Benchmark Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. v. 899 ETG Associates, LLC

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Benchmark Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. v. 899 ETG Associates, LLC

BENCHMARK MUNICIPAL TAX
SERVICES, LTD. v. 899
ETG ASSOCIATES,
LLC, ET AL.
(AC 46547)
Cradle, Suarez and Clark, Js.

Syllabus

The plaintiff sought to foreclose a mortgage on certain real property owned
by the named defendant, E Co. E Co. executed a promissory note in
the plaintiff’s favor, which was secured by a mortgage on the property.
E Co. subsequently entered into a modification agreement with the
plaintiff that increased the amount of the principal in exchange for a
six month extension of the maturity date. E Co. thereafter defaulted on
the mortgage and the defendants requested a second extension, which
the plaintiff refused. The plaintiff also alleged that the defendant guaran-
tors had breached their guarantees. The defendants asserted the special
defense of unclean hands, claiming that the parties had negotiated for
an additional extension of time regarding the maturity date, which the
plaintiff refused to honor. In opposition to the plaintiff’s motion for
summary judgment as to liability, the defendants submitted an affidavit
from the defendant S, who signed the modification agreement on E Co.’s
behalf. S averred that E Co. entered into the modification agreement
in reliance on the plaintiff’s false promise to grant an additional extension
of the maturity date. The trial court granted the plaintiff’s motion for
summary judgment, and rendered a judgment of strict foreclosure, from
which the defendants appealed to this court. Held:
1. The appeal was dismissed as to the guarantor defendants for lack of
standing; it was undisputed that none of the guarantor defendants was
a party to the note, mortgage or modification agreement, and neither
the plaintiff nor the defendants alleged that the guarantor defendants
had any interest in the property or a right of redemption.
2. The trial court properly granted the plaintiff’s motion for summary judg-
ment as to liability: because the text of the modification agreement
expressly addressed the question of further extensions, specifically pro-
viding that the maturity date ‘‘shall not be further extended’’ past the
initial six month extension, the trial court properly concluded that the
modification agreement was integrated on this point; moreover, S’s
affidavit was insufficient to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to
the defendants’ unclean hands defense, as E Co. could not manufacture
a material factual dispute as to the parties’ intent by pointing to parol
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Benchmark Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. v. 899 ETG Associates, LLC
evidence of negotiations that contradicted the express written terms of
the modification agreement, even by way of a sworn affidavit.
Argued May 23—officially released August 20, 2024

Procedural History

Action, inter alia, to foreclose a mortgage on certain
real property owned by the named defendant, and for
other relief, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial
district of New Haven, where the court, Spader, J.,
granted the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment as
to liability; thereafter, the court, Spader, J., rendered
judgment of strict foreclosure, from which the defen-
dants appealed to this court. Appeal dismissed in part;
affirmed; further proceedings.
Kyle R. Barrett, for the appellants (defendants).
Juda J. Epstein, with whom, on the brief, was Mat-
thew M. Hausman, for the appellee (plaintiff).
Opinion

CLARK, J. In this foreclosure action, the defen-
dants—the owner of certain mortgaged real property
and four alleged guarantors—jointly appeal the judg-
ment of strict foreclosure rendered in favor of the plain-
tiff, Benchmark Municipal Tax Services, Ltd.1 On
appeal, the defendants argue that the trial court, in
granting the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment
as to liability, improperly determined that there was no
genuine issue of material fact as to the defendants’
1
In its operative revised complaint, the plaintiff named 899 ETG Associ-
ates, LLC, David Silberstein, Tsiri Silberstein, Silver Mount, LLC, and Silver
Mount Two, LLC, as defendants. 899 ETG Associates, LLC, is alleged to be
the owner of the subject property and a party to a promissory note and
mortgage with respect to that property. David Silberstein, Tsiri Silberstein,
Silver Mount, LLC, and Silver Mount Two, LLC, are alleged to be guarantors
of the subject note and mortgage. In this opinion, we refer to all defendants
collectively as the defendants, and to David Silberstein, Tsiri Silberstein,
Silver Mount, LLC, and Silver Mount Two, LLC, collectively as the guarantor
defendants. We refer to the individual defendants by name when necessary.
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Benchmark Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. v. 899 ETG Associates, LLC

special defense of unclean hands. For the reasons that
follow, we dismiss the appeal as to the four guarantor
defendants and affirm the judgment of the trial court.
The following procedural history is relevant to this
appeal. On November 2, 2021, the plaintiff filed a five
count revised complaint against the defendants seeking,
inter alia, to foreclose on a mortgage securing certain
real property located at 899 Ella T. Grasso Boulevard
in New Haven (property). In count one, the plaintiff
alleged that, on September 19, 2019, 899 ETG Associ-
ates, LLC (899 ETG), executed a promissory note in
the plaintiff’s favor in the principal amount of $600,000,
secured by an open-end mortgage deed on the property.
The plaintiff further alleged that, on September 17, 2020,
899 ETG executed a ‘‘Mortgage and Note Modification
Agreement’’ (modification agreement) that increased
the amount of the principal to $655,000, and that 899
ETG defaulted on March 18, 2021. The plaintiff sought
to accelerate the balance due and to foreclose on the
mortgage. In the remaining four counts, the plaintiff
named the other four defendants as guarantors of 899
ETG’s note and mortgage and alleged that they had
breached their guarantees.
On March 3, 2022, the defendants filed an answer
and special defenses. As relevant to this appeal, they
asserted the special defense of unclean hands, claiming
that ‘‘the parties negotiated for an extension of time
with regard to the date when the debt which is the
subject of [this] action would mature and the plaintiff
thereafter refused to honor said extension agreement.’’2
On July 7, 2022, the plaintiff moved for summary
judgment as to liability. In support of its motion, the
2
The defendants also asserted as a special defense that the plaintiff had
failed to properly and accurately account for payments they had tendered.
The defendants’ counsel, however, abandoned this defense before the trial
court during oral argument on the plaintiff’s summary judgment motion and
the defendants have not pursued it on appeal. As such, we do not consider it.
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Benchmark Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. v. 899 ETG Associates, LLC

plaintiff attached, inter alia, copies of the original prom-
issory note, mortgage deed, and notice of default. The
plaintiff also attached a copy of the modification agree-
ment, as well as an affidavit from Mark Zucker, the
plaintiff’s president (Zucker affidavit).

The Zucker affidavit averred the following: 899 ETG
executed a mortgage on the property in favor of the
plaintiff on September 19, 2019, as security for a promis-
sory note in the principal amount of $600,000. Under
the terms of the original note, the defendants were to
make principal payments for the complete amount of
their indebtedness on or before the maturity date, Sep-
tember 18, 2020. The defendants, however, subse-
quently requested an extension of the maturity date,
and, on September 17, 2020, the plaintiff granted a six
month extension to March 18, 2021, in exchange for a
$55,000 increase in the amount of the principal and
$30,093 in fees. The plaintiff indicated that no further
extensions would be granted. The defendants failed
to remit payment and requested a second extension.
Notwithstanding the plaintiff’s earlier refusal to grant
an additional extension, ‘‘new terms were proposed for
a second extension to allow the [d]efendants time to
refinance and cure the default,’’ but the defendants
refused those terms. As such, the defendants were now
in default.

The modification agreement reflected that, as averred
in the Zucker affidavit, the plaintiff and 899 ETG had
agreed, on September 17, 2020, to modify the maturity
date to March 18, 2021, and to increase the amount of
the principal by $55,000. The modification agreement
specified that the maturity date ‘‘shall not be further
extended.’’ The modification agreement was notarized
and signed by the defendant David Silberstein, acting
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on 899 ETG’s behalf as its duly authorized ‘‘Member-
Manager.’’ The modification agreement did not include
a merger clause.3
On October 11, 2022, the defendants filed their objec-
tion to the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment.
They argued that there was a material issue of fact as
to their special defense of unclean hands. The only
evidence that they produced in support of their objec-
tion was an affidavit from David Silberstein (Silberstein
affidavit). The plaintiff did not file a reply to the defen-
dants’ objection.
The Silberstein affidavit averred the following: In Sep-
tember, 2020, 899 ETG entered into negotiations with
the plaintiff’s representative for an extension of the
maturity date of the mortgage and the note. On Septem-
ber 10, 2020, the plaintiff’s representative ‘‘advised [the]
[d]efendant . . . that the maturity date could be
extended up to a year.’’ In reliance on this representa-
tion, 899 ETG executed the modification agreement for
a six month extension, paid the $30,093 in fees, and
agreed to an increase in the amount of the principal by
$55,000, with the understanding that an additional six
month extension would be available. 899 ETG would
not have agreed to pay these fees and to increase its
indebtedness by that amount had it not believed it
would receive an additional extension. Subsequently,
in March, 2021, 899 ETG requested that the maturity
date be extended by six more months, but the plaintiff
refused to grant this request, contrary to the previous
representations of the plaintiff’s representative. As a
result of the plaintiff’s refusal to extend the maturity
date, 899 ETG defaulted on the note and mortgage.
3
A merger clause, also known as an integration clause, is ‘‘[a] contractual
provision stating that the contract represents the parties’ complete and final
agreement and supersedes all informal understandings and oral agreements
relating to the subject matter of the contract.’’ Black’s Law Dictionary (12th
Ed. 2024) p. 962.
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Benchmark Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. v. 899 ETG Associates, LLC

The trial court, Spader, J., heard oral argument on
the plaintiff’s motion on December 12, 2022. The follow-
ing day, the court issued a memorandum of decision
granting summary judgment as to liability in favor of
the plaintiff on count one of the revised complaint. The
court concluded that ‘‘[t]he plaintiff has set forth its
prima facie case for a commercial foreclosure, includ-
ing providing the court with proof of compliance with
the terms of the commercial note and mortgage, as
modified, in terms of noticing, evidence of default, and
the plaintiff’s holdership status of the note and mort-
gage.’’ The court further determined that there was no
genuine issue of material fact as to the defendants’
unclean hands defense. Notwithstanding 899 ETG’s
claim that the plaintiff had offered it an additional six
month extension of the maturity date, the court noted,
the fact that 899 ETG had shortly thereafter signed the
modification agreement—which ‘‘specifically stat[ed]
there would be no further extensions’’—undercut its
claim that the plaintiff had acted dishonestly. The court
reasoned that ‘‘[c]ommercial parties negotiate terms of
their agreements and reduce them to writing,’’ and that
‘‘[t]he writing here establishes the terms of the agree-
ment.’’ Because 899 ETG was a ‘‘commercially sophisti-
cated party,’’ the court wrote, it should not have signed
the modification agreement if it did not reflect the terms
to which it had agreed. The court characterized the
Silberstein affidavit as ‘‘self-serving,’’ and noted that
‘‘[t]erms that are part of the negotiation that are not
part of the final agreement [are] not enforceable as they
are not included in the agreement.’’ The court did not
grant the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment as
to the remaining four counts of the revised complaint,
as it determined that the plaintiff had provided ‘‘no
evidence of any guarant[ee] . . . .’’
On April 25, 2023, the plaintiff moved for a judgment
of strict foreclosure. On May 8, 2023, the trial court
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Benchmark Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. v. 899 ETG Associates, LLC

granted that motion as to count one of the revised
complaint only and rendered a judgment of strict fore-
closure, setting the first law day for September 11, 2023.
This appeal followed.
I
Before turning to the merits, we address a threshold
jurisdictional question with respect to the standing of
the four guarantor defendants in this appeal. Although
no party raised the issue in their appellate briefing,
this court asked the parties to provide supplemental
memoranda on the issue of whether the guarantor
defendants had standing to appeal from the judgment
of strict foreclosure rendered in this case in light of
this court’s decision in World Business Lenders, LLC
v. 526-528 North Main Street, LLC, 197 Conn. App. 269,
270, 231 A.3d 386 (2020). See Deutsche Bank National
Trust Co. v. Thompson, 163 Conn. App. 827, 831, 136
A.3d 1277 (2016) (‘‘the question of subject matter juris-
diction, because it addresses the basic competency of
the court, can be raised . . . by the court sua sponte,
at any time’’ (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Having received the parties’ briefing on this issue,
we conclude that, although 899 ETG has standing to
challenge the trial court’s judgment, the guarantor
defendants do not. The guarantor defendants concede
in their supplemental memorandum that, pursuant to
World Business Lenders, LLC, ‘‘they lack standing to
appeal the judgment of foreclosure rendered on count
one as to ‘‘[899 ETG].’’ Indeed, in World Business Lend-
ers, LLC, this court observed that the guarantor in that
case was not a party to the mortgage or the note and
had neither a legal interest in the property securing the
note, nor an equitable or statutory right of redemption
in the property. World Business Lenders, LLC v. 526-
528 North Main Street, LLC, supra, 197 Conn. App.
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Benchmark Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. v. 899 ETG Associates, LLC

278. As such, this court held that, ‘‘[b]ecause [the guar-
antor] was not and could not be a party to the foreclo-
sure claim, she [had] no standing to challenge the fore-
closure judgment on appeal.’’ Id.
In the present case, it is undisputed that none of the
guarantor defendants is a party to the note, mortgage,
or modification agreement.4 Neither the plaintiff nor
the defendants have alleged that any of the guarantor
defendants has any interest in the property or a right
of redemption. In accordance with this court’s holding
in World Business Lenders, LLC v. 526-528 North Main
Street, LLC, supra, 197 Conn. App. 278–79, we conclude
that the guarantor defendants lack standing to challenge
the trial court’s foreclosure judgment. Accordingly, we
dismiss the appeal as to those defendants.
II
Having resolved that threshold jurisdictional ques-
tion, we turn to the merits of 899 ETG’s claims on
appeal. 899 ETG claims that the trial court erred in
granting the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment
because the Silberstein affidavit was sufficient to raise
a genuine issue of material fact as to the defendants’
unclean hands defense. Specifically, 899 ETG argues
that the Silberstein affidavit contradicts the Zucker affi-
davit and evinces misrepresentations by the plaintiff’s
representative during negotiations to extend the matu-
rity date.5 We are not persuaded.
4
David Silberstein signed all three documents but did so on behalf of
899 ETG.
5
In their brief, the defendants set forth three questions in their statement
of issues: (1) whether the trial court erred in granting the plaintiff’s motion
for summary judgment; (2) whether the trial court erred in concluding that
there were no disputed issues of material fact; and (3) whether the trial
court erred in finding that there were no disputed issues of material fact
with respect to the defendants’ unclean hands defense. The remainder of
the brief, however, exclusively addresses the third issue. To the extent that
899 ETG challenges other portions of the trial court’s decision to grant the
plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment—for example, its determination
that the plaintiff had made out a prima facie case—it has inadequately
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We begin by setting forth our standard of review
and the principles that guide our analysis. ‘‘It is well
established that Practice Book § 17-49 provides that
summary judgment shall be rendered forthwith if the
pleadings, affidavits and any other proof submitted
show that there is no genuine issue as to any material
fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment
as a matter of law. In deciding a motion for summary
judgment, the trial court must view the evidence in the
light most favorable to the nonmoving party. . . . The
party moving for summary judgment has the burden of
showing the absence of any genuine issue of material
fact and that the party is, therefore, entitled to judgment
as a matter of law. . . . On appeal, we must determine
whether the legal conclusions reached by the trial court
are legally and logically correct and whether they find
support in the facts set out in the memorandum of
decision of the trial court. . . . Our review of the trial
court’s decision to grant [a party’s] motion for summary
judgment is plenary.’’ (Internal quotation marks omit-
ted.) Graham v. Commissioner of Transportation, 330
Conn. 400, 414–15, 195 A.3d 664 (2018).
In the foreclosure context, ‘‘a court may properly
grant summary judgment as to liability . . . if the com-
plaint and supporting affidavits establish an undisputed
prima facie case and the defendant fails to assert any
legally sufficient special defense.’’ GMAC Mortgage,
LLC v. Ford, 144 Conn. App. 165, 176, 73 A.3d 742
(2013). ‘‘In order to establish a prima facie case . . .
the plaintiff must prove by a preponderance of the evi-
dence that it is the owner of the note and mortgage,
that the defendant mortgagor has defaulted on the note
briefed those arguments and, thus, has abandoned them. See, e.g., C. B. v.
S. B., 211 Conn. App. 628, 630, 273 A.3d 271 (2022) (‘‘[when] a claim is
asserted in the statement of issues but thereafter receives only cursory
attention in the brief without substantive discussion or citation of authorities,
it is deemed to be abandoned’’ (internal quotation marks omitted)).
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and that any conditions precedent to foreclosure, as
established by the note and mortgage, have been satis-
fied.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Goshen Mort-
gage, LLC v. Androulidakis, 205 Conn. App. 15, 37, 257
A.3d 360, cert. denied, 338 Conn. 913, 259 A.3d 653
(2021). Defeating a motion for summary judgment
requires the nonmoving party to show ‘‘evidentiary facts
or substantial evidence outside the pleadings from
which material facts alleged in the pleadings can be
warrantably inferred. . . . A material fact is one that
will make a difference in the result of the case.’’ (Cita-
tion omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) New
Milford Savings Bank v. Roina, 38 Conn. App. 240, 244,
659 A.2d 1226, cert. denied, 235 Conn. 915, 665 A.2d
609 (1995).
‘‘Because an action to foreclose a mortgage is an
equitable proceeding, the doctrine of unclean hands is
a viable special defense.’’ Deutsche Bank National
Trust Co. v. Bretoux, 225 Conn. App. 455, 464, 317
A.3d 152 (2024). ‘‘It is a fundamental principle of equity
jurisprudence that for a complainant to show that he
is entitled to the benefit of equity he must establish
that he comes into court with clean hands. . . . The
clean hands doctrine is applied not for the protection
of the parties but for the protection of the court. . . .
It is applied not by way of punishment but on considera-
tions that make for the advancement of right and justice.
. . . The doctrine of unclean hands expresses the prin-
ciple that where a plaintiff seeks equitable relief, he
must show that his conduct has been fair, equitable
and honest as to the particular controversy in issue.
. . . Unless the plaintiff’s conduct is of such a character
as to be condemned and pronounced wrongful by hon-
est and fair-minded people, the doctrine of unclean
hands does not apply. . . . The party seeking to invoke
the clean hands doctrine to bar equitable relief must
show that his opponent engaged in wilful misconduct
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Benchmark Municipal Tax Services, Ltd. v. 899 ETG Associates, LLC

with regard to the matter in litigation. . . . Wilful mis-
conduct has been defined as intentional conduct
designed to injure for which there is no just cause or
excuse.’’ (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Home-
bridge Financial Services, Inc. v. Jakubiec, 223 Conn.
App. 517, 539, 309 A.3d 1223, cert. denied, 349 Conn.
909, 314 A.3d 602 (2024). The alleged misconduct must
relate to the ‘‘making, validity, or enforcement’’ of the
mortgage in order to serve as the predicate for an
unclean hands defense. M&T Bank v. Lewis, 349 Conn.
9, 26, 312 A.3d 1040 (2024).
899 ETG contends that the plaintiff’s conduct, as
averred in the Silberstein affidavit, meets the standard
for unclean hands established in U.S. Bank National
Assn. v. Blowers, 332 Conn. 656, 212 A.3d 226 (2019).
In Blowers, our Supreme Court held that the defendant
in that foreclosure action could properly base an
unclean hands defense on allegations of ‘‘harm resulting
from a mortgagee’s wrongful postorigination conduct
in negotiating loan modifications, when such conduct
is alleged to have materially added to the debt and
substantially prevented the mortgagor from curing the
default.’’ Id., 662, 667. The court identified three scenar-
ios in which such a defense could be raised: when the
mortgagee is alleged to have ‘‘engaged in conduct that
wrongly and substantially increased the mortgagor’s
overall indebtedness, caused the mortgagor to incur
costs that impeded the mortgagor from curing [a]
default, or reneged upon modifications . . . .’’ (Cita-
tion omitted.) Id., 675. Such misconduct, the court held,
is ‘‘ ‘directly and inseparably connected’ ’’ to the
enforcement of the note and mortgage. Id., quoting
Thompson v. Orcutt, 257 Conn. 301, 313, 777 A.2d
670 (2001).
The Silberstein affidavit averred that 899 ETG entered
into the modification agreement and thereby increased
its indebtedness by $55,000, in reliance on the plaintiff’s
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false promise to grant an additional six month extension
of the maturity date. These averments, 899 ETG argues,
raise a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the
plaintiff engaged in misconduct of the type Blowers has
deemed sufficient to support an unclean hands defense,
specifically, whether it reneged on a modification, or
engaged in wrongful conduct that increased 899
ETG’s debt.
The problem with this argument is that it hinges on
a question of contractual intent. To find a genuine issue
of material fact as to unclean hands under the rubric
of Blowers, we would have to conclude that there was
a genuine issue of fact as to whether the parties
intended that a second six month extension would be
offered. Otherwise, there could be no agreement to that
effect on which the plaintiff reneged, and no causal
nexus between the plaintiff’s alleged misrepresenta-
tions and 899 ETG’s decision to increase its indebted-
ness.
But the text of the modification agreement conclu-
sively resolves this issue in the plaintiff’s favor. It pro-
vides, without caveat, that the maturity date ‘‘shall not
be further extended’’ past the initial six month exten-
sion. The trial court concluded, as a matter of law,
that the modification agreement was integrated on this
point. See Giorgio v. Nukem, Inc., 31 Conn. App. 169,
175, 624 A.2d 896 (1993) (if trial court draws conclusions
on summary judgment as to parties’ intent to integrate,
‘‘based on the intent expressed in the contract itself and
the affidavits submitted with the motion for summary
judgment considered in light of their surrounding cir-
cumstances [then] the legal inferences to be drawn from
the documents raise questions of law rather than of
fact’’ (internal quotation marks omitted)).
Exercising our plenary review, we find little to quarrel
with in this conclusion, as the modification agreement
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expressly addresses the question of further exten-
sions—the very subject matter of the plaintiff’s alleged
misrepresentations. See, e.g., Associated Catalog Mer-
chandisers, Inc. v. Chagnon, 210 Conn. 734, 740, 557
A.2d 525 (1989) (‘‘[a] written agreement is integrated
and operates to exclude evidence of the alleged extrin-
sic negotiation if the subject matter of the latter is
mentioned, covered, or dealt with in the writing’’ (inter-
nal quotation marks omitted)).6 Because the modifica-
tion agreement is integrated on this point, 899 ETG
cannot manufacture a material factual dispute as to the
parties’ intent by pointing to parol evidence of negotia-
tions that contradict the express written terms of the
modification agreement. See Fiorillo v. Hartford, 212
Conn. App. 291, 303, 275 A.3d 628 (2022) (‘‘[p]arol evi-
dence offered solely to vary or contradict the written
terms of an integrated contract is . . . legally irrele-
vant’’ (internal quotation marks omitted)). The only
legally pertinent evidence of the parties’ agreement is
the text of the modification agreement itself, and it is
clear, from our review of that agreement, that the par-
ties intended that no further extensions would be
granted. Bald assertions to the contrary, even in a sworn
affidavit, do not call this conclusion into doubt. See,
e.g., Connecticut Housing Finance Authority v. John
Fitch Court Associates Ltd. Partnership, 49 Conn. App.
142, 146–49, 713 A.2d 900 (assertion in affidavit that
parties to note and mortgage intended their contract
to benefit particular third party was insufficient to raise
genuine issue of material fact as to whether that party
was actually beneficiary, where ‘‘express language’’ of
note and mortgage made no reference to that party as
either direct or intended beneficiary), cert. denied, 247
Conn. 908, 719 A.2d 901 (1998).
6
Although the modification agreement lacks a merger clause, the mere
absence of a merger clause does not render a contract incomplete or ambigu-
ous. See Massey v. Branford, 118 Conn. App. 491, 499, 985 A.2d 335 (2009),
cert. denied, 295 Conn. 913, 990 A.2d 345 (2010).
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In the face of the parties’ modification agreement, the
Silberstein affidavit was insufficient to raise a genuine
issue of material fact as to 899 ETG’s unclean hands
defense. The court thus did not err in granting summary
judgment as to liability on count one of the revised
complaint.
The appeal is dismissed with respect to the guarantor
defendants; the judgment is affirmed and the case is
remanded for the purpose of making a new finding as
to the amount of the debt, for the setting of a new law
day, and for other proceedings according to law.7
In this opinion the other judges concurred.

7
See Wahba v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., 349 Conn. 483, 508 n.10, 316
A.3d 338 (2024).