alleged in his complaint that D had made romantic advances toward him, that she initially told a campus health care worker that she had engaged in consensual unprotected sex, that she reported a sexual assault only because she was ashamed of her sexual advances, and that she was encouraged by the larger political movement waged against the plaintiff, and, on the basis of those allegations, a reasonable inference could be drawn that D knowingly fabricated claims of sexual assault against the plaintiff. Nevertheless, this court observed that a more complete factual record could warrant revisiting the issue of D's qualified privilege at a later stage of the proceedings, such as at the summary judgment stage or if and when the case is submitted to the jury. Argued October 3, 2022—officially released June 27, 2023

The plaintiff electric suppliers appealed to the trial court from the final decision of the defendant, the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA), which imposed certain geographic and marketing restrictions on a renewable energy product known as a voluntary renewable offer (VRO). Electric suppliers serving Connecticut must demonstrate that a minimum percentage of the electricity that they supply is generated by specific types of renewable energy sources. To comply with these minimum standards, electric suppliers can purchase renewable energy credits (RECs), which represent renewable energy produced by third- party generators. PURA had previously established a program allowing customers to support the development of renewable energy sources beyond the minimum standards required. Pursuant to that program, electric suppliers began to offer their customers VROs, whereby the supplier would sell electric generation to the customer and promise to obtain more RECs than are needed to meet the minimum standards, thus allowing the supplier to market its product as more environmentally sound and to command higher prices. Thereafter, in 2020, PURA issued a final decision, establishing the geographic and marketing restrictions on VROs at issue in the present case. The geographic restriction prohib- ited VROs from containing RECs sourced outside of a particular, permit- ted control area, which was comprised of all or part of twenty states in and to the south and west of New England, as well as the District of Columbia. This restriction was based on PURA's finding that air quality in Connecticut is significantly and adversely affected by fossil fuel production to the southwest of the New England airshed and that displacing demand for fossil fuel plants in the permitted control area would provide environmental benefits to Connecticut, whereas displac- ing such demand outside of that area would not. The marketing restric- tion required electric suppliers to provide clear language informing consumers that a VRO is backed by RECs but is not itself renewable energy. The trial court upheld PURA's final decision. In doing so, it rejected the plaintiffs' claim that the geographic and marketing restric- tions violated the dormant commerce clause of the United States consti- tution. The trial court relied on a recent case, Allco Finance Ltd. v. Klee (861 F.3d 82), in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected a dormant commerce clause challenge to PURA's geo- graphic restriction on the RECs used to satisfy the minimum standards, and reasoned that the challenge to that marketing restriction failed because the plaintiffs had not established a common regulatory scheme sufficient to create a dormant commerce clause issue or that the inciden- tal burdens imposed by the restriction clearly exceeded the local gains. The trial court further concluded that the plaintiffs had waived their claims that the marketing restriction violated their constitutional right to free speech and that PURA's final decision violated their constitutional right to freely contract, insofar as the restrictions would disrupt the expectations and obligations of Connecticut customers and suppliers who had entered into contracts containing automatic renewal provi- sions, because the plaintiffs had not raised those claims before PURA during the administrative proceedings. Finally, the court rejected the plaintiffs' claim that PURA had violated the procedural requirements of the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act (§ 4-166 et seq.) by improperly relying on certain comments from the Office of Consumer Counsel and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection that were ''nonevidence'' to support its findings and conclusions and by failing to make the parties aware of the information on which it would rely to support its final decision. On the plaintiffs' appeal from the trial court's judgment, held: 1. The trial court correctly concluded that the challenged geographic and marketing restrictions did not violate the dormant commerce clause: a. The plaintiffs could not prevail on their claim that the geographic restriction impermissibly discriminated against interstate commerce, insofar as the restriction burdened renewable generating facilities located outside of the permitted control area by denying them access to Connecticut's voluntary renewable market, while allowing generating facilities located within that area access to that market: This court concluded that the standard applicable to the plaintiffs' claim was not strict scrutiny but, rather, the deferential balancing test articu- lated by the United States Supreme Court in Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc. (397 U.S. 137), for laws that are nondiscriminatory but nonetheless adversely and incidentally affect interstate commerce, and, under that test, a law will be sustained unless the burden imposed on interstate commerce is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits. In concluding that the Pike balancing test applied, this court utilized the framework set forth in the Second Circuit's decision in Allco Finance Ltd., and this court determined that the geographic restriction did not facially discriminate against electric generators outside of the permitted control area because those generators and generators within the permit- ted control area were not similarly situated for purposes of the commerce clause, and that the Connecticut market should be given controlling significance because Connecticut has an important and legitimate inter- est in promoting increased production of renewable power generation in the region, which would further the state's interest in improving the natural environment and, in turn, would serve to protect the health and safety of Connecticut residents, whereas RECs generated outside of the permitted control area would have little to no effect on Connecticut's environment. Moreover, the RECs generated outside of the permitted control area could still be sold to any Connecticut entity wishing to purchase them at whatever price the market would bear, contrary to the plaintiffs' arguments, RECs for the voluntary renewable program could not be generated anywhere if such credits were to further this state's clean energy goals, the voluntary nature of the VRO program did not render the RECs generated in the permitted control area, which helped to advance this state's environmental goals, the same as those generated outside of that area, which have little to no environmental benefit to Connecticut, and the determination of whether the geographic restriction actually advanced the state's environmental goals was a consideration better suited for PURA or the legislature than for this court. b. The plaintiffs could not prevail on their claim that the marketing restriction imposed a disproportionate burden on interstate commerce by creating marketing requirements that substantially conflicted with a common regulatory scheme: Under Pike, which, as the parties agreed, governed the plaintiffs' chal- lenge to the marketing restriction, a nondiscriminatory state regulation might impose a disproportionate burden on interstate commerce, in violation of the dormant commerce clause, if the regulation is in substan- tial conflict with a common regulatory scheme in place in other states, but there must be an actual conflict between the challenged regulation and those in place in other states, and pointing to a risk of conflicting regulatory regimes in multiple states, or increased compliance costs for firms doing business in more than one state, is not enough. In the present case, even if it was assumed that there existed a common regulatory scheme comprised of federal and sister state law and that the marketing restriction differed from the marketing requirements in other states, as the plaintiffs argued, such a regulatory scheme was not in substantial conflict with the marketing restriction at issue because, to the extent necessary, the plaintiffs could comply with both PURA's marketing restriction and the relevant federal guidelines, and, even if PURA's marketing restriction differed from those of other states, it had no impact on, and did not actually conflict with the implementation of, such other marketing restrictions. Moreover, the plaintiffs did not clearly articulate the purported burden that the marketing restriction imposed on interstate commerce, they did not claim that the marketing restriction would prohibit them from doing business in other states, and the only burden that this court could con- ceive, namely, that there would be increased costs resulting from the need to market VROs differently in Connecticut, was not clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits of improving consumer transpar- ency and furthering this state's clean energy goals. 2. This court declined to consider the merits of the plaintiffs' claims involving their constitutional rights to free speech and to freely contract because they were not raised before PURA during the administrative proceedings and, accordingly, were not adequately preserved for review: The exhaustion of administrative remedies doctrine, which implicates the court's subject matter jurisdiction, typically applies when a party has completely bypassed an available administrative process, whereas, when a party has availed itself of the administrative proceeding but seeks to raise new claims for the first time on appeal, this court generally applies the nonjurisdictional, prudential principle that an appellate tribunal is not required to consider a claim unless it was distinctly raised during the administrative proceeding. In the present case, the plaintiffs did not entirely bypass the available administrative proceedings but, rather, failed to raise their free speech and contract clause claims before PURA during those proceedings, and, accordingly, such a failure did not constitute a failure to exhaust adminis- trative remedies. Nevertheless, the plaintiffs' failure to raise their claims during the admin- istrative proceeding deprived PURA of the opportunity to consider them while PURA was developing its final decision and prevented the parties from developing a record regarding those claims, particularly insofar as the plaintiffs never introduced any of the contracts between energy suppliers and consumers that purportedly were infringed by the restric- tions, and, thus, those claims were not adequately preserved for appel- late review. Moreover, to the extent the plaintiffs argued that it would have been futile to raise their claims before PURA because they were constitutional in nature and PURA did not have the authority to decide such claims, this court disagreed, concluding that it is not futile to raise a constitu- tional claim when, as in the present case, the claim challenges the action of the administrative agency, as the agency has the authority to cure any potential constitutional defect with its proposed regulations or may abandon its proposed regulatory changes altogether if those changes cannot be modified in a manner that would address any potential consti- tutional defect. 3. The plaintiffs could not prevail on their claims that PURA violated their procedural rights under the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act and that their substantial rights were prejudiced: With respect to the plaintiffs' contention that PURA violated the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act by relying on nonevidence to support its findings and conclusions, namely, the comments from the Office of Consumer Counsel and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, each comment was submitted prior to the hearing, the plain- tiffs failed to raise any objection to the comments at the hearing, and the plaintiffs could have asked, but did not ask, that those statements be offered by a witness and could have provided, but did not provide, evidence to rebut the comments. With respect to the plaintiffs' contention that they were not aware of certain information on which PURA would rely in issuing its final deci- sion, although this court emphasized that PURA should have disclosed that it intended to take notice of certain scientific facts within its special- ized knowledge, this court could not conclude that the plaintiffs satisfied their burden of demonstrating that PURA had violated their procedural rights under the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act or that any viola- tion prejudiced their substantial rights, insofar as the plaintiffs had the opportunity to respond to the testimony of, and to cross-examine, a witness who testified regarding airflow into Connecticut, and to respond to PURA's final decision, which included the challenged factual finding and which referenced PURA's earlier decisions in which it reached the same conclusion. Argued December 15, 2022—officially released July 4, 2023

Pursuant to the rules of practice (§ 23-18 (a)), in any action to foreclose a mortgage, ''where no defense as to the amount of the mortgage debt is interposed, such debt may be proved by presenting to the judicial author- ity the original note and mortgage, together with the affidavit of the plaintiff . . . stating what amount, including interest to the date of the hearing, is due . . . .'' The plaintiff bank sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property owned by the named defendant, M, after he defaulted on a promissory note secured by the mortgage. After the trial court granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment as to liability, the plaintiff moved for judgment of strict foreclosure and submitted an affidavit of debt pursu- ant to Practice Book § 23-18 (a) to establish the amount of the debt owed. M objected, claiming that the affidavit contained hearsay and incorrectly calculated his municipal tax liability and the outstanding interest that he owed on the loan. The trial court granted M additional time to obtain and submit verified documentation to support his claims, but M did not do so. Instead, M filed another objection to the plaintiff's affidavit of debt, further claiming that municipal records indicated that the plaintiff had overstated M's municipal taxes and incorrectly calcu- lated the interest he owed. M's objection included an exhibit containing a year-to-year breakdown of what he claimed were the taxes actually owed on the property, which M had obtained from the records of the municipal tax collector. At a subsequent hearing to consider M's offer of proof in support of his objection, the trial court relied on the plaintiff's affidavit of debt and other submissions in rendering judgment of strict foreclosure. In doing so, the court accepted the figure that the plaintiff represented in its affidavit of debt as the amount of interest M owed, but the court did not consider, or require the plaintiff to provide, any evidence in support of that amount. M appealed to the Appellate Court, and that court reversed the trial court's judgment, concluding that the trial court had improperly relied on the plaintiff's affidavit of debt under § 23-18 (a), which provides an exception to the general prohibition on hearsay evidence when the amount of the debt is not in dispute. The Appellate Court reasoned that, because M had objected to the stated amount of the municipal taxes and interest that was due, the hearsay exception in § 23-18 (a) was inapplicable, and the plaintiff thus was required to present evidence regarding the amount of the debt beyond the affidavit it had submitted. On the granting of certification, the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held that the Appellate Court correctly concluded that the trial court improp- erly had relied on the plaintiff's affidavit of debt to establish the amount of debt M owed instead of requiring the plaintiff to present evidence as to the amount of the debt: 1. This court clarified the standards applicable to trial court rulings on the admissibility of affidavits of debt offered under Practice Book § 23-18 (a): To preclude the admission of a plaintiff's affidavit of debt pursuant to § 23-18 (a), a defense challenging the amount of the mortgage debt must be actively made, must specifically concern the amount of the debt, and must be based on some articulated legal reason or fact as to why the amount of debt asserted is incorrect. Moreover, a defense is insufficient if it focuses on matters ancillary to the amount of the debt, such as issues involving liability, that is, whether the loan is actually in default, involving the credibility of the affiant, or involving defects in the execution of the affidavit itself. 2. In the present case, M's objection to the plaintiff's affidavit of debt properly implicated the amount of the debt by challenging the plaintiff's calcula- tion of interest and municipal taxes that M allegedly owed. 3. The plaintiff could not prevail on its claim that, to properly interpose a defense within the meaning of Practice Book § 23-18 (a), an objection to an affidavit of debt must be accompanied not only by legal or factual argument, but also by supporting, admissible evidence: In construing the phrase ''where no defense as to the amount of the mortgage debt is interposed,'' as used in § 23-18 (a), this court looked to the commonly accepted usage of the words ''defense'' and ''interpose,'' and concluded that § 23-18 (a) merely requires a defendant to advance a stated reason, in law or fact, as to why the amount of the debt is incorrect, an objection clearly falls within the broad scope of the term ''interpose,'' insofar as an objection interferes with a plaintiff's ability to rely on an affidavit to prove the amount of indebtedness, this broad definition of ''interpose'' was supported by Appellate Court case law, and M's specific objection to the affidavit of debt in the present case satisfied the requirements of § 23-18 (a) because it advanced a supporting legal or factual argument, namely, that the plaintiff incorrectly calculated the interest that M owed and failed to include certain property tax abatements that the municipality had allegedly afforded M. Moreover, the plaintiff's contention that an objection to an affidavit of debt must be accompanied by supporting, admissible evidence, in addi- tion to legal or factual argument, was not supported by this state's appellate case law, and this court's construction of § 23-18 (a) as not requiring that supporting, admissible evidence accompany an objection to an affidavit of debt was consistent with the fact that it is the plaintiff in a foreclosure action that bears the burden of establishing the amount of the debt owed, and that burden remains with the plaintiff after the defendant sufficiently interposes a defense as to the amount of the debt. In the present case, M went beyond what the rules of practice required when he attached to his objection the year-to-year breakdown of what he claimed were the accurate taxes, that objection was based on an articulated reason and sufficed to prevent the trial court from relying on the plaintiff's affidavit of debt alone to support the calculation of the amount of property tax that M owed, and, although M did not provide official records from the municipal tax collector to support his calcula- tion of the amount of property tax he owed, neither this court nor the language of § 23-18 (a) has ever required a defendant to provide such evidence. Argued January 10—officially released July 4, 2023

Convicted of the crime of burglary in the second degree, the defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, claiming, inter alia, that the trial court had violated his constitutional rights to confrontation, to present a defense, and to a fair trial when it limited defense counsel's cross- examination of the victim with respect to matters pertaining to the victim's bias and motive to fabricate allegations against the defendant. The victim, who had been serving probation for a felony conviction, encountered the defendant, with whom he was acquainted, and another individual, M, at a bar, when the defendant asked the victim if he could borrow some money. The victim gave the defendant twenty dollars and remarked that he had additional money at home that he was saving for his rent. When the bar closed, they all went to the defendant's apartment, where M struck the victim several times and accused him of stealing his wrist watch. The defendant and M then ordered the victim to take them to the victim's apartment, and, when they arrived, the defendant demanded that the victim give him his money. The victim gave the defendant an envelope containing $800 in $100 and $50 bills. The defen- dant took some of the money and told the victim that he would hurt him if he contacted the police. Once the defendant and M departed, the victim called 911. A police officer responded to the call and encountered the defendant and M walking near the victim's apartment. The defendant continued to disregard the officer's multiple orders to stop and continued walking around a corner and onto a side street. A second police officer arrived on the scene, and, while that officer secured the defendant and M, the first officer searched the side street and discovered two $100 bills. In anticipation of trial, the defendant sought permission to question the victim concerning his prior felony conviction, his probationary status at the time of the incident, his arrests while on probation, and the specific conditions of his probation, which required that the victim undergo substance abuse treatment and that he not be arrested. The defendant argued that the victim's probationary status was a legitimate area of inquiry because the jury reasonably could infer from it that the victim had an interest in currying favor with the state and that the specific conditions of the victim's probation were relevant to his state of mind at the time of the incident and his motive to fabricate the allegations against the defendant. Specifically, the defendant argued that the victim was motivated to fabricate the allegations to avoid being accused of stealing M's watch and to recover the money that was taken from him as payment for M's watch. The trial court ultimately permitted defense counsel to question the victim about his prior felony conviction, his probationary status, and his financial concerns and hardships at the time of the incident but prohibited her from cross-examining the victim about his recent violation of probation, his arrests while on probation, or the specific conditions of his probation. In doing so, the trial court determined that the defendant's proffered theory in support of the pro- hibited lines of questioning, namely, that the victim had fabricated his allegations to recover the money the defendant took from him and to avoid being arrested for stealing M's watch, which could have affected his probationary status, was too speculative. The Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of conviction, concluding that, because the trial court had allowed defense counsel to conduct an extensive and robust cross-examination of the victim, during which she emphasized the vic- tim's felony probationary status and the many inconsistencies in the victim's testimony, the trial court did not violate the defendant's constitu- tional rights or otherwise abuse its discretion by limiting defense coun- sel's cross-examination. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court did not violate the defendant's constitutional rights to confrontation, to present a defense, or to a fair trial: The trial court's restriction on defense counsel's cross-examination did not foreclose her from cross-examining the victim on matters tending to show the victim's motive, bias, or interest to fabricate his allegations against the defendant but merely set reasonable limits on the scope of that inquiry, and defense counsel was permitted to expose facts from which the jury could have appropriately drawn inferences relating to the victim's credibility. Defense counsel was afforded an adequate opportunity to cross-examine the victim, which included questions about M's allegedly stolen watch and the victim's financial difficulties, and to present the defense's theory of the case, namely, that the victim was motivated to fabricate the allegations against the defendant so that he could recover the money the defendant had taken from him and avoid arrest for allegedly stealing M's watch. 2. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court had abused its discretion by limiting defense counsel's cross-examination of the victim because, even if the trial court had abused its discretion, the defendant failed to demonstrate that the error was harmful: Although the victim's testimony was critical to proving that the defendant had committed the burglary, the state's case was strong, and there was ample corroborating evidence demonstrating that the defendant had unlawfully entered and remained in the victim's apartment while placing the victim under threat of physical harm and with the intent of stealing the victim's money, and that evidence included photographs of the victim's injuries, medical records, and testimony from emergency room person- nel; M's testimony that the victim had been assaulted, that the defendant was present for the assault, and that the defendant and M walked the victim to his apartment to get his money; and dispatch call sheets, testimony from a police dispatcher, and 911 call transcripts all indicating that the victim had not led the defendant and M back to the victim's apartment voluntarily. Moreover, the defendant's conduct upon encountering the police, includ- ing his ignoring the officers' commands, his walking away from one of the officers, and his disposal of two $100 bills on the sidewalk before returning to the officers, supported the inference that the defendant had acted in that manner because the money was evidence of the burglary, and he did not want the police to find it on his person or to observe him disposing of it. Defense counsel was otherwise permitted to conduct cross-examination and to introduce evidence to adequately advance the defense's theory that the victim had fabricated the allegations against the defendant, as counsel elicited testimony from the victim that he had been convicted of a certain felony, that he was on probation, and that he faced certain financial difficulties at the time of the incident, counsel impeached the victim's credibility by highlighting the many inconsistencies in his state- ments, M's testimony provided a basis for the defendant's claim that the victim had stolen M's watch and offered him money as compensation for the theft, and defense counsel's closing argument, which drew from the testimony elicited during cross-examination of the victim and direct examination of M, demonstrated that counsel was able to cogently pres- ent the defense's theory of the case. Furthermore, there was no merit to the defendant's contention that the prosecutor's rebuttal argument that the defendant had failed to show any motive for the victim to fabricate his allegations compounded the harm allegedly caused by the trial court's limits on defense counsel's cross-examination of the victim, as the trial court mitigated any potential harm by instructing the jury that statements made by counsel during closing arguments are not evidence and by reminding the jury to draw its own conclusions concerning the credibility of the witnesses, and the prosecutor's rebuttal argument did not change the fact that defense counsel, during her own closing argument, relied on the evidence that she was able to introduce to argue that the victim had been motivated to fabricate the allegations against the defendant due to the victim's probationary status. In addition, this court could not conclude that the trial court's limits on defense counsel's cross-examination would have had any meaningful impact on the jury's verdict, as it was unlikely that testimony regarding the specific conditions of the victim's probation would have made defense counsel's presentation of the defense's theory of the case any more persuasive, as the jurors reasonably could have surmised, on the basis of their own common knowledge, that a probationer would seek to avoid arrest. Argued October 11, 2022—officially released July 11, 2023

Convicted of the crime of the sale of a narcotic substance, the defendant appealed. F, a police officer, had observed M and her boyfriend, R, engage in what F believed to be a hand-to-hand narcotic transaction with the defendant. After the transaction, F confronted M and R, and M surrendered the cocaine that she was holding in her hand. M also emptied her purse, which contained drug paraphernalia used to smoke cocaine. At the defendant's trial, M testified that she had bought cocaine from the defendant. On cross-examination, M denied that she told the defense's private investigator, P, that she had provided drugs to the defendant on the day in question. After the state rested its case, defense counsel notified the trial court that he would be calling P to testify regarding M's prior oral inconsistent statement. Defense counsel sought to introduce, but failed to disclose to the state, a memorandum P created after meeting with M months after the alleged drug sale but prior to trial. In that memorandum, P memorialized that, when he interviewed M, she admitted that she had given the defendant drugs. The trial court sanctioned the defendant for the failure to timely disclose the memoran- dum to the state by precluding him from admitting it as evidence. The defendant appealed from the judgment of conviction to the Appellate Court, claiming that the trial court had improperly imposed a discovery sanction precluding the admission of P's memorandum and had improp- erly permitted the prosecutor to elicit expert opinion testimony from P during cross-examination when P had been neither offered nor quali- fied as an expert witness. The Appellate Court concluded that any error was harmless and affirmed the judgment of conviction. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The Appellate Court correctly concluded that the trial court's improper discovery sanction precluding the admission of P's memorandum was harmless: The jury was presented with substantial, independent evidence, including physical evidence and testimony, demonstrating that the defendant had sold cocaine to M, and, therefore, this case did not turn on a credibility contest between M and P, as the defendant claimed. Moreover, although the trial court precluded the admission of P's memo- randum, defense counsel nevertheless was able to challenge M's credibil- ity on the basis of her prior, allegedly inconsistent statement to P and had ample opportunity to cross-examine witnesses and challenge physical evidence that was contrary to the defense's theory that M had given drugs to the defendant. Furthermore, the state presented a strong case, as it introduced incrimi- nating statements from M and R that they had met with the defendant to purchase drugs and that M had purchased drugs from the defendant; physical evidence, including recovered narcotics, drug paraphernalia and text messages between M and the defendant indicating M's request to purchase from the defendant; and eyewitness testimony from F confirm- ing M's and R's testimony regarding the hand-to-hand exchange with the defendant and their interaction with the police immediately thereafter. In addition, the excluded evidence was of questionable reliability, as P admitted that, when he interviewed M, she was under the influence of what he believed to be heroin, and P did not record M's statement or ask M for a written and sworn statement. Accordingly, the improper exclusion of P's memorandum did not substan- tially sway the jury's verdict. 2. The Appellate Court correctly concluded that any error in allowing the prosecutor, during cross-examination of P, to convert him into an expert witness regarding the general characteristics of the narcotics trade was harmless: Although the prosecutor's cross-examination of P regarding the general characteristics of the narcotics trade may have bolstered M's testimony that she was the buyer and, in turn, diminished the importance of P's testimony in the defendant's case, the significance of P's testimony to the defendant's case was that M told P that she had given the defendant drugs, and the prosecutor's questions about the general characteristics of the narcotics trade did not prevent the admission of or undermine P's testimony about what M had told him. Moreover, P's testimony about the general characteristics of the narcotics trade was largely cumulative of the testimony of M, R and F, P gave the jury reason to believe that he could not be relied on as an expert in the narcotics trade, as some of his answers to the prosecutor's questions did not weigh in the state's favor or reveal that he had extensive knowledge of the narcotics trade, some of P's testimony on cross-examination sup- ported the defense's theory that M was the drug dealer, and the state's case against the defendant was strong. Accordingly, the defendant did not meet his burden of proving that any error in allowing the prosecutor to convert P into an expert witness substantially swayed the jury's verdict. Argued December 14, 2022—officially released July 11, 2023

The respondent father appealed from the trial court's judgment terminating his parental rights with respect to his child, G. Shortly after G was born, the petitioner, the Commissioner of Children and Families, filed a petition of neglect, was granted temporary custody of G, and placed G in a foster home. Thereafter, using a preprinted form issued by the Judicial Branch, the petitioner filed a petition to terminate the respon- dent's parental rights pursuant to statute (§ 17a-112 (j) (3) (E)), which requires the petitioner to prove, inter alia, that the respondent's parental rights with respect to another child previously had been terminated pursuant to a petition filed by the petitioner. At trial, the petitioner's counsel presented evidence that the respondent's parental rights pre- viously had been terminated in Rhode Island. At the end of the petition- er's case, the respondent's counsel argued that the petitioner had failed, as a matter of law, to satisfy the requirements for termination set forth in § 17a-112 (j) (3) (E) because the petitioner did not present any evi- dence that the respondent's parental rights previously had been termi- nated in Connecticut. The petitioner's counsel indicated his belief that the termination petition had been amended to include grounds for termi- nation under § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (i), and, in the event it had not been amended, he moved to do so. The trial court granted counsel's oral motion to amend the petition, as well as a six week continuance of the trial to allow the respondent's counsel an opportunity to reevaluate the petitioner's position. The petitioner then filed a written motion to amend the petition to terminate the respondent's parental rights and, pursuant to the relevant rules of practice (§ 33a-1 (b)), an amended summary of the facts, both of which identified § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (ii) as the basis for termination. Under that provision, the petitioner was required to demonstrate, inter alia, that the respondent had failed to rehabilitate and that G had been in the petitioner's custody for at least fifteen months. Although the court granted the petitioner's written motion to amend, the petitioner did not amend the preprinted, form petition to reflect that the petitioner was seeking termination under § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (ii). When trial resumed after the continuance, the only additional evidence the petitioner presented was the amended summary of the facts, which repeated the original allegations and alleged that G had been in the petitioner's custody for more than fifteen months. The respondent testi- fied about his attempts to comply with the steps that would facilitate G's return to his custody but never claimed that he did not receive notice that termination was being sought under § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (ii). The trial court granted the petition to terminate the respondent's parental rights pursuant to § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (ii), finding, inter alia, that the respondent had failed to rehabilitate and that G had been in the petition- er's custody for more than fifteen months. On appeal from the trial court's judgment, the respondent claimed that his due process right to adequate notice of the grounds for terminating his parental rights was violated insofar as the petitioner was allowed to amend the termination petition after the close of evidence and insofar as his parental rights were terminated pursuant to § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (ii) when the petitioner never amended the preprinted, form petition to indicate that the petition was premised on that particular provision of the statute. Held that the respondent's due process right to adequate notice of the grounds for terminating his parental rights was not violated, as the petitioner's amended summary of the facts, along with the trial court's granting of a continuance, afforded the respondent constitutionally ade- quate notice that the petitioner had elected to rely on § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (ii) in seeking to terminate his parental rights as to G: There was no merit to the respondent's claim that principles of due process required strict compliance with certain statutory (§ 45a-715 (b) (6) and (c)) procedures and rules of practice (§ 33a-1 (a)) governing petitions to terminate parental rights, as those provisions did not clearly and unambiguously require the petitioner to amend the grounds for termination in the preprinted, form petition, rather than in the summary of the facts, in the event the trial court grants the petitioner permission to amend the termination petition. Even if this court assumed that the petitioner violated the statutory notice provisions and the rules of practice, principles of due process are not violated when the respondent parent has been provided adequate notice of the amendment to the termination petition and a reasonable opportunity to prepare a response, as the price of requiring strict compli- ance with those provisions in child dependency cases would be unaccept- ably high in light of the strong public interest in the prompt resolution of such proceedings, in which the welfare of a child is at issue and delay is inherently prejudicial. In the present case, although the petitioner's counsel initially indicated that he would be adding § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (i) as a ground for termina- tion when he orally moved to amend the termination petition, he clarified in both the amended summary of the facts and the written motion to amend the petition, which superseded the oral motion and was granted by the trial court, that § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (ii) was the specific basis for termination. Moreover, in light of the amended summary of the facts and the written motion to amend, the respondent could not reasonably have believed that, when the trial resumed after the continuance, the petitioner would seek to adjudicate the termination petition under either § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (i) or (E), especially when the pursuit of termination under § 17a- 112 (j) (3) (E) already had been shown to be unviable and when the respondent testified exclusively about his attempts to comply with the specific steps that would facilitate the return of G to his custody, which was relevant only to termination under § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (ii). Furthermore, the respondent expressed no surprise or confusion when, at the recommencement of the trial after the continuance, the petitioner's counsel indicated that he was seeking termination pursuant to the amended summary of the facts, which was premised on § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (ii). In addition, even if strict compliance with the statutory notice provisions and rules of practice was required and the petitioner's failure to strictly comply violated due process, any such violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because, to the extent the respondent claimed that he did not receive adequate notice that the petitioner would proceed under § 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (ii), the respondent did not claim that there was additional evidence on the issue of his rehabilitation that he would have presented if he had received adequate notice, the uncontroverted evidence showed that G had been in the petitioner's custody for at least fifteen months at the time of trial, and the respondent did not claim that he could produce evidence to the contrary. Argued March 29—officially released July 14, 2023

Pursuant to statute (§ 55-3), ''[n]o provision of the general statutes, not previously contained in the statutes of the state, which imposes any new obligation on any person or corporation, shall be construed to have a retrospective effect.'' In November, 2021, the debtor, C, filed a bankruptcy petition under chapter 7 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut, claiming, inter alia, a statutory (§ 52-352b (21)) homestead exemption in the amount of $250,000. The public act (P.A. 93-301) that created the homestead exemption allowed a debtor to protect up to $75,000 of the value of his or her primary residence from attachment in postjudgment or bankruptcy proceedings. Public Act 93-301, however, included a carve-out whereby the homestead exemption could not be claimed for debts accrued prior to the act's effective date of October 1, 1993. The legislature subsequently passed an amendment (P.A. 21-161), effective October 1, 2021, that repealed the previous version of § 52-352b and replaced it with a new version, which increased the homestead exemption from $75,000 to $250,000 but did not include any carve-out for preexisting debts. The trustee of the bankruptcy estate objected to C's claimed homestead exemption of $250,000, arguing that, although her bankruptcy proceeding was com- menced after October 1, 2021, all of her debts were incurred prior to that date. Relying on the principle embodied in § 55-3, the parties focused their arguments before the Bankruptcy Court on the issue of whether P.A. 21-161 enacted a procedural amendment, which presumptively applies retroactively, or a substantive amendment, which presumptively applies only prospectively. The Bankruptcy Court overruled the trustee's objection, concluding that the amendment was intended to apply retroac- tively to preexisting debts and, accordingly, that C was entitled to the $250,000 homestead exemption. The trustee appealed from the decision of the Bankruptcy Court to the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, which certified to this court a question concern- ing whether P.A. 21-161 applied retroactively or only prospectively to debts incurred by a debtor before that act took effect. Held: 1. This court concluded, as a threshold matter, that the answer to the certified question was a matter of state, rather than federal, law for choice of law purposes: Under the federal statute (11 U.S.C. § 522 (b) (3) (A)) specifying what property can be exempted from a debtor's chapter 7 bankruptcy estate, a debtor may protect ''any property that is exempt under . . . State or local law that is applicable on the date of the filing of the petition,'' and, accordingly, this court clarified that the question presented by this appeal was whether the expanded homestead exemption contained in P.A. 21- 161 was applicable to C's case, given that the expanded exemption was in effect when her bankruptcy petition was filed but not when her underlying debts were incurred. Moreover, in determining whether the applicability of a state exemption statute, as recognized under 11 U.S.C. § 522 (b) (3) (A), is a matter of federal bankruptcy law or state law, this court recognized that there is a split of federal authority on this choice of law question but assumed that the Bankruptcy Court would adhere to the rule adopted by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, pursuant to which state law governs. 2. The expanded, $250,000 homestead exemption set forth in P.A. 21-161 applies in bankruptcy proceedings filed on or after October 1, 2021, the effective date of the act, regardless of when the underlying debts accrued: a. The trustee could not prevail on his claim that the expanded homestead exemption does not apply to debts incurred prior to the effective date of P.A. 21-161: P.A. 21-161 was silent as to the accrual date of the debts that are the subject of the postjudgment or bankruptcy proceeding governed by the amended homestead exemption, nothing in the language of the act indi- cated that the legislature had intended to carve out preexisting debts from the reach of that exemption, and § 52-352b, as part of the statutory scheme that regulates postjudgment procedures, simply defines what property is exempt, that is, what property is not subject to any court order for purposes of debt collection. b. This court rejected the trustee's claim that it should find in P.A. 21- 161 an implicit carve-out for debts accrued prior to the act's October 1, 2021 effective date insofar as the legislature had included such a carve- out in P.A. 93-301: The trustee's argument that the legislature, having been aware of the carve-out language in P.A. 93-301, would have clearly indicated if it had intended not to include a similar carve-out for preexisting debts in P.A. 21-161 was unavailing because it was inconsistent with basic rules of statutory interpretation, pursuant to which the fact that the legislature included a special carve-out for preexisting debts in the original home- stead exemption but did not include one in P.A. 21-161 indicated an intent not to exclude preexisting debts from the scope of the expanded homestead exemption set forth in P.A. 21-161. c. There was no merit to the trustee's claim that this court should find in P.A. 21-161 an implicit carve-out for debts accrued prior to the act's October 1, 2021 effective date because a failure to do so would improperly give the act retroactive effect without the express authorization of the legislature: Although the parties' arguments centered primarily around the issue of whether P.A. 21-161 was a procedural or substantive amendment for purposes of § 55-3, which applies only if the amendment has a ''retrospec- tive effect,'' this court concluded that § 55-3 did not apply to the present case because the increased homestead exemption set forth in P.A. 21-161 did not constitute retroactive legislation when C's bankruptcy proceeding was initiated after the effective date of the act. Moreover, because it is not always apparent whether a new law has a ''retrospective effect,'' especially when the statutory changes solely alter the future, rather than the past, legal consequences of previous transac- tions or occurrences, this court looked to the approaches taken by the United States Supreme Court in Landgraf v. USI Film Products (511 U.S. 244), in which the majority concluded that a new statute has a retroactive effect if it impairs established rights of the parties, imposes new duties or obligations that they could not reasonably have anticipated, or disturbs other reasonable, settled expectations, and in which the concurrence concluded that the focus of the retroactivity inquiry should not be on whether the amendment affects vested rights but, rather, on the relevant activity that the amendment regulates, and clarified that both approaches were part of a proper retroactivity analysis under Con- necticut law. The application of P.A. 21-161 to preexisting debts would not constitute a retroactive application under either of the Landgraf approaches. Specifically, under the majority's approach in Landgraf, there was no claim that P.A. 21-161 imposed any new duties or obligations on the parties, and applying the increased homestead exemption to preexisting debts would not be fundamentally unfair, insofar as it allegedly would frustrate the settled expectations of unsecured lenders who extended credit to C while the lower, $75,000 exemption was in place, because there was no evidence in the record that C's unsecured creditors ever considered the equity in C's home or relied on the size of the homestead exemption when they decided to extend C credit, and the creditors were presumed to have been aware that the legislature could increase the size of the homestead exemption at any time and that their rights might otherwise be adversely impacted by changes in federal or state law. Furthermore, under the concurrence's approach in Landgraf, applying P.A. 21-161 to preexisting debts would not qualify as a retroactive applica- tion of the law because the accrual of those debts was not the primary or principal activity that the act sought to regulate, insofar as § 52-352b is part of a chapter of the General Statutes that deals with postjudgment procedures, neither the original 1993 homestead exemption nor the 2021 amendment made any reference to the source or nature of the underlying debts involved, instead focusing entirely on the enforcement process, and, accordingly, it was clear that the purpose of the 2021 amendment was to specify the exemptions that were presently available to the debtor. Argued December 12, 2022—officially released July 18, 2023

The respondent father appealed to the Appellate Court from the judgment of the trial court, which granted the motion for reinstatement of guardian- ship rights filed by the petitioner mother with respect to their minor son, P. In its decision on the petitioner's motion, the trial court stated that parents are entitled to a presumption that reinstatement of guardianship rights is in the best interests of the child. On appeal to the Appellate Court, the respondent claimed, inter alia, that the presumption to which the trial court referred in its decision does not apply in cases between two parents. The Appellate Court agreed with the respondent but never- theless affirmed the trial court's judgment because, after reviewing the record, the court discerned no indication in the record that the trial court had in fact applied the presumption. On the granting of certification, the respondent appealed to this court. Held: 1. This court concluded that it did not need to address the issue of whether the presumption that reinstatement of guardianship rights is in the best interests of the child applies in cases such as the present one, in which both parties are the parents of the minor child, insofar as both parties agreed with the Appellate Court's conclusion that the presumption does not apply in such cases. 2. The Appellate Court correctly concluded that, notwithstanding the trial court's statement in its decision that parents are entitled to a presump- tion that reinstatement of guardianship rights is in the best interests of the child, the trial court did not apply the presumption but, rather, applied the proper best interests balancing test: This court had ordered the trial court to issue an articulation to clarify whether it applied the presumption, accepted the trial court's unequivocal response that it did not apply the presumption, and, after reviewing the trial court's decision, concluded that the trial court had determined that reinstatement of guardianship was in the best interests of P by considering and applying the factors set forth in the statute ((Rev. to 2021) § 46b-56 (c)) governing the consideration of the best interests of a child in making or modifying custody orders. Argued May 1—officially released July 19, 2023

Pursuant to the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act (UAPA) (§ 4-166 et seq.), only an agency's final decision in a contested case is appealable to the Superior Court. Pursuant further to the UAPA (§ 4-166 (4)), a ''contested case'' is ''a proceed- ing . . . in which the legal rights, duties or privileges of a party are required by state statute or regulation to be determined by an agency after an opportunity for hearing or in which a hearing is in fact held . . . .'' The plaintiff, a nonprofit substance abuse treatment facility in Kent, appealed to the Superior Court from the decision of the named defendant, the Department of Public Health, which approved the application of the defendant B Co. for a certificate of need to establish another substance abuse treatment facility in Kent. In 2017, B Co. submitted its application to the Office of Health Care Access (OHCA). Thereafter, the OHCA sent a letter to B Co. notifying it that a public hearing on its application would be held on a certain date. The letter stated that a mandatory hearing would be held pursuant to statute ((Rev. to 2017) § 19a-639a (e)) if, after the hearing notice was published in a newspaper, the OCHA received a properly filed request for a hearing from the requisite number of members of the public. The letter further stated that the hearing notice was being issued pursuant to § 19a-639a (f) (2), which provides that the OHCA ''may'' hold a public hearing with respect to any certificate of need application. Included with the letter was a copy of the hearing notice, which advised the public that any person who wished to request status in the public hearing could do so by filing a written petition. Prior to the scheduled hearing, the plaintiff filed a notice of appearance with the OHCA and submitted a petition requesting to be designated as an intervenor with full procedural rights to oppose B Co.'s application, including the opportunity to call witnesses, to present evidence, and to cross-examine B Co.'s witnesses. The OHCA granted the plaintiff's request for intervenor status. At the outset of the public hearing, the hearing officer stated that the hearing would be conducted as a contested case. Subsequently, B Co. and the department entered into a settlement agreement, constituting a final order, in which B Co.'s application was approved subject to certain conditions. On appeal to the Superior Court, the plaintiff claimed that the department had abused its discretion when it approved B Co.'s application. The trial court rendered judgment dis- missing the plaintiff's appeal, concluding that the department's approval was not a final decision in a contested case and, therefore, that the court did not have subject matter jurisdiction to consider the plaintiff's administrative appeal. The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court, which affirmed the trial court's judgment. The Appellate Court con- cluded that the public hearing on B Co.'s application was discretionary rather than mandatory because the OHCA's letter to B Co. stated that the hearing notice was being issued pursuant to § 19a-639a (f) (2), which provides that the OHCA may hold a hearing but does not require it to do so, and that the mere opportunity for a hearing, coupled with the holding of a hearing, in the absence of a specific statute or regulation under which the hearing was required to be held, was insufficient to constitute a contested case. The Appellate Court also concluded that the plaintiff's petition requesting intervenor status in the public hearing was insufficient to convert the hearing into a mandatory hearing. The Appellate Court reasoned that the petition requesting intervenor status did not expressly request a hearing or reference § 19a-639a (e), which requires the OHCA to hold a public hearing if, inter alia, an individual representing an entity with five or more people submits a written request for a hearing. Rather, the plaintiff's petition requested intervenor status in a hearing that had already been scheduled, and it did not expressly state that the plaintiff was an entity with five or more people and, thus, that it satisfied the numerical requirements of § 19a-639a (e). On the granting of certification, the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held that the Appellate Court incorrectly concluded that the plaintiff's peti- tion requesting intervenor status in the public hearing on B Co.'s certifi- cate of need application was not a legally sufficient request for a public hearing for purposes of § 19a-639a (e), and, accordingly, the depart- ment's decision to approve B Co.'s application was a final decision in a contested case: Contrary to the defendants' contention that, to satisfy § 19a-639a (e), the plaintiff was required to expressly state in its petition to intervene that it was an entity with five or more people, that statute does not impose such a requirement but merely provides that an entity must be an entity with five or more people to be entitled to a hearing, and it was undisputed that the plaintiff satisfied that numerical requirement and that the OHCA was fully aware of that fact. Moreover, the plaintiff's petition to intervene was a written request for a public hearing within the meaning of § 19a-639a (e) because, although it did not expressly request a public hearing, it clearly requested that the plaintiff be afforded an opportunity to call witnesses, to present evidence, and to cross-examine B Co.'s witnesses, which, unmistakably, is a request to participate in a hearing and, of necessity, involves conduct that can occur only at a hearing, and, in the absence of express language in § 19a-639a (e) mandating that the request for a hearing take a particular form or include certain talismanic language, this court declined to read any such requirement into the statute. Furthermore, given the undisputed fact that the OHCA had already sched- uled a public hearing on B Co.'s application, this court discerned no ambiguity with respect to the plaintiff's request because, when the OHCA has already scheduled a public hearing, it is only logical that a party wanting to oppose the application would request intervenor status in that hearing, not request another or a different hearing, and that was precisely what the public notice instructed the plaintiff to do if it wanted to be heard on the plaintiff's application. Argued November 22, 2022—officially released July 25, 2023

Pursuant to statute (§ 8-265ee (a)), ''a mortgagee who desires to foreclose upon a mortgage . . . shall give notice to each homeowner who is a mortgagor by registered, or certified mail, postage prepaid at the address of the property which is secured by the mortgage. No such mortgagee may commence a foreclosure of a mortgage prior to mailing such notice.'' Pursuant further to statute (§ 8-265dd (b)), ''no judgment of strict foreclosure nor any judgment ordering a foreclosure sale shall be entered in any action instituted by the mortgagee . . . for the foreclosure of an eligible mortgage unless . . . notice to the homeowner who is a mortgagor has been given by the mortgagee in accordance with section 8-265ee and the time for response has expired . . . .'' The plaintiff bank sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property owned by the defendants. The named defendant, E, had executed a promissory note in favor of the plaintiff's predecessor, F Co., that was secured by the mortgage. The defendant O, who is E's former spouse, was not a signatory to the note. E subsequently failed to make required payments on the note, and, in 2016, F Co. sent separate notices of default to both E and O. Pursuant to § 8-265ee (a), F Co. also sent E and O notices that advised them of the resources available under the state's Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program (EMAP), which is designed to assist homeowners in avoiding foreclosure by providing a mechanism and funding for emergency mortgage and lien assistance payments. Thereafter, the plaintiff became the payee of the note as successor by virtue of its merger with F Co., and it commenced a foreclosure action against E and O that was subsequently dismissed. The plaintiff then commenced a second foreclosure action against E and O, the present action, which was based on the same default that was the subject of the earlier foreclosure action. The trial court subsequently granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment as to liability and rendered judgment of strict foreclosure. O appealed to the Appellate Court, claim- ing that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the present foreclosure action because the plaintiff had failed to comply with the EMAP notice requirement contained in § 8-265ee. The plaintiff countered that § 8-265ee was satisfied when EMAP notices were sent to E and O in 2016. The Appellate Court agreed with O and concluded that, in accordance with its recent decision in MTGLQ Investors, L.P. v. Ham- mons (196 Conn. App. 636), the EMAP notice requirement is jurisdic- tional, the particular mortgagee that wishes to foreclose must be the same entity that sends the EMAP notice, § 8-265ee requires that each foreclosure action be preceded by the sending of an EMAP notice, and, accordingly, the plaintiff could not rely on the 2016 EMAP notice sent by F Co. before the earlier foreclosure action was commenced. The Appellate Court reversed the judgment of the trial court and remanded the case with direction to render judgment dismissing the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. On the granting of certification, the plaintiff appealed to this court. Held: 1. The Appellate Court incorrectly concluded that the EMAP notice require- ment set forth in § 8-265ee (a) is subject matter jurisdictional, but, contrary to the plaintiff's claim, that requirement is a mandatory condi- tion precedent to the filing of a foreclosure action: a. This court concluded, after reviewing the language of § 8-265ee (a), that that statute creates a mandatory obligation, on the part of the mortgagee, to provide an EMAP notice to the homeowner prior to initiat- ing a foreclosure action, and the mortgagee's failure to provide such notice means that the mortgagee has failed to satisfy a condition prece- dent and, therefore, has failed to allege a claim on which relief can be granted: The plain language of § 8-265ee (a) provides that a mortgagee who seeks to foreclose a mortgage ''shall'' give notice to a homeowner, and, although the use of the word ''shall'' does not invariably create a mandatory duty, the language of § 8-265ee supported O's position that the statute creates a mandatory obligation that must be satisfied prior to the mortgagee's initiation of the foreclosure action, as the EMAP notice requirement is not merely one of convenience but, rather, relates to the substantive rights of and resources available to homeowners under the EMAP provi- sions, § 8-265ee and a related EMAP provision, § 8-265dd, both articulate the consequences for failing to give notice or for failing to allow the required waiting period to pass prior to initiating a foreclosure action, and the legislature made it clear that the burden rests with the mortgagee to file an affidavit to demonstrate compliance with the EMAP notice requirement. b. Contrary to the Appellate Court's conclusion, the EMAP notice require- ment does not implicate a court's subject matter jurisdiction: This court's prior case law has distinguished between conditions imposed on the commencement of a statutorily created right of action, which generally are deemed to be jurisdictional, and conditions imposed on a common-law action, which are deemed to be nonjurisdictional, a mort- gage foreclosure is a common-law cause of action, even though Connecti- cut's foreclosure system is a combination of both statutory law and common law, foreclosure related statutes did not supplant the common- law cause of action itself, there was no intent on the part of the legislature to abrogate this common-law process or to change the jurisdiction of the courts in § 8-265ee, and, accordingly, the EMAP notice requirement in § 8-265ee is not jurisdictional. Moreover, this court overruled the Appellate Court's decision in MTGLQ Investors, L.P., to the extent that it held that the EMAP notice require- ment is jurisdictional. Furthermore, contrary to the claim of the amicus curiae, this court's determination that the EMAP notice requirement does not implicate subject matter jurisdiction did not frustrate the legislative intent of cer- tain 2008 amendments to the EMAP notice requirement statute, as the public policy of informing homeowners of their rights and the resources available to them to assist in avoiding foreclosure is preserved by this court's holding that the EMAP notice requirement is a mandatory condi- tion precedent. 2. The Appellate Court correctly concluded that the plaintiff had failed to satisfy its EMAP notice obligation under § 8-265ee because, even though F Co. sent an EMAP notice to O in 2016, prior to the commencement of the earlier foreclosure action, the plaintiff never sent a new EMAP notice prior to the initiation of the second, and wholly separate, present foreclosure action: Although § 8-265ee was ambiguous as to whether a separate EMAP notice must be provided prior to the initiation of each foreclosure action, the legislative history surrounding the enactment of EMAP made clear that protections for homeowners was the impetus behind imposing more stringent requirements on lenders, EMAP notice serves a critical role in protecting homeowners by informing them of the resources available to assist in avoiding foreclosure and what rights homeowners have in accessing those resources, a homeowner's right to access EMAP does not end after a first foreclosure action is dismissed or withdrawn, and a homeowner must be provided with notice that the resources under EMAP are still available in subsequent foreclosure actions because it would be unreasonable to expect lay homeowners to know that they continue to have access to this specialized program in the event that they are not provided with notice in a subsequent foreclosure action. Moreover, the text of § 8-265ee supported the conclusion that a mort- gagee must provide an EMAP notice for each foreclosure action initiated, insofar as the sending of the EMAP notice prompts the beginning of a timeline for receiving EMAP assistance, and, if a new notice were not required, and, therefore, a new timeline were not set, the remedies available would appear to have ''expired'' in light of when notice had been provided in a previously withdrawn or dismissed case. Furthermore, the need for an EMAP notice prior to the commencement of any foreclosure action is especially evident when, as in the present case, the defendant homeowner was not a signatory to the note, did not actually receive an EMAP notice prior to the first foreclosure action, and was aware only that the first foreclosure action had been dismissed, and, accordingly, the plaintiff's failure to provide an EMAP notice to O prior to the commencement of the second foreclosure action impaired O's ability to take advantage of resources that may have helped her retain her interest in her property. In addition, this court disagreed with the Appellate Court to the extent that it suggested that it is legally significant that different entities were required to send the EMAP notices because the plaintiff, as the successor to F Co., operated as the same ''mortgagee,'' a term defined by statute (§ 8-265cc (4)) as ''the original lender under a mortgage, or its agents, successors, or assigns,'' for purposes of the EMAP statutes, and, there- fore, there was no substantive difference for the purposes of the statutory scheme between F Co. and the plaintiff. Argued November 21, 2022—officially released August 1, 2023

The plaintiff sought to recover damages from the defendant for the allegedly wrongful termination of his employment, in violation of public policy and the statute ((Rev. to 2015) § 31-51q) prohibiting an employer from retaliating against an employee for exercising constitutionally protected speech. The plaintiff, who had been employed by the defendant as a commercial truck driver, alleged that the defendant terminated his employment after he raised complaints concerning the safety of its vehicles. At trial, the plaintiff testified that, following the termination of his employment, he was out of work for approximately 6 months, the defendant had paid him at a rate of 46 cents per mile, he had driven a little more than 2000 miles per week, and he had driven approximately 230,000 miles during his 2 years with the defendant. The plaintiff's testimony was the sole evidence presented with respect to his lost wages, and the defendant offered no evidence to impeach his testimony. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff and awarded him $24,288 in damages for lost wages. The jury interrogatories indicated that the jury had found that the plaintiff was owed wages corresponding to 2200 miles per week at a rate of 46 cents per mile for a period of 24 weeks. The defendant filed a motion for remittitur, seeking to reduce the dam- ages award to zero. The defendant asserted that there was no evidence to support the damages award because the plaintiff had failed to provide tangible evidence or to testify with sufficient specificity as to his lost wages. The trial court denied the defendant's motion for remittitur, concluding that the plaintiff had presented sufficient evidence to support the damages award and that, in light of the specific figures in the jury interrogatories, the award was a reasonable estimate of the plaintiff's lost wages. The trial court thereafter rendered judgment for the plaintiff in accordance with the jury's verdict. The plaintiff appealed and the defendant cross appealed to the Appellate Court. In its cross appeal, the defendant claimed, inter alia, that the trial court had erred by failing to set aside the damages award. The Appellate Court upheld the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion for remittitur, concluding that the trial court had not abused its discretion in declining to set aside the damages award. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held that the Appellate Court did not err in upholding the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion for remittitur: Although the Appellate Court, in upholding the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion for remittitur, relied on the trial court's characteriza- tion of the damages award as a reasonable estimate without citing the applicable reasonable certainty standard of proof, this court's case law links the reasonable certainty standard to the ability to make a reasonable estimate, the reasonable estimate benchmark has consistently appeared in this court's cases assessing damages awards, and the term ''reasonable certainty'' in this context requires only evidence that is sufficient to enable the fact finder to arrive at a reasonable estimate and thereby remove the award from the realm of speculation. Contrary to the defendant's claim that the plaintiff did not prove his lost wages with reasonable certainty because the only evidence he offered was his own generalized and nonspecific testimony, the fact that the damages award was premised exclusively on testimonial evidence did not, in and of itself, render the evidence insufficient to meet the reason- able certainty standard, and the plaintiff's testimony was sufficient to remove the damages award from the realm of speculation, as the plaintiff proved to the jury's satisfaction that the defendant wrongfully terminated his employment, that the defendant owed him lost wages for the subse- quent period of approximately six months when he was unemployed, and that the distances and per mile amounts to which he testified accurately represented his former workload and compensation, and the jury used these proven facts to calculate a reasonable estimate, consistent with the evidence before it, of the amount of the plaintiff's lost wages. Moreover, there was no merit to the defendant's claim that the damages award was improperly speculative because it required the jury to guess at the number of miles that the plaintiff had driven for the defendant, the duration of his unemployment, and how any inclement weather could have affected his workload because, although the plaintiff could have provided a greater degree of specificity as to how many weeks he was unemployed, the jury apparently awarded damages on the low end of the range of a reasonable estimate, and the two year average from which the jury calculated the weekly mileage for lost wages was a sufficiently lengthy period to account for variances in the weather. Furthermore, this was not a case in which it could not be determined how or why the jury arrived at its damages award or in which the award had been based on an unresolved contingency, as the jury based its award on figures drawn directly from uncontroverted testimony, and the method the jury employed for its calculations was set forth in its interrogatories form. Accordingly, it was clear that the damages award was not based on speculation or guesswork, and the plaintiff proved his damages to a reasonable certainty by providing nonspeculative evidence from which the jury derived a fair and reasonable estimate. Argued April 26—officially released August 1, 2023

Pursuant to statute (§ 52-557n (a) (2) (B)) and the common law of this state, respectively, municipalities and their employees enjoy qualified immunity from liability, for their negligent acts or omissions in the performance of duties that require the exercise of judgment or discre- tion, ''[e]xcept as otherwise provided by law . . . .'' Pursuant further to statute (§ 14-283 (d)), the privileges afforded to the operator of an emergency vehicle by § 14-283 (b), which include the right to disregard certain traffic laws, signals, and signs under certain conditions, ''shall not relieve the operator of [the] emergency vehicle from the duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons and property.'' The plaintiff, individually and on behalf of her two minor children, sought to recover damages from the defendants, the town of Bloomfield, its police department, and one of its police officers, J, in connection with injuries the plaintiff and her children sustained when the vehicle in which they were travelling was struck by J's police cruiser. At the time of the collision, J was responding to a report of a possible abduction and travelling in the southbound lane of traffic several vehicles behind the plaintiff's vehicle. The plaintiff arrived at an intersection and made a lefthand turn, but J, while traveling at a speed exceeding seventy miles per hour, moved into the northbound lane, attempted to pass, and collided with the plaintiff's vehicle. The plaintiff raised claims of negligence, negligent supervision, and respondeat superior, and the defendants moved for summary judgment on the ground that those claims were barred by discretionary act immunity under § 52-557n (a) (2) (B). The trial court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and rendered judgment for the defendants, concluding that J's operation of the police cruiser constituted a discretionary act that was subject to governmental immunity. In doing so, the court relied on this court's recent decision in Borelli v. Renaldi (336 Conn. 1), in which this court concluded that ''the duty to drive with due regard'' in § 14- 283 (d) imposed a discretionary duty to act with respect to a police officer's decision to initiate and to continue a pursuit of a fleeing motor- ist. On appeal, the plaintiff claimed, inter alia, that the trial court improp- erly had relied on Borelli and incorrectly concluded that discretionary act immunity barred her claims, insofar as § 14-283 (d) imposes a ministe- rial duty on emergency vehicle operators ''to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons and property.'' Held that the trial court improperly granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, as the defendants were not entitled to discretionary act immunity under § 52-557n (a) (2) (B) because such immunity does not apply to the manner in which an emergency vehicle is operated in light of the except as otherwise provided by law savings provision in § 52-557n (a) (2) (B) and the codified, common-law duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons and property set forth in § 14- 283 (d): This court previously has recognized that § 52-557n (a) was not intended to bar all civil actions arising from a municipal employee's discretionary acts and that the except as otherwise provided by law savings clauses in § 52-557n (a) encompass common-law exceptions to the discretionary act immunity provided by that statute, such that, if liability attaches to the discretionary act of a municipal employee under the common law, § 52-557n does not supersede the common-law doctrine, and discretion- ary act immunity does not apply. This court concluded that §§ 14-283 and 52-557n (a) (2) (B) were ambigu- ous and looked to the legislative history of those statutes, which demon- strated that the legislature, having codified the reasonable care standard in § 14-283 (d) fifteen years before enacting § 52-557n as part of the Tort Reform Act of 1986, understood that negligence in the operation of motor vehicles was not intended to be shielded by governmental immunity, either before or after the passage of § 52-557n. The existence of certain indemnification statutes also reflected the fact that, at common law, municipal employees were personally liable for negligently operating an emergency vehicle when they failed to exercise the due care of a reasonably prudent person under the circumstances, both before and after the enactment of § 52-557n. Moreover, this court's decision in Tetro v. Stratford (189 Conn. 601), which was decided three years before the enactment of § 52-557n, also addressed the manner in which an emergency vehicle is operated, and Tetro squarely demonstrated that, prior to the enactment of § 52-557n, municipalities were not immune from suits arising from collisions of their vehicles engaged in emergency operation, that the legislature and the courts understood that municipalities could be held liable under then existing statutory and common law for the negligence of their emergency vehicle operators, and that, although § 14-283 (b) granted operators of emergency vehicles a privilege by relieving them from a presumption of negligence per se for violating ordinary traffic laws, such operators were not relieved from, and remained subject to, the existing, common-law duty of care to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons and property. Accordingly, granting governmental immunity in this context would effectively permit operators of emergency vehicles to drive without regard for a codified, common-law duty, and that result would be incon- sistent with the legislature's understanding of the reach of § 52-557n when it enacted that statute, which was, unless otherwise indicated, intended to reflect the current state of the law. Further support for this court's conclusion that discretionary act immu- nity did not apply in this context could be found in the fact that the operation of an emergency vehicle is not one of the enumerated excep- tions to liability provided in § 52-557n (b), which effectively confer gov- ernmental immunity in specific contexts, and, if the legislature had intended to include emergency vehicle operation within the specific conduct subject to immunity in that statutory provision, it could have done so. Furthermore, although this court has applied the discretionary/ministe- rial framework in recent decisions, including Borelli, to determine the scope of § 52-557n (a) (2) (B) as it relates to claims of immunity for the consequences of certain types of vehicular negligence involving police officers, and the parties in the present case largely limited their arguments to that issue, those cases did not concern the direct conduct targeted by the legislature in § 14-283 (d), namely, the operation of an emergency vehicle with the concomitant ''duty to drive with due regard for the safety of all persons and property,'' and it was unnecessary to decide whether the duty to drive with due regard required by § 14-283 (d) was ministerial or discretionary in nature in light of this court's conclusion that the discretionary act immunity provided by § 52-557n (a) (2) (B) does not apply as a matter of law to the operation of emergency vehicles by virtue of the savings provision in § 52-557n (a) (2) (B). In addition, this court's reading of §§ 14-283 and 52-557n was further supported by the legislature's choice, in enacting § 14-283 (d), to deviate from the Uniform Vehicle Code, on which § 14-283 (d) was based, and to impose only a negligence standard rather than a reckless disregard standard, and by recent legislative activity, which demonstrated the legislature's repeated attempts to ensure that governmental immunity does not apply in this context. Argued January 13—officially released August 1, 2023

The petitioner, who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to sixty years of incarceration, the maximum sentence for that crime, sought a writ of habeas corpus, claiming, inter alia, that his trial counsel, M, had rendered ineffective assistance of counsel by failing to advise the petitioner to accept the trial court's plea offer of forty-five years of incarceration in exchange for his guilty plea. At the petitioner's habeas trial, M testified that he believed that he had advised the petitioner, in light of the plea offer, about the strength of the state's case, the weak- nesses of his defenses, statements from witnesses on which the state was going to rely at trial, the elements of the charged crime, the petitioner's chances of succeeding at trial and his sentencing exposure if he were to proceed to trial. M also testified that he would have told the petitioner that his chances of succeeding at trial were not good given M's evaluation of the evidence. In addition, M testified that he never advised clients to accept or reject a plea offer but allowed them to decide for themselves. On the other hand, the petitioner testified at the habeas trial that M had informed him of the forty-five year offer but never advised him that it was in his best interest to accept the offer. The petitioner claimed that he would have accepted the offer had M advised him to do so. The habeas court granted the habeas petition, concluding that, although M had adequately advised the petitioner about the strength of the state's case, the weaknesses of his case, his chances of succeeding at trial, and his sentencing exposure, M's performance was deficient and the petitioner was prejudiced thereby because M had failed to advise the petitioner to accept the court's plea offer and, if he had done so, the petitioner would have accepted the offer. The court reasoned that it was very unlikely that the petitioner would have prevailed at trial and that the forty-five year offer was the only meaningful opportunity for him to receive a sentence that was less than the maximum of sixty years. The habeas court thereafter denied the petition of the respondent, the Commissioner of Correction, for certification to appeal, and the respondent appealed. Held that the habeas court abused its discretion in denying the respondent's petition for certification to appeal, the habeas court having incorrectly concluded that M had rendered deficient performance by failing to advise the petitioner to accept the forty-five year plea offer: This court concluded that there is no per se requirement that defense counsel recommend whether a defendant should accept a plea offer, and the need to provide a specific recommendation in any particular case depends on a number of factors, including the defendant's chances of prevailing at trial, the disparity between the sentence proposed in the plea offer and the likely sentence that would be imposed if the defendant were found guilty after a trial, whether the defendant has maintained his innocence, and the defendant's comprehension of the various consid- erations that will inform his plea decision. Moreover, prior Appellate Court cases led this court to conclude that defense counsel not only must explain to the defendant the strengths and weaknesses of the state's case, the charges he is facing, and the maximum sentence to which he would be exposed if he were unsuccess- ful at trial, but also advise on how those strengths and weaknesses relate to the state's likelihood of prevailing at trial and on the challenges the defendant would face in putting on his own defense. The range of circumstances a particular defendant might face, including, for example, a defendant's health, the effects of incarceration or a trial on family members, or the defendant's assertion of his innocence, also informs defense counsel's decision whether to recommend that a defen- dant accept a plea offer. In the present case, the habeas court found that M had effectively commu- nicated to the petitioner the strengths and weaknesses of the state's case, the evidence on which the state was going to rely, the elements of the charged crime, the petitioner's chances of succeeding at trial, and his sentencing exposure, and this guidance provided the petitioner with sufficient information to make a reasonably informed decision about whether to accept the plea offer. Furthermore, the habeas court erred when it relied solely on the fact that the forty-five year plea offer was the only meaningful opportunity for the petitioner to receive a sentence less than the maximum sentence in concluding that M's representation was ineffective. In addition, consideration of the factors for determining whether defense counsel should recommend that the defendant accept a plea offer led this court to conclude that it would not have been unreasonable for M not to have provided the petitioner with a specific recommendation and, accordingly, M's representation of the petitioner was not deficient. This court overruled the Appellate Court's decision in Sanders v. Com- missioner of Correction (169 Conn. App. 813) to the extent that the Appellate Court determined in that case that trial counsel's performance was deficient because, among other things, counsel failed to provide the petitioner with an opinion as to what plea to enter. Argued March 23—officially released August 8, 2023

The initial plaintiff, J Co., sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property owned by the defendant. J Co. alleged that the defendant was in default because he had failed to pay certain monthly installments of principal and interest. The defendant filed an answer and special defense in which he denied that he was in default, arguing that he had submitted all the required payments. After M Co. was substituted for J Co. as the plaintiff, the defendant issued a notice requesting that M Co. produce its complete mortgage file relating to the defendant's mortgage, including all mortgage payment records. In response, M Co. filed a motion for a protective order, requesting that the trial court disallow discovery as to all the documents sought by the defendant. The trial court granted the motion on the grounds that the defendant's request was overly broad and would not lead to the admission of material evidence. Subsequently, at trial, M Co. introduced into evidence an exhibit containing a summary of the loan and payment history of the defendant's account to prove the debt. The defendant's counsel objected, arguing that the defendant was prejudiced because counsel did not have an opportunity to review that exhibit, which was never produced in discovery, or to locate specific documents to contradict the information in the exhibit. The trial court admitted the exhibit, declining to revisit another judge's decision to grant the motion for the protective order. Throughout trial, the defendant's counsel questioned M Co.'s witness, R, a representative of M Co.'s loan servicer, in order to gain an understanding of the basis for the alleged default and to resolve certain discrepancies between the testimony of R and that of the defendant. R testified that the defendant's default had started in 2002 and that the interest rate did not change through the life of the loan. R's testimony was in conflict with the fact that W Co., a predecessor in interest of J Co., was required by the federal Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) (50 U.S.C. § 3937 (a)) to lower the defendant's interest rate after the defendant was called to active duty military service in 2001, and with the defendant's testimony that W Co. had lowered his interest rate in 2002. The defendant's counsel also asked R why there were line items in M Co.'s exhibit reflecting insurance premium disbursements in connection with the defendant's account when the defendant testified that he had paid for his homeown- ers insurance independently of his mortgage. R replied that he had not reviewed M Co.'s mortgage file to determine whether the defendant had been improperly charged for insurance premiums. The trial court rendered a judgment of foreclosure by sale in favor of M Co. The court concluded that the defendant had failed to prove his special defense of payment because the defendant's evidence, consisting primarily of cop- ies of checks, demonstrated some payments to the lender, but it did not demonstrate a lack of default. The trial court also acknowledged that the defendant argued that the SCRA may provide a defense to the foreclosure action but concluded that, even if it were to consider this defense, which the defendant raised for the first time during trial, the defendant did not prove it. The defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, which summarily affirmed the trial court's judgment. On the granting of certification, the defendant appealed to this court. Held: 1. The trial court abused its discretion in granting M Co.'s motion for a protective order: The trial court's conclusion that the defendant's request for documents contained in M Co.'s mortgage file would not lead to the discovery of admissible evidence was not supported by the facts and conflicted with the general observation that a lender's mortgage file contains critical information regarding a mortgagor's account. In a contested foreclosure case, such as the present one, a defendant, or his or her attorney, will need to review those aspects of the lender's file that may lead to the discovery of admissible evidence relating to one or more disputed issues, especially when, as here, the defendant raises the special defense of payment in the face of a claim of default. In the present case, M Co. introduced documents from its mortgage file into evidence, and R's testimony at trial was based on his extensive review of that file, yet the defendant and his counsel were denied access to that same material, thereby denying them the opportunity to search for potentially critical information that would have supported the defen- dant's claim that he was not in default. Moreover, the trial court incorrectly concluded that the defendant's request seeking production of M Co.'s mortgage file was overly broad, as the mortgage file contained records that comprised the source material that gave rise to M Co.'s foreclosure action, and the defendant was not required to rely solely on M Co.'s summary of his payment history but was entitled to review the underlying records themselves to confirm that the summary was accurate. Furthermore, M Co. could not prevail on its claim that the defendant should have made a more narrowly tailored discovery request, as M Co. failed to comply with the mandate in the rules of practice that it engage in a good faith effort to reach agreement with the defendant on any discovery related objections and instead chose to seek a protective order completely barring discovery of many documents that plainly were subject to disclosure. 2. The defendant satisfied his burden of proving that he was harmed by the trial court's granting of M Co.'s motion for a protective order, as the defendant demonstrated that, without the requested discovery, he was unable to ascertain the precise basis for the alleged default until after the trial commenced: The trial court's granting of M Co.'s motion for a protective order effec- tively prevented the defendant from discovering evidence that may have demonstrated that he had been overcharged by the lender, either through improper charges for insurance premiums or on the basis of a failure to reduce the interest rate pursuant to the SCRA, and the trial court's erroneous ruling precluded the defendant from learning of the basis of the alleged default and from challenging the accuracy of R's testimony or the information contained in the documents from the mortgage file that M Co. produced at trial. Moreover, although the trial court faulted the defendant for failing to raise his claim under the SCRA as a defense prior to trial, that act does not constitute a distinct defense to a foreclosure action and was instead relevant to support the defendant's claim that M Co.'s debt calculations were incorrect and that he was not in default. Furthermore, the trial court, in faulting the defendant for not raising his claim under the SCRA in a timely manner, overlooked the fact that the delay was not the defendant's fault but was a direct result of the issuance of the protective order, which prevented the defendant from accessing the very documents that would have informed him earlier that W Co. may not have lowered his interest rate in accordance with the SCRA. In addition, there was no merit to M Co.'s claims that the trial court's error was harmless insofar as it was the defendant's burden to prove his special defense of payment and that nothing in the protective order prevented the defendant from proving his special defense with his own evidence, such as by submitting copies of cancelled checks, as M Co. could not avoid discovery on the ground that it does not bear the burden of proof, the defendant was not limited in his proof to only evidence already in his possession, the defendant likely could not produce copies of cancelled checks for each month of the alleged default because J Co. allegedly had periodically refused to accept the defendant's checks, and the mortgage file likely contained information beyond the defendant's payment history that was relevant to the defendant's claim that he was not in default, such as information related to the defendant's interest rate and insurance premiums. Argued March 29—officially released August 8, 2023

In 2007, the defendants, a parent and her two children, filed notice of a claim with the Claims Commissioner, seeking reimbursement from the plaintiff, the state of Connecticut, for tuition and costs that they incurred as a result of the enrollment of the children in private school due to allegedly unsafe and unsanitary conditions in certain of the Torrington public school buildings, where the children had been students. The commissioner dismissed the claim as untimely because it was not filed within the one year statute of limitations (§ 4-148 (a)) applicable to claims against the state. The defendants sought legislative review of the commissioner's ruling pursuant to § 4-148 (b), and the General Assembly passed a joint resolution in which it vacated that ruling and authorizing the defendants to file an action for damages against the state in the Superior Court. The defendants commenced such an action in 2012, but the court dismissed it, finding that the claim was untimely and that the joint resolution was an unconstitutional public emolument that violated article first, § 1, of the Connecticut constitution insofar as it granted the defendants a right that was unavailable to other individuals and failed to identify any public purpose. In 2013, the defendants filed a second claim with the commissioner, alleging, inter alia, that they were harmed by the General Assembly's failure to articulate a public purpose in the joint resolution and seeking to revive their 2007 claim. The commis- sioner dismissed the defendants' second claim, as well. The defendants subsequently returned to the General Assembly, which ultimately passed No. 17-4, § 1, of the 2017 Special Acts (S.A. 17-4). Special Act 17-4 authorized the defendants to file a late claim for injuries ''alleged to have accrued on September 15, 2006,'' and expressly recognized that ''a public purpose [was] served by encouraging accountable state govern- ment through the full adjudication of cases involving persons who claim to have been injured by the conduct of state actors.'' Thereafter, the state initiated the present action, seeking a judgment declaring that S.A. 17-4 constituted an unconstitutional public emolument that violated article first, § 1, of the state constitution. The trial court granted the state's motion for summary judgment and rendered judgment thereon, concluding, inter alia, that the defendants had failed to demonstrate a genuine issue of material fact as to whether S.A. 17-4 served a legitimate public purpose. The Appellate Court affirmed the trial court's judgment, and the defendants, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court. Held that S.A. 17-4 conferred an exclusive public emolument on the defen- dants for which the state bore no responsibility and, accordingly, the Appellate Court correctly determined that S.A. 17-4 violated article first, § 1, of the state constitution insofar as it served no public purpose: A legislative enactment will withstand a challenge under article first, § 1, of the Connecticut constitution only if it serves a legitimate public purpose, and, although a special act enacted pursuant to § 4-148 (b) will undoubtedly confer a direct benefit on a particular claimant, a public purpose may exist if the special act remedies an injustice to that individ- ual for which the state itself bears responsibility because, in those circum- stances, the benefit conferred on the private individual may be viewed as incidental to the overarching public interest that is served in remedying the injustice caused by the state. Moreover, if the enactment seeks to remedy a procedural default for which the state is not responsible, it does not serve a public purpose, and, when a special act allows a person named therein to bring a lawsuit based on a statutory cause of action that would otherwise have been barred for failure to comply with a time limit specified in the statute, this court ordinarily has been unable to discern any public purpose sufficient to sustain the enactment. Although, in the present case, the defendants identified certain public purposes behind S.A. 17-4, such as ensuring a safe and healthy school setting for all children and holding government officials accountable, and S.A. 17-4 itself included express language identifying an ostensible public purpose, the legislature could not by mere fiat or finding make public a truly private purpose, and S.A. 17-4 did not excuse other similarly situated persons, such as other students in the same or different school districts, from complying with the applicable statutory limitations for claims or provide circumstances under which such persons could be excused from compliance therewith. Furthermore, S.A. 17-4 sought to remedy only the defendants' procedural default insofar as it authorized them, and only them, to present their untimely claim against the state to the commissioner, and the defendants sought reimbursement from the state only for the private school tuition costs that they incurred without naming any other schoolchildren or without seeking any injunctive relief with respect to the conditions in the public school buildings. In addition, although the defendants claimed that the state was ultimately responsible for the health complications of the defendant children caused by the poor conditions in the school buildings, the defendants did not contend that the state was responsible for the procedural lapses atten- dant to the untimely filing of their claim, there was nothing in the record that distinguished the facts of the present case from the ordinary case in which a litigant fails to take timely action, and S.A. 17-4 essentially eliminated for the defendants alone the consequences of their litigation choice of pursuing their claim against the state only through administra- tive and judicial proceedings, rather than by filing a claim with the commissioner in the first instance, without affording relief to anyone else. Argued February 15—officially released August 22, 2023

Convicted of the crime of risk of injury to a child but acquitted of two counts of first degree sexual assault in connection with the defendant's alleged sexual abuse of his daughter, V, the defendant appealed to the Appellate Court, which affirmed the judgment of conviction. From about the age of six until twelve, V resided with the defendant, and, during the earlier part of that time period, V also resided with her half sister, H. During that time, the defendant allegedly used physical force to discipline V and H on numerous occasions. Also during that time, there was an incident in V's bedroom in which the defendant had contact with V's intimate parts. Subsequently, the defendant was arrested on unrelated charges, and V was placed in the custody of her maternal grandmother, B. Thereafter, the Department of Children and Families investigated allegations that the defendant had physically abused V, as well as B's complaint that the defendant had acted inappropriately toward V by kissing her on the lips. A forensic interview of V was con- ducted, which was video-recorded. In the course of that interview, V provided details of the incident involving the defendant's contact with her intimate parts. During jury selection, the prosecutor indicated that she would seek to introduce at the defendant's trial one or more photo- graphs showing the defendant kissing H on the lips. Defense counsel objected and argued that it was part of her obligation in selecting a fair and impartial jury to ask prospective jurors to express their feelings about whether it was appropriate for parents to kiss their children on the lips. The trial court precluded defense counsel from asking prospective jurors about a parent's kissing a child on the lips because it was too specific to the facts of the case and limited defense counsel to asking prospective jurors about the ways in which parents can show physical affection to their children. Thereafter, the court ruled that the photo- graph or photographs showing the defendant kissing H were inadmissi- ble because they were prejudicial to the defendant. During the remainder of jury selection, defense counsel did not question prospective jurors about their opinions with respect to displays of affection between par- ents and their children. In addition, the defendant filed a motion in limine before trial, seeking to preclude the admission of the video recording of V's forensic interview. The defendant claimed that the video had limited probative value and was unduly prejudicial, insofar as it consti- tuted cumulative evidence of the facts to be elicited during V's trial testimony. The defendant also claimed that the video would improperly bolster V's testimony. After V testified at trial, and after hearing argu- ments from the parties, the trial court admitted the video-recorded interview into evidence under the medical diagnosis and treatment exception to the hearsay rule. In affirming the judgment of conviction of risk of injury to a child, the Appellate Court concluded that the trial court had not abused its discretion in restricting defense counsel's examination of prospective jurors during voir dire, that the defendant had failed to demonstrate that the trial court's ruling resulted in harmful prejudice, and that the trial court had not abused its discretion in admit- ting the video recording of the forensic interview. The defendant, on the granting of certification, appealed to this court. Held: 1. The defendant could not prevail on his claim that the trial court had improperly limited defense counsel's questioning of prospective jurors and that the limitation had resulted in harmful prejudice: This court recognized that there was an inconsistency in the case law regarding when the trial court's exercise of discretion in restricting voir dire will result in reversible error, as the case law had sometimes required that a party prove both an abuse of discretion and harmful prejudice, and, at other times, had required that a party prove abuse of discretion or harmful prejudice. After reviewing its prior case law, the case law of other jurisdictions, and similar standards that it had applied when it was called on to evaluate a trial court's exercise of discretion, this court clarified that a trial court has wide discretion in conducting voir dire and that the exercise of that discretion will not constitute reversible error unless the court has clearly abused its discretion and harmful prejudice has resulted. In the present case, even if the trial court had clearly abused its discretion in precluding defense counsel from asking prospective jurors about their views on a parent's act of kissing a child on the lips, the defendant did not establish that harmful prejudice resulted from that abuse of discretion. Defense counsel was permitted to ask prospective jurors about whether they considered different forms of parental affection appropriate or inappropriate and was precluded only from asking questions specifically about their views concerning kissing a child on the lips, and the facts that defense counsel asked only five of the prospective jurors about their views on parental affection, availed herself of limited follow-up with respect to that line of questioning, and stopped asking prospective jurors about parental affection after the trial court ruled that the prosecu- tor could not introduce into evidence the photograph or photographs showing the defendant kissing H suggested that defense counsel did not consider the issue of parental affection of great importance once the prosecutor was precluded from introducing the photograph or photo- graphs. Moreover, evidence regarding the defendant's conduct of kissing V on the lips was not a prominent part of the state's case, as that conduct did not form the basis for any of the offenses with which the defendant was charged, and the prosecutor did not rely on that conduct during her closing argument. Furthermore, the jury's split verdict, whereby it found the defendant guilty of risk of injury to a child but not guilty of the sexual assault charges, also weighed against any claim that the defense was hampered in its efforts to select an impartial jury by virtue of the trial court's limitation on defense counsel's questioning during voir dire. 2. The Appellate Court correctly concluded that the trial court had not abused its discretion in admitting the video recording of V's forensic interview: There was no merit to the defendant's claim that the trial court had not engaged in the required balancing of the probative value of the evidence against its prejudicial effect because, although the court did not conduct an on-the-record balancing of the evidence, it was not required to do so, and a review of the entire record, particularly the parties' arguments before the trial court, revealed that the court had considered the proba- tive value of the evidence and its prejudicial effect before making its rul- ing. Moreover, the video recording of the forensic interview was probative of the particular details underlying the defendant's sexual assault charges, and, although the defendant claimed that the video recording had limited probative value because V had testified to the same facts at trial, the defendant conceded, and a review of the evidence demonstrated, that there were details revealed during the forensic interview that were not contained in V's trial testimony. Furthermore, the admission of the video recording of the forensic inter- view was not unduly prejudicial, as the interview contained new or inconsistent evidence regarding the crimes with which the defendant was charged. Nevertheless, this court acknowledged that the interview also contained a large amount of consistent evidence and cautioned that, when an alleged sexual assault victim's prior consistent statements are admitted in the absence of an applicable exception to the general rule precluding the admission of such statements, there is a danger that the evidence will be improperly used to enhance the credibility of the victim. This court emphasized that defendants can request and trial courts should consider redacting portions of video recordings of forensic interviews to limit their prejudicial effect. In the present case, the trial court could have addressed, by way of redaction, many of the issues that the defendant raised on appeal with respect to why the video recording of V's forensic interview was more prejudicial than probative, but, at trial, the defense challenged the admis- sion of the video in its entirety rather than seeking redaction. Argued March 23—officially released August 29, 2023

The plaintiff appealed from the trial court's judgment dissolving his marriage to the defendant, challenging certain of the trial court's financial orders and claiming that the trial court had improperly denied his motion to enforce, as a prenuptial agreement, the terms of the parties' ketubah, which is a contract governing marriage under Jewish law. The parties signed the ketubah shortly before they were married, and it provided in relevant part that the defendant was to be the plaintiff's ''wife according to the laws of Moses and Israel'' and that they ''agreed to divorce . . . one another . . . according to Torah law . . . .'' After marrying, the plaintiff found employment as a rabbi at a Conservative synagogue in New Haven, where he served for nearly three decades. During that time, the defendant, who was educated and trained as an attorney, worked in the legal and nonprofit fields, but she had not worked as an attorney since 2015. The defendant, however, was the primary caregiver to the parties' children and had numerous responsibili- ties in connection with her role as the rabbi's wife. After initiating the present dissolution action in 2018, the plaintiff moved for an order confirming that the ketubah was valid and enforceable, and he requested that any asset division and support orders be entered in accordance with Hebrew law based on the ketubah's choice of law provision. According to the plaintiff, application of such law would result in an equal division of marital property, excluding individual property acquired through a gift or bequest not specifically conveyed to the other spouse, and would preclude alimony or claims against future income. In connection with the plaintiff's motion, the parties submitted conflicting affidavits from various rabbis about alimony and property division under Torah law. The trial court denied the plaintiff's motion. Applying the neutral principles of law approach to determine whether a civil court may consider a claim implicating a religious institution or practice without violating the establishment clause of the first amendment to the United States constitution, which was articulated by the United States Supreme Court in Jones v. Wolf (443 U.S. 595), the trial court concluded that the first amendment precluded enforcement of the ketubah's provisions. The court reasoned that, in light of the conflicting affidavits, enforcement of the provisions of the ketubah would require the court to choose between competing rabbinical interpretations of the requirement that their divorce should accord with Torah law. During the pendency of the dissolution proceedings, the plaintiff, who was five years into a ten year employment contract with the synagogue, renegotiated that contract for a new, one year contract, pursuant to which he was to receive a total annual compensation package of $202,100. The syna- gogue, however, later informed the plaintiff that it would not be renewing his one year contract, which terminated in August, 2021. The plaintiff did not search for or intend to seek new employment. In dissolving the parties' marriage, the trial court issued several financial orders. The court found, inter alia, that the plaintiff's annual gross earning capacity was $202,100, which was consistent with his most recent compensation from the synagogue. In light of that and other findings, the trial court ordered the plaintiff to pay the defendant alimony in the amount of $5000 per month for a period of fifteen years and precluded him from seeking a modification based on the defendant's increased earnings, unless her annual gross earnings equaled or exceeded $50,000. The court also awarded the plaintiff sole possession and ownership of the marital home and 45 percent of the parties' retirement accounts, and it allowed the plaintiff to retain his ownership interest in a real estate asset estab- lished by his family members but required him to pay the defendant 25 percent of the net, after tax amount of any future distributions that he was to receive from that interest. On the plaintiff's appeal, held: 1. The plaintiff could not prevail on his claim that the trial court had improp- erly denied his motion to enforce the provisions of the ketubah on the ground that doing so would violate first amendment to the United States constitution: a. The trial court correctly determined that enforcement of the parties' ketubah would violate the establishment clause of the first amendment: The establishment clause generally precludes a court from inquiring into religious matters, but, under the neutral principles of law doctrine, civil courts may decide a dispute arising in a religious context so long as the dispute can be resolved solely by a secular legal analysis that does not implicate or is not informed by religious doctrine or practice, and, although a court resolving such a dispute may be required to examine certain religious documents, it must take special care to scrutinize those documents in purely secular terms and not to rely on religious precepts or to resolve a religious controversy. Given the nature of a ketubah, which resembles a contract but embraces complex religious undertones and carries spiritual weight, courts have applied the neutral principles of law doctrine to assess whether the provisions of a ketubah may be given effect in a dissolution proceeding without violating the establishment clause's prohibition against inquiring into matters of religious faith and doctrine, and this court, after reviewing the case law from those courts that have addressed the issue, found most instructive those cases that have applied the neutral principles of law doctrine in concluding that the first amendment precludes a civil court's enforcement of ketubah provisions similar to those in the par- ties' ketubah. In the present case, the parties' ketubah was facially silent as to each party's support obligations in the event of dissolution of their marriage, the trial court would therefore have been required to determine those obligations from external sources concerning Jewish law, and the affida- vits submitted by various rabbis on behalf of the parties offered conflict- ing opinions regarding such law as it pertains to alimony and property division, rendering the present case a paradigmatic example of entangle- ment that runs afoul of the establishment clause, insofar as the trial court would have been required to discern and enforce what Jewish law requires with respect to property division and financial support upon dissolution if it had given effect to the parties' ketubah. b. The plaintiff could not prevail on his unpreserved claim that the trial court's decision not to enforce the ketubah had violated his rights under the free exercise clause of the first amendment on the ground that it prevented him from divorcing according to Jewish law: In view of the parties' lack of agreement as to what Jewish law requires in the present case owing to the breadth and vagueness of the language in the parties' ketubah, the trial court, in making a determination as to what that law requires, would have risked violating the defendant's free exercise rights in the name of protecting those of the plaintiff. Moreover, the trial court did not deny the plaintiff access to the court or otherwise exact a penalty in connection with his religious beliefs or practices, but, rather, its decision not to enforce the ketubah simply meant that the parties' dissolution would be governed by generally appli- cable principles of Connecticut law, as expressed in the equitable distri- bution and alimony statutes (§§ 46b-81 and 46b-82), and parties who desire specific tenets of their religious beliefs to govern the resolution of their marital dissolution actions remain free to contract for that relief via a properly executed antenuptial, postnuptial, or separation agreement that is specifically worded to express those beliefs in a way that avoids establishment clause concerns under the neutral principles of law doc- trine. 2. There was no merit to the plaintiff's claims that the trial court's financial orders were based on a clearly erroneous factual finding regarding his earning capacity and that the trial court had abused its discretion in awarding alimony in the amount of $5000 per month for fifteen years and 25 percent of any future distributions in connection with the plaintiff's ownership interest in the real estate asset: a. The trial court's finding that the plaintiff had a gross earning capacity of $202,100 was not clearly erroneous: Under appropriate circumstances, a trial court in a marital dissolution action may base its financial awards on a party's earning capacity, which is an amount that a person can realistically be expected to earn consider- ing such things as the person's vocational skills, employability, age and health, rather than actual earned income, and it is especially appropriate for the court to consider whether a person has wilfully restricted his or her earning capacity to avoid support obligations. In the present case, the trial court's decision to base the fifteen year alimony award, at least in part, on the plaintiff's earning capacity of $202,100 was supported by the fact that the plaintiff had only recently become unemployed at the time of dissolution, the lack of any evidence as to his inability or efforts to obtain employment, and evidence that he desired to renegotiate the terms of his employment with the synagogue in order to gain an advantage in the pending dissolution action. Moreover, there was evidence of the plaintiff's employability, including testimony from the president of the synagogue's board of trustees that the synagogue initially had no intention of replacing the plaintiff with another rabbi, and evidence that the plaintiff had declined an offer from the synagogue that would have allowed him to remain employed in a limited capacity beyond the end of the renegotiated, one year contract. Furthermore, in the absence of evidence concerning the plaintiff's reduced employability or earning capacity resulting from his age or the termination of his employment, which the plaintiff failed to proffer, it was reasonable for the trial court to rely on the plaintiff's gross compensa- tion for the final year of his employment with the synagogue as reflected in the one year contract, insofar as the plaintiff asked to renegotiate the ten year contract to a one year contract in March, 2020, during the pendency of the parties' dissolution action, and insofar as the trial court specifically declined to credit his testimony that the reason for doing so was because he believed that it was inappropriate to fix compensation for longer than a one year period given the uncertainties presented at that time by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. b. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in ordering the plaintiff to pay to the defendant 25 percent of any future distributions stemming from his ownership interest in the real estate asset: Contrary to the plaintiff's contention that the distributions from the real estate asset are mere expectancies akin to an inheritance and, thus, not property subject to division under § 46b-81, the parties had stipulated that the distributions from that asset were property subject to equitable distribution, and the trial court's award of 25 percent of those distribu- tions to the defendant was consistent with the present division method of deferred distribution, pursuant to which the trial court determines at the time of trial the percentage share of the nonliquid assets to which each spouse is entitled, and that award was not an abuse of discretion when it was viewed in the context of the court's other financial orders. c. The trial court did not improperly based its alimony award on the plaintiff's gross earning capacity rather than on his available net income: Although it is well settled that a court must base child support and alimony awards on the available net income of the parties, and not on gross income or gross earning capacity, this court concluded that a trial court's failure to state explicitly that an award has been based on net income, or its reference to a party's gross income or gross earning capacity, does not, in and of itself, require reversal if the trial court's decision reasonably can be understood to base the award or awards on net income, and that conclusion was consistent with the maxim that reviewing courts should presume that the trial court has exercised its discretion in accordance with the governing law. In the present case, the trial court's only specific finding as to the plain- tiff's earning capacity was expressed in terms of gross earning capacity, but the court expressly referred to the plaintiff's net weekly income as being accurately reflected in the plaintiff's financial affidavit, the court did not expressly state that the gross amount rather than the net amount furnished the basis for the alimony calculation, and, although it would have been better practice for the trial court to make an express finding with respect to the plaintiff's net earning capacity, this court could not conclude that the court's exercise of its discretion was based on a misstatement of the law. Moreover, this court's application of the presumption that the trial court exercised its discretion in accordance with the governing law was sup- ported by the arithmetic underlying the trial court's financial orders, as the alimony award of $5000 per month constituted approximately 37 percent of the plaintiff's net annual earning capacity, as calculated from the net weekly income reported in the plaintiff's financial affidavit, and that percentage did not indicate an abuse of discretion relative to the earning capacity on which it was based. d. The trial court's alimony award was not an abuse of discretion when the award was viewed in light of the plaintiff's ability to pay and the defendant's earning capacity: The alimony award was consistent with the trial court's express reliance on the reduced earning capacity of the defendant, who was earning $12 per hour at a part-time job at the time of trial, relative to that of the plaintiff, the court declined to credit expert testimony that the defendant had a much higher earning capacity given her inability to secure profes- sional employment in the legal and nonprofit fields, and the court recog- nized her contributions to the marriage and the fact that those contribu- tions aided in the plaintiff's professional success. Moreover, the parties' cash assets were split evenly, and the plaintiff received the marital home, 45 percent of the retirement accounts, and 75 percent of the distributions from the real estate asset, and the financial orders did not force the plaintiff to the brink of poverty by stripping him of any means with which to pay them by virtue of a disproportionate division of the marital assets. Furthermore, the trial court expressly recognized that the parties' finan- cial circumstances might evolve and emphasized that the alimony award was subject to modification if her yearly gross earnings were to equal or exceed $50,000. Argued December 15, 2022—officially released September 5, 2023