In re Elena M.

Syllabus

The respondent father appealed from the judgment of the trial court terminat- ing his parental rights as to his minor child. He claimed, inter alia, that the court violated his constitutional right to procedural due process by denying his oral motion for a continuance during the trial on the petition to terminate his parental rights filed by the petitioner, the Commissioner of Children and Families. Held: The respondent father's claims on appeal were not moot, as the trial court relied on the prior neglect adjudication to conclude that the petitioner had established the adjudicatory grounds for termination set forth in the statute (§ 17a-112 (j) (3) (B) (i) and (E)), both subparagraphs of which required a finding of neglect, and, if this court were to agree with the respondent, then the trial court's reliance on either adjudicatory ground at issue would be undermined, thereby resulting in practical relief to the respondent. The trial court did not violate the respondent father's constitutional right to procedural due process in denying his motion for a continuance, this court having concluded, after balancing the three factors set forth in Mathews v. Eldridge (424 U.S. 319) to determine if the denial rendered the trial fundamentally unfair, that the respondent's claim failed under the third prong of State v. Golding (213 Conn. 233). This court concluded that the respondent father's claim, in the alternative, that the trial court abused its discretion in denying his motion for a continu- ance, was unavailing, as the trial court correctly concluded that a continu- ance would have served no useful purpose and, even if this court were to assume that the trial court abused its discretion, any error was harmless. Argued October 15, 2024—officially released April 21, 2025 In accordance with the spirit and intent of General Statutes § 46b-142 (b) and Practice Book § 79a-12, the names of the parties involved in this appeal are not disclosed. The records and papers of this ca