Until this year, Connecticut’s appellate articulation rules were applied harshly to appellants. Briefly, what Practice Book §66-5 said, as clarified by the Supreme Court on numerous occasions since the rule was adopted in 1978, was that if a trial court decision was unclear, it was the appellant’s duty (unless the issue concerned an alternate basis to affirm, in which case it was the appellee’s duty) to try to get it clarified.
If the appellant failed to do so—or the trial judge refused to do so and the appellate failed to ask the Appellate Court or the Supreme Court to order it done—the issue the appellate wanted reviewed usually would not be considered.
