R. A. v. R. A.

209 Conn.App. 327

268 A.3d 685

R. A.

v.R. A.^*

AC 41990

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued April 5, 2021

Officially released December 21, 2021

R. A., self-represented, the appellant (defendant).

Logan A. Carducci, Hartford, with whom, on the brief, was Keith J. Anthony, New Haven, for the appellee (plaintiff).

Bright, C.J., and Elgo and Clark, Js.

ELGO, J.

The defendant mother, R. A.,¹ appeals from the judgment of the trial court dissolving the parties' marriage and granting the plaintiff father, R. A., sole custody of their minor children. On appeal, the defendant contends that the court (1) improperly included the defendant's child from a previous relationship in the custody order, (2) inequitably set forth procedures for the parties to collaborate on a visitation scheme, and (3) relied on inaccurate information concerning the plaintiff's finances in crafting its child support order.² We dismiss as moot the defendant's appeal as to her first claim and affirm the judgment of the trial court in all other respects.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to this appeal. The parties met while the plaintiff was stationed in Hawaii and serving in the United States Navy. Shortly after meeting, the parties married on February 23, 2011. At that time, the defendant had custody of O, her minor child from a previous relationship.³ The parties thereafter had three children together: T, Q, and A.

In April, 2016, the plaintiff was transferred from Hawaii to Naval Submarine Base New London in Groton (naval base). The parties then purchased a house in the state of Washington, where the defendant and the four minor children resided for approximately six months. The defendant and the minor children subsequently relocated to Connecticut and moved into the plaintiff's apartment, while the plaintiff resided at the naval base barracks.

On December 23, 2016, an altercation ensued between the parties at the naval base that culminated in a motor vehicle collision.⁴ While the parties characterized that altercation differently at trial, the court credited the plaintiff's testimony that the defendant "intentionally struck his car with hers in order to prevent him from leaving the scene." Following that incident, on December 30, 2016, the plaintiff filed an application for an emergency ex parte order of custody. The plaintiff then commenced the present dissolution action on January 11, 2017.

The defendant filed a motion to dismiss on January 20, 2017, arguing that Connecticut lacked jurisdiction over the parties pursuant to the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (child custody act), General Statutes § 46b-115 et seq., and citing the existence of a pending dissolution proceeding in Hawaii. On January 23, 2017, the court, Connors, J. , held a hearing on both the motion to dismiss and the issue of emergency custody, at which both parties testified. The court then denied the motion to dismiss and took temporary emergency jurisdiction under the child custody act. With respect to the plaintiff's application for an emergency ex parte order of custody, the court awarded the parties joint legal custody but granted the plaintiff primary residence with the defendant able to participate in supervised visitation.⁵ Following correspondence with the trial judge in the aforementioned Hawaii proceedings, the court took exclusive jurisdiction during a hearing on March 16, 2017, and sustained the plaintiff's objection to the defendant's prior motion to dismiss. Throughout the spring and summer of 2017, the defendant filed several motions requesting custody and increased access to the children, all of which were denied.

At the time of those proceedings, O was the subject of a concurrent neglect proceeding in the juvenile court of this state. On April 21, 2017, the court, Driscoll, J. , issued an order vesting the plaintiff with temporary custody of O. That order was entered into evidence as a full exhibit at trial in the present case.

Trial in the present matter commenced on February 23, 2018, and concluded on May 22, 2018. The plaintiff was represented by counsel, while the defendant was self-represented. On the final day of trial, the court, Carbonneau, J. , referred to the concurrent juvenile matter involving O, stating: "I was aware that Judge Driscoll had made his decision in the juvenile court case involving [the defendant]. And that I believe he has deferred all further action to [this] court, to decide in the dissolution file. I may be mistaken. I have not yet received a copy of his decision. So if there's something that we need to do or get from Judge Driscoll and [the juvenile court], I certainly will do that. But I'm [going to] operate on the notion that my orders will be sufficient to carry through and complete the functions here today." When the presentation of evidence concluded later that day, both parties agreed to present their final arguments to the court in written form.

The court issued a memorandum of decision on August 7, 2018, in which it rendered judgment dissolving the marriage and awarding the plaintiff custody of the minor children. With respect to O, the court stated in a footnote: "[The defendant] has an older child that is not issue of this marriage. This child was the subject of a [juvenile court] proceeding ... [in which the court, Driscoll, J. ,] found [O] to be neglected on January 18, 2018. [The court] vested guardianship and physical custody in [the plaintiff]. When [this] court refers to ‘the children’ in this decision, [O] is included."

The court also entered several orders concerning the defendant's child support obligations and visitation rights. More specifically, the court granted the defendant "access with the minor children under such conditions to which she and [the plaintiff] may reasonably agree in writing, traditional or electronic." In that order, the court listed several examples of "reasonable and appropriate telephonic and electronic contact," instructed the plaintiff to take steps to facilitate the defendant's contact with the minor children, and set forth a forty-eight hour notice requirement for the defendant's requests for visitation. The court also ordered that the defendant was not required to pay child support for any of the minor children, apart from outstanding arrearage payments regarding O. This appeal followed.⁶

I

The defendant first claims that the court improperly included O in the custody order without accounting for the rights of O's biological father. We conclude that this claim has been rendered moot by subsequent orders of the Superior Court concerning the custodial status of O.

The following additional procedural history is relevant to our resolution of this claim. While this appeal was pending, the defendant brought a separate action on February 19, 2019, seeking custody of O. Both the plaintiff and O's biological father, B, were parties to that action. The matter proceeded to trial over the course of two days in March and June, 2021. On June 10, 2021, the court, Shluger, J. , rendered judgment, in which the court issued orders granting sole legal and physical custody of O to the plaintiff. The court specifically found that B "[has] no interest in parenting [O]" and that he "attended but did not actively participate in the trial." Although the defendant subsequently moved for a waiver of appeal fees, the court, Newson, J. , denied that motion the day it was filed.

On October 19, 2021, this court ordered the parties to submit supplemental briefs on the issue of whether the court's June 10, 2021 orders rendered the defendant's claim with respect to the custody of O moot. The plaintiff filed his supplemental brief on November 1, 2021; on the same day, the defendant requested a three week extension, which this court denied. This court then ordered that the defendant file her supplemental brief no later than November 8, 2021. The defendant filed that brief on November 8, 2021. Although it contains a lengthy list of perceived procedural faults and inequities associated with her various child neglect and family court proceedings, it does not substantively address whether Judge Shluger's June 10, 2021 orders rendered her claim regarding the custody of O moot.

"When, during the pendency of an appeal, events have occurred that preclude an appellate court from granting any practical relief through its disposition of the merits, a case has become moot.... It is axiomatic that if the issues on appeal become moot, the reviewing court loses subject matter jurisdiction to hear the appeal.... It is a [well settled] general rule that the existence of an actual controversy is an essential requisite to appellate jurisdiction; it is not the province of appellate courts to decide moot questions, disconnected from the granting of actual relief or from the determination of which no practical relief can follow. ... An actual controversy must exist not only at the time the appeal is taken, but also throughout the pendency of the appeal." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Dempsey v. Cappuccino , 200 Conn. App. 653, 657, 240 A.3d 1072 (2020).

In his supplemental brief, the plaintiff argues that Judge Shluger's June 10, 2021 order supersedes Judge Carbonneau's August 7, 2018 custody order and, accordingly, deprives the defendant of any practical relief that this court could otherwise grant. We agree. The defendant's contention that B was not adequately represented when Judge Carbonneau issued his custody order was directly remedied by B's status as a party to the custodial matter before Judge Shluger.⁷ There is accordingly no relief that this court can offer the defendant. We therefore conclude that the defendant's claim regarding the custody of O is moot.

II

The defendant also claims that the court's visitation orders were inequitable insofar as they required the parties to work collaboratively on structuring and scheduling visits.⁸ The crux of the defendant's claim is that, by...