Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope

************************************************ The “officially released” date that appears near the beginning of an opinion is the date the opinion will be published in the Connecticut Law Journal or the date it is released as a slip opinion. The operative date for the beginning of all time periods for the filing of postopinion motions and petitions for certification is the “officially released” date appearing in the opinion. All opinions are subject to modification and technical correction prior to official publication in the Connecti- cut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports. In the event of discrepancies between the advance release version of an opinion and the version appearing in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports, the latest version is to be considered authoritative. The syllabus and procedural history accompanying an opinion that appear in the Connecticut Law Journal and subsequently in the Connecticut Reports or Connecticut Appellate Reports are copyrighted by the Secretary of the State, State of Connecticut, and may not be reproduced or distributed without the express written permission of the Commission on Official Legal Publications, Judicial Branch, State of Connecticut. ************************************************  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope THE BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON v. ACHYUT M. TOPE ET AL. (AC 48862) Moll, Westbrook and Harper, Js. Syllabus The named defendant, T, appealed from the trial court’s judgment of fore- closure by sale rendered in favor of the plaintiff bank. T claimed, inter alia, that the court had improperly failed to impose sanctions on the plaintiff for its alleged noncompliance with his discovery requests. Held: T could not prevail on his claim that the trial court erred in failing to rule on his motion for discovery sanctions, as the court implicitly ruled on that motion by granting certain relief at an evidentiary hearing, namely, allow- ing posthearing depositions of witnesses and for the parties to address the discovery dispute in their posthearing briefs, and by rejecting T’s remain- ing discovery related arguments and denying any additional relief in its memorandum of decision on T’s motion to open and vacate the judgment of foreclosure by sale. The trial court did not abuse its discretion by declining to impose discovery sanctions on the plaintiff, as, although the plaintiff did not fully comply with T’s discovery requests, the plaintiff’s noncompliance did not violate any court order, T failed to demonstrate that such noncompliance was of the sort that would merit the severe sanction of dismissal, T did not file a motion to compel or otherwise request the court’s intervention prior to filing his motion for sanctions, and T was not prejudiced by the plaintiff’s noncompliance under the circumstances. Argued September 3—officially released October 20, 2026 Procedural History Action to foreclose a mortgage on certain of the defen- dants’ real property, and for other relief, brought to the Superior Court in the judicial district of New Haven, where the defendants were defaulted for failure to appear; thereafter, the named defendant was defaulted for failure to plead; subsequently, the case was tried to the court, Hon. Thomas J. Corradino, judge trial ref- eree, who, exercising the powers of the Superior Court, rendered judgment of foreclosure by sale; thereafter, the court, Hon. Thomas J. Corradino, judge trial referee, denied the named defendant’s motion to open and vacate the judgment, and the named defendant appealed to this court, Elgo and Cradle, Js., with Devlin, J., dissenting,  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope which affirmed the trial court’s judgment; subsequently, on the granting of certification, the named defendant appealed to the Supreme Court, which reversed and remanded the case to this court with instructions to remand to the trial court for further proceedings con- sistent with its opinion; on remand, the court, Abrams, J., denied the named defendant’s motion to open and vacate the judgment; thereafter, the court, Stone, J., rendered judgment of foreclosure by sale, and the named defendant appealed to this court. Affirmed. Michael J. Habib, for the appellant (named defendant). Jeffrey M. Knickerbocker, for the appellee (plaintiff). Opinion MOLL, J. This foreclosure matter returns to us on appeal from the Superior Court following remand from our Supreme Court. See Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, 345 Conn. 662, 665, 286 A.3d 891 (2022). The defendant Achyut M. Tope1 now appeals from the trial court’s judgment of foreclosure by sale rendered in favor of the plaintiff, The Bank of New York Mellon, formerly known as The Bank of New York, as Successor to JPMor- gan Chase Bank, N.A., as Trustee for Structured Asset Mortgage Investments II, Inc., Bear Stearns Alt-A Trust, Mortgage Pass-Through Certificates, Series 2004-3. The defendant claims that the trial court erred in not impos- ing sanctions for the plaintiff’s alleged noncompliance with the defendant’s discovery requests before and after the evidentiary hearing ordered by our Supreme Court in Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, supra, 683. We disagree and affirm the judgment of the trial court. This case has an extensive, twelve year procedural his- tory. In Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, supra, 345 Conn. 662, the defendant’s prior appeal from this court’s decision in Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, 202 Conn. 1 The underlying foreclosure action also named Geeta A. Joshi-Tope as a defendant, but she did not appear in the trial court and is not partici- pating in this appeal. In the interest of simplicity, we refer to Achyut M. Tope as the defendant.  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope App. 540, 246 A.3d 4 (2021), our Supreme Court recited the following facts and procedural history relevant to the present appeal: “On October 31, 2003, the defendant executed a promissory note in the amount of $134,000, payable to HSBC Mortgage Corporation (USA) (HSBC). To secure that note, the defendant mortgaged property located at 387 Sherman Avenue in New Haven (property) to HSBC. The note was later endorsed to JPMorgan Chase Bank, as Trustee. On January 15, 2014, HSBC assigned the mortgage to the plaintiff. “On July 17, 2014, the plaintiff filed the present action seeking to foreclose on the mortgage. The defendant filed his appearance [as a self-represented party] on October 9, 2014, and, on October 28, 2014, he was defaulted for failing to plead. On November 10, 2014, the court, Hon. Thomas J. Corradino, judge trial referee, [rendered] a judgment of foreclosure by sale, with a sale date set for February 7, 2015.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, supra, 345 Conn. 665–66. In 2015 and 2016, the defendant filed a series of motions to open the foreclosure judgment, which caused the sale date to be extended into 2017. Id., 666. “On January 3, 2017, the defendant filed a motion to open and stay the judgment on the ground that he had obtained a financial audit that provides strong supporting documentation that the plaintiff does not have standing to pursue a foreclo- sure action with respect to the property in this action. . . . On January 4, 2017, the defendant filed a motion for summary judgment alleging, inter alia, that the plaintiff lacked standing to bring this action because the plaintiff failed to show the proper chain of ownership, assign- ment and control of the note and mortgage and prop- erty with affidavits from persons with knowledge . . . . At the February 6, 2017 hearing on the defendant’s motion to open, the defendant represented to [the court, Avallone, J.] that the arguments in his motion to open and motion for summary judgment were generally the same. Accordingly, the court allowed the defendant, at  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope his request, to argue his motion for summary judgment at that hearing. Following extensive argument by the defendant, the court denied both of his motions. The court expressly rejected the defendant’s challenge to the plaintiff’s standing, stating: I’ve given you sufficient opportunity to make your arguments. I don’t believe that they hold water.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 666–67. The defendant then filed several additional motions to dismiss that substantially relied on the same grounds as the January 3 and 4, 2017 motions; two were denied, and two were never adjudicated. Id., 667–70. “On September 28, 2017, the defendant filed a motion to open and to vacate the judgment of foreclosure by sale,2 [in which] he again argued that the plaintiff lacked stand- ing to commence this action and [that], consequently, the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over it, and asked that the action be dismissed in its entirety with prejudice. On October 16, 2017, [Judge Corradino] held a hearing on the defendant’s motion, at which the defendant again presented his argument to the court. On October 17, 2017, [Judge Corradino] issued an order denying the defendant’s motion to open and vacate the foreclosure judgment. . . . “The defendant appealed to the Appellate Court3 from the trial court’s October 17, 2017 denial of his motion to open and vacate the foreclosure judgment. . . . On appeal to that court, the defendant claimed that the trial court incorrectly had denied his motion because the plaintiff lacked standing to pursue foreclosure on the note, and, thus, the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over this action. . . . “The Appellate Court majority concluded that the defendant’s motion to open constituted an impermissible 2 All further references to the defendant’s motion to open in this opinion are to the September 28, 2017 motion to open and vacate the judgment of foreclosure by sale. 3 The previously self-represented defendant retained counsel prior to oral argument in his previous appeal to this court and has since been represented by counsel.  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope collateral attack on the foreclosure judgment and, there- fore, declined to consider the defendant’s challenge to the court’s subject matter jurisdiction on the merits. . . . Therefore, the Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of foreclosure and remanded the case for the setting of a new sale date.” (Citations omitted; footnote omitted; footnotes added; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 670–71. The defendant petitioned for certification to appeal to our Supreme Court, which granted the petition, limited to the following issues: (1) “Did the Appellate Court cor- rectly conclude that the . . . defendant’s challenge to the plaintiff’s standing to prosecute this action, and, thus, the trial court’s subject matter jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter, represented an improper collateral attack on one or more of the earlier judgments rendered by the trial court in favor of the plaintiff?” And (2) “[i]f the answer to the first certified question is ‘no,’ should the judgment of the Appellate Court be affirmed on the alternative ground that the trial court properly had denied the . . . defendant’s motion to open, in which the . . . defendant claimed that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction?”4 Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, 339 Conn. 901, 260 A.3d 483 (2021). On appeal, our Supreme Court reversed this court’s decision. Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, supra, 345 Conn. 665. Our Supreme Court held that the defendant’s motion to open was not an impermissible collateral attack on the foreclosure judgment. Id., 676. Our Supreme Court then addressed the defendant’s claim that the plaintiff did not have standing to bring the foreclosure action, holding that this “question . . . turns on ques- tions of fact, namely, whether the plaintiff has been vested with the right to enforce the note”; id., 682–83; and that “the trial court . . . should have conducted an 4 Our Supreme Court initially granted certification only on the first certified question. Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, 336 Conn. 950, 251 A.3d 618 (2021). Thereafter, the court “superseded [its] previous order and certified two issues for appeal . . . .” Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, supra, 345 Conn. 665 n.3.  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope evidentiary hearing to determine whether the plaintiff had standing to bring the foreclosure action in the pres- ent case.” Id., 683. Accordingly, our Supreme Court reversed this court’s judgment and remanded the case with instruction to remand to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. Id. Following the remand, the trial court scheduled an evi- dentiary hearing on standing, and the parties conducted prehearing discovery. In February 2023, the defendant propounded a notice of deposition on the plaintiff with a deposition date of April 25, 2023. Specifically, the defendant requested that the plaintiff “designate and . . . produce one or more officers, directors, managing agents, or other persons to testify as to the following subjects: (1) The records maintained by or on behalf of [the plain- tiff] in connection with the subject action [and] (2) [t]he plaintiff’s claimed interest in the note, including the supporting documentation . . . showing the history of the note.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) The notice of deposition also requested that the deponent bring to the deposition the “complete mortgage file . . . including but not limited to . . . [a]ll documents relating to [the plaintiff’s] claimed interest in the note . . . including, but not limited to, all documents evidencing any and all transfers and/or assignments of the mortgage note and/ or the mortgage deed that are . . . the subject of this action and any and all trust documents related to ownership of the mortgage note and deed that are the subject of this action . . . [a]ll documents evidencing any transfer of the original mortgage note [and] . . . [a]ll documents the plaintiff intends to rely upon to support the allegations of the complaint.” (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) On December 22, 2023, the defendant “renoticed” the deposition, which took place on Decem- ber 27, 2023. Following the deposition, the plaintiff’s counsel provided the defendant’s counsel with some additional documents via email on January 19, 2024. On March 6, 2024, the day before the evidentiary hear- ing, the plaintiff filed ten exhibits with the court. These  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope exhibits included (1) the note; (2) the mortgage; (3) a 2014 assignment of the mortgage from HSBC to the plaintiff; (4) a deal sheet generated by Computershare Trust Com- pany, N.A. (Computershare), the master servicer and custodian of the defendant’s loan, which associated the defendant’s mortgage with the trust that owns the note and mortgage (trust); (5) a screenshot of an entry in the loan servicing system of Dovenmuehle Mortgage, Inc. (Dovenmuehle), the subservicer of the defendant’s loan; (6) an assignment and assumption agreement between, among others, JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and The Bank of New York; (7) a redacted version of annex A to the assignment and assumption agreement; (8) a limited power of attorney granted by Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and Wells Fargo Delaware Trust Company, N.A. to Com- putershare; (9) a pooling and servicing agreement by and between Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and EMC Mortgage Corporation; and (10) a request for power of attorney from Computershare, as agent for Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., to the plaintiff. Early in the morning of March 7, 2024, the defendant filed a motion for discovery sanctions pursuant to Prac- tice Book § 13-14. In the motion for sanctions, the defen- dant asserted that the plaintiff had not disclosed four of its exhibits prior to March 6, 2024, namely, exhibit 6, the trust assignment and assumption agreement; exhibit 8, the power of attorney; exhibit 9, the pooling and ser- vicing agreement; and exhibit 10, the letter request for power of attorney. The defendant contended that wait- ing until the eve of the evidentiary hearing to disclose these complex documents was a sanctionable abuse of the discovery process and asked the court either to dismiss this action, to reject the documents, or to continue the hearing to give the defendant time to investigate the dis- closures. On the same day, the plaintiff filed an objection to the motion for sanctions in which it pointed out that it had sent the pooling and servicing agreement and the purchase and assumption agreement to the defendant via email on January 19, 2024.  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope On March 7, 2024, the court, Abrams, J., conducted the evidentiary hearing, during which the defendant presented no witnesses or documentary evidence. In addi- tion to the ten exhibits mentioned previously, the plain- tiff presented the testimony of two witnesses: Ashley Schultz, a supervisor at Dovenmuehle, the subservicer of the defendant’s loan; and Charles Brehm, an employee of Computershare, the master servicer and custodian of the loan. The defendant’s counsel cross-examined the wit- nesses but objected that the hearing had become a “trial by ambush” because he did not have the opportunity to review all the exhibits filed the night before. Following a recess, the parties and the court agreed to allow the defendant to take the depositions of Schultz and Brehm after the hearing, at the plaintiff’s expense. The court set May 3, 2024, as the due date for posthearing briefs to allow the parties time to complete the depositions and to incorporate the deposition testimony into their briefs. However, the depositions never occurred. The defendant filed his posthearing brief on June 21, 2024. In his brief, the defendant again requested discov- ery sanctions, both for the late disclosure of the exhibits before the hearing and the plaintiff’s refusal to allow the depositions of its witnesses after the hearing. The defendant requested that the court dismiss this action as a sanction. On August 23, 2024, the court denied the defendant’s motion to open. In its memorandum of decision, the court credited the testimony of the plaintiff’s witnesses, as well as the note (exhibit 1) and the assignment and assump- tion agreement with the associated annex (exhibits 6 and 7), and found that the plaintiff was the successor trustee to JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. As such, the court held that the note was properly transferred to the plaintiff and that the plaintiff had standing to foreclose on the property, whereupon the court denied the defen- dant’s motion to open. The court addressed the discovery issues only in a footnote, which stated in relevant part: “The defendant’s [brief] consists primarily of a list of  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope grievances about discovery issues and the assertions of opposing counsel before other tribunals. . . . [The court] finds the defendant’s arguments . . . given the state of the evidence presented, to be ‘full of sound and fury, [s]ignifying nothing.’ W. Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Macbeth, act V, sc. V.” After additional motions practice not relevant here, the court, Stone, J., rendered a judgment of foreclosure by sale on June 2, 2025. This appeal followed. Additional facts and procedural history will be set forth as necessary. The defendant asks us to reverse the judgment of fore- closure by sale rendered by the court, Stone, J., and the denial of his motion to open by the court, Abrams, J., and to remand the case to the court, either to conduct a new evidentiary hearing on the issue of standing or to dismiss the case entirely. Although the defendant asks us to reverse the denial of his motion to open, his appeal does not directly challenge the denial but, rather, chal- lenges the court’s handling of a discovery dispute that he claims implicated the evidence upon which the court based its decision on the motion to open. For the sake of clarity, we pause here to explain the substantive issue that remained at the time of the discov- ery dispute. The defendant has challenged the plaintiff’s standing to bring this foreclosure action to enforce the note. As our Supreme Court recounted in Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, supra, 345 Conn. 662: “[S]tand- ing to enforce [a] promissory note is [established] by the provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code . . . . [See] General Statutes § 42a-1-101 et seq. . . . Equity One, Inc. v. Shivers, 310 Conn. 119, 126, 74 A.3d 1225 (2013). Under the Uniform Commercial Code, a [p]erson entitled to enforce an instrument means (i) the holder of the instrument, (ii) a nonholder in possession of the instrument who has the rights of a holder, or (iii) a per- son not in possession of the instrument who is entitled to enforce the instrument pursuant to section 42a-3-309 or 42a-3-418 (d). General Statutes § 42a-3-301.  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope “The Uniform Commercial Code defines holder as (A) [t]he person in possession of a negotiable instrument that is payable either to bearer or to an identified person that is the person in possession; (B) [t]he person in possession of a negotiable tangible document of title if the goods are deliverable either to bearer or to the order of the person in possession; or (C) [t]he person in control of a negotiable electronic document of title. General Statutes [Rev. to 2023] § 42a-1-201 (b) (21). “General Statutes § 42a-3-205 further provides in rel- evant part: (a) If an endorsement is made by the holder of an instrument, whether payable to an identified person or payable to bearer, and the endorsement identifies a person to whom it makes the instrument payable, it is a special endorsement. When specially endorsed, an instru- ment becomes payable to the identified person and may be negotiated only by the endorsement of that person. . . . “(b) If an endorsement is made by the holder of an instrument and is not a special endorsement, it is a blank endorsement. When endorsed in blank, an instrument becomes payable to bearer and may be negotiated by transfer of possession alone until specially endorsed. . . . “As we explained previously, under § 42a-3-301, [a] person may be a person entitled to enforce the instru- ment even though the person is not the owner of the instrument . . . . General Statutes § 42a-3-301. In J.E. Robert Co. v. Signature Properties, LLC, 309 Conn. 307, 71 A.3d 492 (2013), we explained that [t]he [Uniform Commercial Code’s] official comment underscores that a person entitled to enforce an instrument . . . is not limited to holders. . . . A nonholder in possession of an instrument includes a person that acquired rights of a holder . . . under [General Statutes § 42a-3-203 (a)]. . . . Under § 42a-3-203 (b), [t]ransfer of an instrument . . . vests in the transferee any right of the transferor to enforce the instrument . . . . An instrument is transferred when it is delivered by a person other than its issuer for the purpose of giving to the person receiving delivery the right to enforce the instrument. General Statutes  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope § 42a-3-203 (a). Thus, there are two requirements to transfer an instrument under § 42a-3-203 (a): (1) the transferor must intend to vest in the transferee the right to enforce the instrument; and (2) the transferor must deliver the instrument to the transferee so that the trans- feree has either actual or constructive possession. . . . J.E. Robert Co. v. Signature Properties, LLC, supra, 319–20. Accordingly, to establish standing to foreclose on the defendant’s property, the plaintiff needed to prove that it was the holder of the note or one who was otherwise entitled to enforce the note.” (Internal quota- tion marks omitted.) Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope, supra, 345 Conn. 678–80. In the present case, the note was executed by the defendant and endorsed to “JPMorgan Chase Bank, as Trustee.” The plaintiff contends that, as the successor trustee to JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., the plaintiff is the “holder” of the note and has standing to foreclose.5 At the evidentiary hearing, the plaintiff presented ten exhibits and the testimony of two witnesses to support its contention that it is, indeed, the successor trustee because it acquired the trust that owns the defendant’s note and mortgage from JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. The defendant did not offer any of his own witnesses or exhibits; rather, his apparent strategy was to high- light purported inconsistencies and gaps in the evidence provided by the plaintiff to rebut the plaintiff’s claim of standing to foreclose. The defendant’s contention on appeal is that the plaintiff’s noncompliance with his discovery requests rendered him unable to explore adequately these purported gaps and inconsistencies and that the court should have imposed discovery sanctions on the plaintiff but failed to do so. 5 The plaintiff relies on General Statutes § 42a-3-110 (c), which pro- vides in relevant part: “For the purpose of determining the holder of an instrument, the following rules apply . . . (2) If an instrument is payable to . . . [a] trust, an estate, or a person described as trustee or representa- tive of a trust or estate, the instrument is payable to the trustee, the representative, or a successor of either . . . .” (Emphasis added.)  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope The defendant raises two claims on appeal: (1) the court erred in failing to rule on his motion for discovery sanctions; and (2) the court erred in failing to enforce the discovery rules set forth in our rules of practice. We address each in turn. I The defendant first claims that the trial court erred in failing to rule on his motion for discovery sanctions. Because we conclude that the court implicitly ruled on the motion for sanctions when it denied the defendant’s motion to open, the defendant’s claim fails. The following additional facts and procedural his- tory are relevant to this claim. At the March 7, 2024 evidentiary hearing, after the plaintiff’s witnesses testi- fied, counsel for the parties discussed with the court the defendant’s pending motion for discovery sanctions. The court instructed both parties to fold their arguments on discovery sanctions into their posthearing briefs, and they agreed to do so. The defendant’s counsel contended that he had been subjected to a “trial by ambush” because the plaintiff’s witnesses had not been involved in the prior deposition and they had testified to documents that were not provided until the eve of the hearing. As an alternative to the relief requested in his written motion for sanctions, the defendant’s counsel asked the court to allow posthearing depositions of the witnesses, at the plaintiff’s expense, before resting on the hearing. After some discussion, the plaintiff agreed to the depositions, at its expense, and the court gave the parties two months to submit their posthearing briefs to allow time for the depositions to be completed. The court then marked off the motion for sanctions and did not address it again before ruling on the motion to open. As instructed by the court, the defendant addressed the discovery dispute in his posthearing brief. Because the defendant’s claim is premised on the court’s purported failure to rule on his motion for sanc- tions, we must first determine whether that premise is  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope true. The following legal principles guide our analysis. “The [defendant’s] claim requires us to construe the judg- ment rendered by the court in the present case, as articu- lated in its memorandum of decision. The construction of a judgment is a question of law with the determinative factor being the intent of the court as gathered from all parts of the judgment. . . . As a general rule, the court should construe [a] judgment as it would construe any document or written contract in evidence before it. . . . Effect must be given to that which is clearly implied as well as to that which is expressed. . . . If [f]aced with . . . an ambiguity, we construe the court’s decision to sup- port, rather than to undermine, its judgment. . . . The judgment should admit of a consistent construction as a whole. . . . To determine the meaning of a judgment, we must ascertain the intent of the court from the language used and, if necessary, the surrounding circumstances.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Pryor v. Brignole, 231 Conn. App. 659, 695, 333 A.3d 1112 (2025). The appellate courts of this state have recognized that a court may rule on a motion implicitly, which a reviewing court can ascertain based on the record. See, e.g., Marti- nez v. New Haven, 328 Conn. 1, 13, 176 A.3d 531 (2018) (“[w]e conclude that the trial court implicitly granted the defendants’ request for permission to amend their answer to plead governmental immunity as a defense”); Pryor v. Brignole, supra, 231 Conn. App. 700 (“[o]ur review of the court’s memorandum of decision, consid- ered in light of the existing record, convinces us that the court implicitly granted the defendants’ motions to extend the time to file their special motions to dismiss”). A trial court’s ruling may be the “functional equivalent of a denial of [a motion]” if its effect is “to foreclose the possibility of relief from the court on those issues” raised in the motion. Ahneman v. Ahneman, 243 Conn. 471, 480, 706 A.2d 960 (1998). Here, to determine whether the court implicitly ruled on the defendant’s motion for sanctions, we examine the court’s memorandum of decision in light of the entire  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope record. We first note that, at the evidentiary hearing, the defendant’s counsel expressly framed his request for posthearing depositions as an “alternative” to the relief he had requested in his motion for sanctions. In essence, the defendant’s counsel orally modified his motion for sanctions at the evidentiary hearing, and the court then granted the relief he requested in the modified motion. Moreover, during the evidentiary hearing, the court instructed both parties to fold their arguments related to the motion for sanctions into their posthearing briefs, implying that the court would include any ruling on discovery sanctions as part of its ruling on the motion to open. Consistent with that understanding, the court, in its memorandum of decision on the motion to open, clearly, albeit concisely by way of the footnote recited previously in this opinion,6 addressed the defendant’s discovery related grievances, including those advanced in the motion for sanctions, as well as his posthearing briefing, by stating that they were “ ‘full of sound and fury’ ” but “ ‘[s]ignif[ied] nothing.’ ” Finally, the practical effect of denying the motion to open was to foreclose any possibility that the defendant would be awarded the relief he sought in the motion for discovery sanctions, which amounts to a denial of the motion for sanctions as well. The defendant’s reliance on State v. Martin, 201 Conn. 74, 513 A.2d 116 (1986), and Meadowbrook Center, Inc. v. Buchman, 169 Conn. App. 527, 151 A.3d 404 (2016), aff’d, 328 Conn. 586, 181 A.3d 550 (2018), is misplaced. Each case involved a trial court that failed to exercise its discretion because it erroneously believed it did not have discretion under applicable law. See State v. Mar- tin, supra, 88–89 (“the trial judge thought he had no discretion; that is, it appears the trial judge believed that [General Statutes] § 52-145 prohibited the cross- examination as a matter of law”); Meadowbrook Center, Inc. v. Buchman, supra, 540 (“[T]he court denied the defendant’s motion . . . because it felt constrained by the thirty day time limitation in Practice Book § 11-21 for 6 We note that the defendant did not seek an articulation from the trial court. See Practice Book § 66-5.  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope the filing of such a motion. As a consequence, the court did not exercise its discretion . . . .”). Here, the record demonstrates that the court considered the motion for sanctions and twice exercised its discretion: first, at the evidentiary hearing, by granting the posthearing depo- sitions requested by the defendant; and second, in its memorandum of decision, by rejecting the defendant’s remaining discovery related arguments as without merit. In sum, we conclude that the court implicitly ruled on the defendant’s motion for sanctions, first by granting relief at the evidentiary hearing and then, to the extent anything remained of the motion thereafter, by denying any additional relief in its memorandum of decision on the motion to open. Thus, the defendant’s first claim fails.7 II The defendant next claims that the trial court erred in purportedly failing to enforce the discovery rules set forth in our rules of practice. The defendant con- tends that the plaintiff abused the discovery process by withholding “material items that had been requested in discovery but not produced, until the eve of the March 7, 2024 remand hearing . . . effectively preventing the defendant from properly reviewing and analyzing the same.” Specifically, the defendant claims that the plain- tiff violated the discovery rules by its late disclosure of exhibits 5 and 7,8 which were not shared with the 7 Because we conclude that the court implicitly denied the motion for sanctions, we need not reach the defendant’s claim that the court’s failure to rule on the motion was unreasonable and arbitrary. The defendant’s remaining arguments in support of his first claim chal- lenge the court’s decision not to award sanctions, and we address them in part II of this opinion. 8 We note that, in his motion for sanctions, the defendant objected to the late disclosure of exhibits 6, 8, 9, and 10, not exhibits 5 and 7. However, the defendant’s counsel orally objected to the late disclosure of exhibits 5 and 7 at the evidentiary hearing. The defendant again objected to the late disclosure of exhibits 5 and 7 in his posthearing brief. As such, this claim was distinctly raised in the trial court and is preserved for appellate review.  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope defendant until they were filed with the court the day before the evidentiary hearing. The defendant also con- tends that the plaintiff “obstructed the defendant’s efforts to take the depositions of the plaintiff’s witnesses, despite the plaintiff’s agreement at the hearing . . . .” Because of these discovery violations, the defendant claims the court should have imposed sanctions on the plaintiff and that it abused its discretion by failing to do so. We are not persuaded. The following additional facts and procedural history are relevant to this claim. On June 27, 2023, the plaintiff filed three exhibits with the court: the note, the mort- gage, and the 2014 assignment of the mortgage from the original lender, HSBC, to the plaintiff. On November 14, 2023, the plaintiff refiled the three original exhibits and filed two additional exhibits for the first time: a deal sheet that associated the defendant’s mortgage with the trust, and a mortgage loan schedule that contained the defendant’s loan and was otherwise fully redacted. On December 27, 2023, the defendant took the deposi- tion of Brian Shields, a default litigation specialist with Dovenmuehle, the subservicer of the defendant’s loan. The five exhibits filed in November 2023 were reviewed and discussed at the deposition. Shields’ deposition testi- mony also mentioned multiple documents related to the defendant’s mortgage that had not yet been provided as exhibits, including trust documents, a pooling and servicing agreement, and powers of attorney. On January 19, 2024, the defendant’s counsel emailed the plaintiff’s counsel requesting additional documents. The plaintiff’s counsel replied the same day and pro- duced four additional documents: a purchase agreement between JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and The Bank of New York, a merger agreement between The Bank of New York and Mellon Financial, a press release regard- ing the transfer of trust assets between JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. and The Bank of New York, and the pooling and servicing agreement for the defendant’s loan. In the same email communication, the plaintiff’s counsel  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope asked the defendant’s counsel what other documents the defendant needed. The defendant’s counsel never responded to this email. The record does not indicate that the plaintiff produced any documents to the defendant other than those identified previously in this opinion. Four days after the evidentiary hearing, on March 11, 2024, the defendant filed for bankruptcy.9 The bank- ruptcy petition was dismissed on April 9, 2024. On May 3, 2024, the defendant filed a motion for an extension of time to file his posthearing brief, explaining that the depositions of the hearing witnesses had not yet been con- ducted as a result of the bankruptcy stay, followed by the unavailability of the plaintiff’s counsel during much of April. The court granted the extension absent objection.10 That same day, the defendant noticed11 the depositions of the plaintiff’s witnesses, Brehm and Schultz, for May 14, 2024. On May 13, 2024, the defendant’s counsel contacted the plaintiff’s counsel to ask if the witnesses were available to be deposed the next day; the plaintiff’s counsel responded that the witnesses were not available. On June 3, 2024, the defendant’s counsel again reached out to the plaintiff’s counsel regarding the depositions. The plaintiff’s counsel responded that “[t]he time to depose them has come and gone.” Thereafter, the defen- dant did not file a motion to compel or otherwise seek the court’s intervention in connection with the depositions. A As a threshold matter, we first address the plaintiff’s argument that it fully complied with the defendant’s 9 The defendant filed the bankruptcy petition as a self-represented party. The defendant’s counsel in the present action learned of the bankruptcy petition when the plaintiff filed the notice of the pending petition with the trial court. 10 After the court granted the extension of time, the plaintiff filed an objection and a motion to reargue/reconsider the extension. The court denied the plaintiff’s motion. 11 The defendant represents that he “renoticed” the depositions on May 3, 2024. There is, however, no prior notice of deposition for either Brehm or Schultz in the record.  Bank of New York Mellon v. Tope February 2023 discovery request and that, therefore, no sanctions were warranted. In support of this argu- ment, the plaintiff asserts that the defendant’s “complete discovery request” consisted of the plaintiff’s “ ‘com- plete mortgage file’ ” and that “a ‘complete mortgage file consists of the note, the mortgage, and the assign- ments of mortgage.’ ” Because the defendant has those three documents, the plaintiff claims, the defendant has received “exactly what he requested . . . .” In contrast, the defendant argues that his discovery request was broader than the plaintiff’s definition of the “mortgage file” and broad enough to include the exhibits now challenged on appeal. We agree with the defendant on this point. Alth