BEAR

Christina D. Ghio, for the appellant (respondent mother). Michael J. LaMonica, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, was George Jepsen, attorney general, and Benjamin Zivyon, assistant attorney general, for the appellee (petitioner).
Brendon P. Levesque, with whom, on the brief, was Dana M. Hrelic and Michael S. Taylor, Hartford, for the minor children.

LAVINE, ROBINSON and BEAR, Js.

BEAR, J.

The respondent mother appeals from the judgments of the trial court adjudicating two of her children neglected and ordering a six month period of protective supervision. On appeal, the respondent claims that: (1) the court erred when it concluded that there was a substantiation of sexual abuse of her daughter, (2) the court improperly found the children neglected based only on a prior substantiation of abuse and on her daughter's recent pregnancy, (3) the court's construction of General Statutes § 46b–120 (8) infringed on her constitutional right to family integrity and (4) as applied, § 46b–120 (8) is unconstitutionally vague. We do not address the respondent's claims because we dismiss the appeal as moot.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to our disposition of this appeal. The respondent's minor children, Alba and Guadalupe, were adjudicated neglected in 2008 upon the respondent's nolo contendere plea. Pursuant to the 2008 adjudications, a period of protective supervision was ordered. The respondent did not appeal from the adjudications of neglect or the dispositional orders. In September 2009, the period of protective supervision expired.

On September 1, 2010, the department of children and families (department) opened an investigation after a school administrator reported that Alba, who at the time of the report was thirteen years old, was pregnant. On November 8, 2010, the petitioner, the commissioner of children and families, filed a petition for an adjudication of neglect with respect to both children, alleging that they had been denied proper care and attention, were living under conditions injurious to their wellbeing, had been abused and suffered from conditions resulting from that abuse. In support of her petition, the commissioner alleged, inter alia, that there was a substantiated case of sexual abuse of Alba and Guadalupe in 2008 by their father and that he did not provide for them financially. With regard to the respondent, the commissioner alleged that there was a substantiated case of physical neglect of the children stemming from the 2008 incident of sexual abuse by their father, one unsubstantiated case of physical neglect of Alba from 2010, and a 2010 substantiated case of physical neglect of both children due to Alba's pregnancy.

On June 8, 2011, the court adjudicated Alba and Guadalupe as neglected based on its finding, pursuant to § 46b–120 (8), that they were denied proper care and attention. The court also entered an order of protective supervision for a period of six months. This appeal followed.

On December 28, 2011, while this appeal was pending, the period of protective supervision expired. Thereafter, the petitioner filed a motion to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the appeal was moot. On January 11, 2012, this court denied the motion “without prejudice to the [petitioner] briefing the mootness claim in [a] brief in addition to the merits of the appeal.”

Mootness is an exception to the general rule that jurisdiction, once acquired, is not lost by the occurrence of subsequent events. See In re Shonna K., 77 Conn.App. 246, 258, 822 A.2d 1009 (2003). Because mootness goes to the power of this court to entertain an appeal, we address the issue as a threshold matter. See Kennedy v. Kennedy, 109 Conn.App. 591, 598–99, 952 A.2d 115 (2008).

The respondent concedes that the period of protective supervision of the children by the department has expired, and, as a result, no practical relief could flow from reversal of the court's dispositional imposition of protective supervision. Nonetheless, she argues that review is proper under either of two exceptions to the mootness doctrine: collateral consequences and the capable of repetition yet evading review doctrine. The petitioner argues that the expiration of the period of protective supervision renders this appeal moot and that the exceptions do not apply. We agree with the petitioner.

We first address the respondent's claim that her appeal is saved by the collateral consequences exception. “[D]espite developments during the pendency of an appeal that would otherwise render a claim moot, the court may retain jurisdiction when a litigant shows that there is a reasonable possibility that prejudicial collateral consequences will occur.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Williams v. Ragaglia, 261 Conn. 219, 226, 802 A.2d 778 (2002).

The respondent argues that her family's history with the department makes it reasonably foreseeable that it will come under the department's scrutiny in the future. She argues that if any future involvement does occur, the department or the court “will undoubtedly consider any prior substantiations and adjudications.”

Our Supreme Court has considered the relevance of past interaction with the department when determining the reasonable possibility of future interaction with the department resulting in collateral consequences to a litigant. Williams v. Ragaglia, supra, 261 Conn. at 228–29, 802 A.2d 778 (foster caregiver's likelihood of future involvement with department based on previously accepting care of foster children). Even if we assume that the respondent'shistory with the department creates a reasonable possibility that she or her family will have future interactions with the department, the respondent has not demonstrated that there is a reasonable possibility that the adjudications of neglect that are the subject of this appeal will result in prejudicial collateral consequences to her.

The respondent argues that the present adjudications may form the basis of a subsequent coterminous petition to terminate her parental rights. While acknowledging that the 2008 neglect adjudications could form the basis of a termination petition, the respondent argues that this “does not lessen the potential that [the department] and the [c]ourt would rely on this more recent adjudication.” The respondent contends that the present neglect adjudications, if left unchallenged, would burden her with multiple adjudications and “likely have significant impact in subsequent proceedings beyond the impact of the 2008 order of temporary custody and adjudication alone.” We are not persuaded.

General Statutes § 17a–112 (j)(3)(B)(i) provides that a court may terminate the parental rights to a child that “has been found by the Superior Court or the Probate Court to have been neglected or uncared for in a prior proceeding....” Thus, the statute requires only a single prior adjudication of neglect as to the child who is the subject of a termination of parental rights petition.

The respondent concedes that the 2008 adjudications can serve as the basis for a termination proceeding alleging her failure to achieve sufficient personal rehabilitation under § 17a–112 (j)(3)(B)(i). Accordingly, review of the present adjudications would provide the respondent with no practical relief from this claimed collateral consequence; Alba and Guadalupe still would be exposed to a subsequent termination of parental rights proceeding predicated on the 2008 adjudications. Whether the court would rely on the more recent adjudications or whether the present adjudications would have significant impact on a subsequent proceeding requires us to speculate as to what weight, if any, a court would assign to the present adjudications. Here, unlike Williams, the respondent did not have a “clean” record with the department prior to the adjudications of neglect that are the subject of this appeal. See Williams v. Ragaglia, supra, 261 Conn. at 225, 802 A.2d 778. Thus, even if we were to review and to reverse the present adjudications, neither the status of the respondent nor her children with the department would change. The children will have been adjudicated neglected by virtue of the 2008 adjudications, and the respondent will remain the parent of children previously found to have been neglected. Thus, because of the 2008 neglect adjudications, which were not appealed, our review and reversal of the present neglect adjudications could not provide the practical relief of removing the respondent's children from the ambit of § 17a–112 (j)(3)(B)(i).

Moreover, we are aware of no authority preventing the department or a court from considering the evidence underlying the present neglect adjudications in a subsequent termination or predictive neglect proceeding, regardless of whether the adjudications themselves stand. Contrarily, in termination and predictive neglect proceedings, courts are often presented with a broad evidentiary foundation encompassing many years, independent of previous judicial findings or department substantiations. See, e.g., In re Mia M., 127 Conn.App. 363, 373, 14 A.3d 1024 (2011) (court should consider all potentially relevant evidence, despite length of prior time to which it relates); In re Emerald C., 108 Conn.App. 839, 858–59, 949 A.2d 1266 (evidence concerning respondent's children in Ghana, whom he had abandoned, relevant consideration in forming “a historical perspective of the respondent's child caring and parenting abilities” for assessment of respondent's failure to rehabilitate), cert. denied, 289 Conn. 923, 958 A.2d 150 (2008); In re Anna Lee M., 104 Conn.App. 121, 128, 931 A.2d 949 (court was required to obtain historical perspective of respondent's child caring and parenting abilities), cert. denied, 284 Conn. 939, 937 A.2d 696 (2007); In re Brianna F., 50 Conn.App. 805, 814, 719 A.2d 478 (1998) (“Because the parent-child relationship is at issue, all relevant facts and family history should be considered by the trial court when deciding whether to terminate the respondent's parental rights.... The parent-child relationship presents an ongoing dynamic that cannot be frozen in time. The entire picture of that relationship must be considered whenever the termination of parental rights is under consideration by a judicial authority.”). Accordingly, the respondent has not established by more than mere conjecture that the present adjudications will have a material effect on a subsequent proceeding, above and beyond the consequences that could flow from the 2008 adjudications. See In re Claudia F., 93 Conn.App. 343, 349, 888 A.2d 1138, cert. denied, 277 Conn. 924, 895 A.2d 796 (2006).

The respondent also argues that she will be unable to challenge the department's 2008 and 2010 neglect substantiations and her listing on the central registry through the administrative hearing process if we dismiss her appeal as moot. She asserts that if she is not allowed to challenge in this court the department's neglect substantiations underlying the court's neglect adjudications, the substantiations will remain in the department's records, rather than be expunged after five years. She contends that the department will rely on the substantiations in future investigations, the substantiations may damage her reputation because “substantiations and unsubstantiated allegations not yet expunged” may be disclosed and, “if the substantiations are not reversed, the likelihood of a reversal of the decision to place [the respondent] on the [central registry] is diminished.” We are not persuaded.

Initially, we note that the parties have provided no indication that the respondent's ability to challenge her placement on the central registry through the administrative process described in General Statutes § 17a–101k and, thereafter, the court appeals process, would be foreclosed by dismissal of the present appeal. See, e.g., Frank v. Dept. of Children & Families, 134 Conn.App. 288, 37 A.3d 834 (2012); Albright–Lazzari v. Commissioner of Children & Families, 120 Conn.App. 376, 991 A.2d 696, cert. denied, 297 Conn. 908, 995 A.2d 636, cert. denied, ––– U.S. ––––, 131 S.Ct. 516, 178 L.Ed.2d 365 (2010). Furthermore, we are not required to analyze the respondent's conclusory assertion that the likelihood of a reversal of her placement on the registry will be diminished if the substantiations are not reversed. See Carmichael v. Stonkus, 133 Conn.App. 302, 307, 34 A.3d 1026, cert. denied, 304 Conn. 911, 39 A.3d 1121 (2012).

Likewise, we are not persuaded by the respondent's argument that dismissal of the present matter will foreclose her ability to challenge the substantiations administratively. The respondent contends that, under the department's policy, a failure to overturn the court's adjudications of neglect will result in the denial of her administrative hearings as a matter of course. The respondent points to § 17a–101k–4 (d) of the Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies and the department's policy manual in support of her argument.Section 17a–101k–4 (d) provides that a “request for an internal review shall be denied by the department when a civil court proceeding has been finally disposed with a factual determination by the court that the identified person committed the act of child abuse or neglect that is the subject of the substantiation.” We reject the respondent's argument, again noting that the court's adjudications of neglect challenged on appeal are not findings about the respondent, but are directed at the status of her children. See footnote 4 of this opinion.

We next turn to the respondent's claim that the present appeal falls within the capable of repetition yet evading review exception to the mootness doctrine. The respondent challenges the court's adjudications of neglect and argues that there is a reasonable likelihood that the question presented in this case will arise again in the future, both for the respondent and for similarly situated parents. She further contends that the “substantial majority of such cases would become moot before appellate litigation could be completed because, where there is no actual inadequacy in parenting, the dispositions are inherently time limited because, as in this case, only minimal periods of protective supervision would be imposed.” She contends that the present case raises a matter of public importance. We are not persuaded.

“[A]n otherwise moot question may qualify for review under the capable of repetition, yet evading review exception. 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.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) In re Forrest B., 109 Conn.App. 772, 775–76, 953 A.2d 887 (2008).

The respondent states that “[i]n this case, the challenged action is the Court's adjudication of neglect based solely on the prior substantiation and the child's recent pregnancy.” Aside from her conclusory assertion that a majority of similar cases would become moot because a minimal period of protective supervision would be ordered in those cases, the respondent has failed to offer any authority that suggests that a substantial majority of such cases will be disposed of with only minimal periods of supervision imposed, instead of an order of commitment of the child to the commissioner pursuant to General Statutes § 46b–129 (j), or that such cases “are, by their very nature, of such a limited duration that there is a strong likelihood that they will become moot before appellate litigation can be concluded. See Drabik v. East Lyme, 97 Conn.App. 142, 146, 902 A.2d 727 (2006).” In re Forrest B., supra, 109 Conn.App. at 776, 953 A.2d 887. Accordingly, we reject her claim that the present matter is capable of repetition yet evading review under the first criterion of that exception.

The appeal is dismissed.

In this opinion the other judges concurred.