Opinion ID: 1940813
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the children's appeal from the denial of the motion for visitation

Text: The children also appeal from the trial court's order denying their motion for visitation with the respondent pending these appeals. The children contend that the trial court improperly concluded that there were constitutional implications to the children's motion for visitation and failed to apply properly the best interests of the child standard in denying the children's motion. The department responds that the trial court properly denied the motion for visitation because it properly determined that such visitation was not in the best interests of the children. Furthermore, at oral argument in this court, the department asserted that this appeal would be rendered moot if this court were to affirm the trial court's termination of the respondent's parental rights because the children were seeking visitation only during the pendency of these appeals. We agree with the department that the outcome of the other appeals renders this appeal moot, and, accordingly, we dismiss this appeal as moot. The following additional facts and procedural history are relevant to our resolution of this appeal. After the trial court rendered the judgments terminating the parental rights of the respondent, the respondent and the children filed notices of appeal. Shortly thereafter, the children filed two motions with the trial court. In one motion, the children moved to continue regular visits with the respondent pursuant to General Statutes งง 17a-10a [15] and 46b-59, [16] pending the disposition of the appeals. In the other motion, the children moved to stay the execution of the court's order terminating the parental rights of the respondent and to continue visitation pursuant to Practice Book ง 61-12, [17] pending the outcome of the appeals. After a hearing, the trial court denied both motions. Thereafter, the children filed a notice of appeal from the order of the trial court denying both motions. The children also filed a motion for review of the trial court's order denying their motion for a stay. The Appellate Court thereafter granted the children's motion for review, but denied the relief requested therein. Because mootness implicates the subject matter jurisdiction of this court, we first address whether our resolution of the other appeals relating to the merits of the termination of the parental rights of the respondent renders this appeal moot. Mootness is a question of justiciability that must be determined as a threshold matter because it implicates [this] court's subject matter jurisdiction.... We begin with the four part test for justiciability established in State v. Nardini, 187 Conn. 109, 445 A.2d 304 (1982).... Because courts are established to resolve actual controversies, before a claimed controversy is entitled to a resolution on the merits it must be justiciable. Justiciability requires (1) that there be an actual controversy between or among the parties to the dispute ... (2) that the interests of the parties be adverse ... (3) that the matter in controversy be capable of being adjudicated by judicial power ... and (4) that the determination of the controversy will result in practical relief to the complainant. (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Preston, 286 Conn. 367, 373-74, 944 A.2d 276 (2008). [A]n actual controversy must exist not only at the time the appeal is taken, but also throughout the pendency of the appeal.... When, during the pendency of an appeal, events have occurred that preclude an appellate court from granting any practical relief through its disposition of the merits, a case has become moot. (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., at 374, 944 A.2d 276. In the present case, the children appeal from the trial court's order denying their motion to continue visitation with the respondent pending the appeals from the termination of the respondent's parental rights. We have now concluded that the trial court's judgments terminating those rights should be affirmed. These appeals therefore are at an end and we can grant no practical relief to the children in their appeal from the denial of visitation. In their motion, the children sought continued visitation while the two appeals were pending. Our resolution of those appeals, therefore, makes it impossible to grant the children the relief they sought. We recognize that an otherwise moot question may qualify for review under the capable of repetition, yet evading review exception [to the mootness doctrine]. To do so, however, it must meet three requirements. First, the challenged action, or the effect of the challenged action, by its very nature must be of a limited duration so that there is a strong likelihood that the substantial majority of cases raising a question about its validity will become moot before appellate litigation can be concluded. Second, there must be a reasonable likelihood that the question presented in the pending case will arise again in the future, and that it will affect either the same complaining party or a reasonably identifiable group for whom that party can be said to act as surrogate. Third, the question must have some public importance. Unless all three requirements are met, the appeal must be dismissed as moot.... The basis for the first requirement derives from the nature of the exception. If an action or its effects is not of inherently limited duration, the action can be reviewed the next time it arises, when it will present an ongoing live controversy. Moreover, if the question presented is not strongly likely to become moot in the substantial majority of cases in which it arises, the urgency of deciding the pending case is significantly reduced. Thus, there is no reason to reach out to decide the issue as between parties who, by hypothesis, no longer have any present interest in the outcome. (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) State v. Boyle, 287 Conn. 478, 487, n. 3, 949 A.2d 460 (2008). In the present case, we acknowledge that it is possible for an appeal from a motion for continued visitation pending appeal to be decided along with any appeals from the termination judgment in the majority of cases. We are, however, unpersuaded that this possibility makes it likely that the substantial majority of cases raising a question about continued visitation pending appeal will evade review. Sweeney v. Sweeney, 271 Conn. 193, 201-202, 856 A.2d 997 (2004). To the contrary, as the children did in this appeal, any child seeking continued visitation pending appeal may seek a motion for stay of the termination pursuant to Practice Book ง 61-12. If the motion is denied, a child may seek to have that denial reviewed by filing a motion for review pursuant to Practice Book ง 66-6, [18] as the children did in this case. Indeed, it appears that the children's appeal from their motion for continued visitation pending appeal is merely an attempt for further review of the same issues decided in the motion for review. Because there is another, more appropriate, avenue for reaching the issue presented by their appealโnamely, a motion to stayโthe issue can be reviewed the next time it is presented and is, therefore, not of limited duration. We conclude, therefore, that the children's appeal does not satisfy the first prong of the capable of repetition, yet evading review doctrine. See, e.g., In re Amy H., 56 Conn.App. 55, 61, 742 A.2d 372 (1999) (declining to review challenge to visitation order because respondent parent did not move for stay of execution); In re Clifton B., 15 Conn.App. 367, 368 n. 1, 544 A.2d 666 (1988) (declining to review whether parents had rights to continued visitation where respondents did not file motion for review of denial of motion for stay and continued visitation). We therefore conclude that the children's appeal from the trial court's denial of their motion for visitation is moot and, accordingly, we dismiss this appeal. The judgments of the trial court terminating the parental rights of the respondent as to the children are affirmed; the appeal from the order of the trial court denying the children's motion for visitation is dismissed as moot.