(Internal quotation marks omitted.) Board of Education v. State Board of Education , 278 Conn. 326, 333, 898 A.2d 170 (2006). "[C]onsistent with the aforementioned principle, the legislature is always presumed to have created a harmonious and consistent body of law .... [T]his tenet of statutory construction requires [this court] to read statutes together when they relate to the same subject matter .... Accordingly, [i]n determining the meaning of a statute ... we look not only at the provision at issue, but also to the broader statutory scheme to ensure the coherency of our construction.... [T]he General Assembly is always presumed to know all the existing statutes and the effect that its action or non-action will have upon any one of them."

Section 1-2z also requires us to consider § 49-34 in relationship to other statutes to determine if the ‘‘subscribed and sworn to’’ provision of § 49-34 (1) (C) is plain and unambiguous. Board of Education v.State Board of Education, 278 Conn. 326, 334, 898 A.2d 170 (2006). ‘‘[T]he legislature is always presumed to have created a harmonious and consistent body of law .... [T]his tenet of statutory construction . . . requires [this court] to read statutes together when they relate to the same subject matter .... Accordingly, [i]n determining the meaning of a statute . . . we look not only at the provision at issue, but also to the broader statutory scheme to ensure the coherency of our construction.... [T]he General Assembly is always presumed to know all the existing statutes and the effect that its action or non-action will have upon any one of them.

Limiting the applicability of section 52-577c to claims against defendants who are alleged to have caused both plaintiff's exposure to environmental contamination and the release of the contamination into the environment avoids treating "released into the environment" as surplusage. "In construing statutes, we presume that there is a purpose behind every sentence, clause, or phrase used in an act and that no part of a statute is superfluous." Bd. of Educ. v. State Bd. of Educ., 278 Conn. 326, 335 (2006) (internal citations omitted); see also Greco v. United Techs. Corp., 227 Conn. 337, 348-49 (2006) (declining to apply section 52-577c because applying it would deprive the first phrase of 52-577c(b) of import). New Britain asks the court to apply section 52-577c to any "claim to recover damages caused by exposure to a hazardous chemical substance or mixture or hazardous pollutant," effectively reading out "released into the environment." The concept of release is not superfluous to proper construction of the statute; release is one of the five terms in section 52-577c(b) that is defined in section 52-577c(a): "'release' means any spilling, leaking, pumping, pouring, emitting, emptying, discharging, injecting, escaping, leaching, dumping, or disposing into the environment.

(Internal quotation marks omitted.) Board of Education v. State Board of Education, 278 Conn. 326, 333, 898 A.2d 170 (2006). However, we cannot go so far as to import additional provisions into statutory schemes in an effort to create greater harmony or consistency than the terms of the statute permit.

The traditional principles of statutory construction codified in § 1-2z do not permit us to substitute our own policy preferences for those expressed by the legislature, but we do not ignore practical and commonsensical considerations when we assess the plausibility of competing interpretations. See Cohen v. Rossi , supra, 346 Conn. at 665–67, 295 A.3d 75 (concluding that statutory text was unambiguous in light of practical factors involving operation of municipal clerk's office); Seramonte Associates, LLC v. Hamden , 345 Conn. 76, 91, 282 A.3d 1253 (2022) (rejecting proposed construction of "the word ‘submit’ " in part because of practical considerations regarding incentive of taxpayers to ensure "that municipal assessors obtain necessary information in a timely fashion"); Casey v. Lamont , 338 Conn. 479, 493, 258 A.3d 647 (2021) (considering commonsense implications of statutory construction before resorting to extratextual sources to glean legislature's intent); Board of Education v. State Board of Education , 278 Conn. 326, 337, 898 A.2d 170 (2006) ("[i]n construing a statute, common sense must be used and courts must assume that a reasonable and rational result was intended" (internal quotation marks omitted)). The majority appears to conclude, as did the Appellate Court, that it defies common sense to construe these statutes to limit heart and hypertension benefits to firefighters and police officers employed by municipalities that participate in CMERS.

(Internal quotation marks omitted.) Board of Education v. State Board of Education , 278 Conn. 326, 333, 898 A.2d 170 (2006). As we have explained, § 31-284 (a) manifests a legislative intent that the remedy available to employees who benefit from workers’ compensation should be limited to those benefits and should preclude the right to bring a common-law tort action.

We disagree. Reading the statutes as a harmonious and consistent body of law; see, e.g., Board of Education v. State Board of Education , 278 Conn. 326, 333, 898 A.2d 170 (2006) (because "legislature is presumed to have created a harmonious and consistent body of law ... we look not only at the provision at issue, but also to the broader statutory scheme to ensure the coherency of our construction" (internal quotation marks omitted)); leads us to conclude that, although the legislature enacted laws mandating that boards provide special education, that mandate does not "encroach upon the general powers of control delegated to the towns by § 10-240." Palosz v. Greenwich , supra, 184 Conn. App. at 212, 194 A.3d 885.

(Internal quotation marks omitted.) Board of Education v. State Board of Education , 278 Conn. 326, 331, 898 A.2d 170 (2006). When we construe a statute, General Statutes § 1-2z directs us to ascertain its meaning "from the text of the statute itself and its relationship to other statutes.

(Internal quotation marks omitted.) Board of Education v. State Board of Education, 278 Conn. 326, 338, 898 A.2d 170 (2006). Accordingly, we reject the defendant's argument that § 12-55 authorized the assessor's actions in the present matter.

(Internal quotation marks omitted.) Board of Education v. State Board of Education, 278 Conn. 326, 335, 898 A.2d 170 (2006). The plaintiff also notes correctly that § 14-62 is a consumer protection statute that, like CUTPA, is remedial in nature and is, therefore, liberally construed in favor of those the legislature intended to benefit.