Opinion

The plaintiff, R.C. Equity Group, LLC, appeals from the judgment of the trial court dismissing its zoning appeal from the decision of the defendant, the zoning commission of the borough of Newtown. The trial court dismissed the plaintiffs appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the plaintiff had failed to make service of process on the borough clerk within fifteen days from the published notice of the decision in accordance with General Statutes § 8-8 (b)1 *242and (f) (2).2 The plaintiff claims that the trial court incorrectly concluded that the failure of service was not subject to the savings provision of General Statutes § 8-8 (q),3 which provides, inter alia, for the refiling of a zoning appeal that has been dismissed for defective service stemming from the “default or neglect” of the marshal. Although the plaintiff concedes both that the citation in the summons did not name the borough clerk and that the marshal effected service in accordance with the citation, the plaintiff nevertheless maintains that the service defect was due to the default or neglect of the marshal because it was the duty of the marshal, not the plaintiff or its attorney, to ensure that service *243was made in accordance with the provisions of § 8-8 (f) (2). We reject the plaintiffs claim and, therefore, affirm the judgment of the trial court.4

The following undisputed facts and procedural history are relevant to our disposition of this appeal. The borough of Newtown (borough) is a specially chartered municipality located within the town of Newtown. The defendant is the borough’s zoning commission. In May, 2003, the defendant adopted zoning regulations governing a village district area pursuant to General Statutes § 8-2j, and amended its other related regulations. One of the new regulations limited the maximum size of a “discrete building structure,” an undefined term, to 6500 square feet. The defendant subsequently repealed and readopted these regulations in December, 2003, and again in March, 2005. The readopted regulations were identical in all material respects to the regulations adopted in May, 2003.

The plaintiff owns approximately twelve acres of land located in the borough. The property is improved with a building that contains 16,947 square feet of gross leasable area that presently is leased to a tenant for office purposes, and is capable of expansion through the addition of a partial second floor. The property itself is also large enough to permit the addition of one or more buildings in excess of 6500 square feet. The plaintiff filed a zoning appeal from the defendant’s March, 2005 decision to readopt the restrictive village district regulations, claiming that the defendant had acted illegally, arbitrarily and capriciously when it adopted the *244regulations because their terms violated several constitutional and statutory provisions.5

The plaintiff employed Robert B. Gyle III, a state marshal, to serve process in connection with the zoning appeal. On March 24, 2005, Gyle went to the office of the plaintiffs attorney, Robert H. Hall, to pick up the process. Hall was not present when Gyle arrived but had left one copy of the process with Hall’s secretary. The process, a form JD-CV-1 summons with the appeal attached, identified the defendant as the “[zjoning [c]ommission of the [b]orough of Newtown, c/o Linda Shepard, Chairman,” with Shepard’s home address following immediately thereafter. That same day, Gyle personally served Shepard at her home. Although the form JD-CV-1 summons contained a generic citation directing the marshal to make service,6 the form that Hall signed and provided to Gyle for service in the present case contained no instruction directing Gyle to serve the borough clerk as § 8-8 (f) (2) requires.7 Although Gyle served Shepard, he did not serve the borough clerk.

*245Thereafter, on August 22, 2005, the trial court, J. R. Downey, J., granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the plaintiffs zoning appeal on the basis of the plaintiff s failure to serve the borough clerk. The plaintiff commenced the present zoning appeal on September 2, 2005, in reliance on the savings provisions of § 8-8 (q), and Gyle properly served two copies of the summons and appeal on the borough clerk.8 The defendant again filed a motion to dismiss the present appeal, claiming that § 8-8 (q) did not save the action because the initial failure of service was not attributable to the default or neglect of Gyle but, rather, to Hall, for preparing a summons identifying the defendant’s chairperson, and not the borough clerk, as the defendant’s statutory agent for service.

The plaintiff filed a memorandum of law in opposition to the defendant’s motion to dismiss. Attached as exhibits to the memorandum of law were the form JD-CV-1 summonses that Hall had used in both zoning appeals,9 along with the returns of service that Gyle had filed in connection with his service of process in those appeals. In each of those appeals, Hall had identified the defendant as the “[z]oning [c]ommission of the [b]orough of Newtown, do Linda Shepard, Chairman,” followed by Shepard’s home address. The summons forms that Hall had completed in connection with both zoning appeals contained no instruction to Gyle to serve the borough clerk. In contrast to the present zoning appeal and the *246zoning appeal that the plaintiff commenced in March, 2005, however, the plaintiff had served Shepard and the borough clerk in a zoning appeal brought in 2003 to challenge the defendant’s December, 2003 decision to adopt certain regulations. See footnote 9 of this opinion.

The plaintiff also provided the court with an affidavit attested to by Gyle. In his affidavit, Gyle stated that prior to serving process in the plaintiffs zoning appeals, he was “aware that the legal requirements for service of process in zoning appeals had been changed effective October 1, 2004,10 so that instead of serving one copy on the [c]hairman or [c]lerk [of the zoning commission] and another copy on the [c]lerk of the [b]orough, two copies were required to be served [on] the [c]lerk of the [b]orough and [that] it was no longer necessary to serve the [c]hairman or [c]lerk of the zoning entity involved.” Gyle also stated, however, that he “did not think about the requirement for service” when he picked up the process from Hall’s office and served it on Shepard rather than on the borough clerk. Gyle further stated that he should have remembered to serve the borough clerk, as he had in the past, and that he had “no excuse for failing to serve the appeal in accordance with the requirements of the [s]tatute . . . .”

The trial court, Schuman, J.,11 granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss. In its memorandum of decision, the court, after observing that the process that Gyle originally received from Hall and served on Shepard did not identify the borough clerk as a person to be served, explained that it is the duty of the plaintiff, rather than the marshal, to identify who must be served. The trial court further explained that when, as in the present case, the process fails to identify the proper *247person to be served, the failure of service is attributable to the plaintiff as a matter of law, and cannot be ascribed to the default or neglect of the marshal under § 8-8 (f).12 Accordingly, the trial court rendered judgment dismissing the plaintiffs zoning appeal. The Appellate Court subsequently granted the plaintiffs petition for certification to appeal, and we transferred the appeal to this court pursuant to General Statutes § 51-199 (c) and Practice Book § 65-1.

On appeal, the plaintiff claims that, contrary to the conclusion of the trial court, it is solely the duty of the marshal “to determine how to make proper service,” and, therefore, Gyle’s “failure to make proper service in this case is ‘default or neglect’ as a matter of law.” Consistent with this contention, the plaintiff asserts that it had no legal obligation to direct — or even to assist — Gyle in accomplishing that task. Finally, the plaintiff maintains that the record is abundantly clear that, although the summons identified the wrong person, namely, Shepard, as the defendant’s agent for service of process, Gyle nevertheless knew better, and, therefore, Hall’s error in naming Shepard instead of the borough clerk neither relieves Gyle of responsibility for *248inadequate service nor removes the service deficiency from the purview of the savings provisions of § 8-8 (q). We agree with the trial court that, as a matter of law, § 8-8 (q) does not save the plaintiffs zoning appeal.

As a threshold matter, we set forth certain principles that govern our review of the plaintiffs claim. “A motion to dismiss . . . properly attacks the jurisdiction of the court, essentially asserting that the plaintiff cannot as a matter of law and fact state a cause of action that should be heard by the court. ... A motion to dismiss tests, inter alia, whether, on the face of the record, the court is without jurisdiction. . . . [0]ur review of the court’s ultimate legal conclusion and resulting [determination] of the motion to dismiss [is] de novo.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Cox v. Aiken, 278 Conn. 204, 210-11, 897 A.2d 71 (2006). Furthermore, whether the trial court properly dismissed the plaintiffs appeal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction turns on whether the marshal’s conduct in failing to serve the borough clerk constituted “default or neglect” within the meaning of § 8-8 (q). Because “[t]he interpretation of a statute, as well as its applicability to a given set of facts and circumstances, involves a question of law . . . our review ... is plenary.”13 (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Lagassey v. State, 268 Conn. 723, 737, 846 A.2d 831 (2004).

In applying § 8-8 (q) to the facts and circumstances of this case, we do not write on a blank slate. To place that provision in proper context, we summarize our recent analysis of the jurisdictional requirements of § 8-*2498, including an examination of the legislative history surrounding the adoption of § 8-8 (q). Specifically, in Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, 278 Conn. 751, 900 A.2d 1 (2006), we explained that, “[i]n 1989 . . . the legislature amended [General Statutes (Rev. to 1989)] § 8-8 to include the savings provisions of . . . [subsections] (p) and (q). . . . [These provisions] were intended to provide a greater measure of fairness to persons seeking to appeal from the decisions of local zoning commissions and boards of appeal. . . . [T]he legislature amended General Statutes (Rev. to 1989) § 8-8 in 1989 after our decisions in [Simko v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 205 Conn. 413, 533 A.2d 879 (1987) (Simko I), and Simko v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 206 Conn. 374, 538 A.2d 202 (1988) (Simko II) (affirming Simko I on rehearing en banc)]14 . . . because of its concern that an overly strict adherence to the provisions of . . . [subsection] (b) . . . would result in unnecessary unfairness.” (Citation omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 767-68.

The facts of Fedus were identical in all relevant respects to the facts of Simko. In each case, the plaintiffs had served the town clerk with a copy of the summons and complaint, as required by statute, but had failed to name the clerk in the citation of the summons. See id., 754; Simko I, supra, 205 Conn. 415. In Simko, however, we concluded that the failure of the plaintiffs to name the town clerk in the citation constituted a fatal jurisdictional defect that deprived the court of subject matter jurisdiction over the zoning appeal. See Simko I, supra, 419, 421. As we explained in Simko, our decision in that case rested primarily on our determination that the town clerk was a statutorily mandated necessary party to the appeal, and, therefore, by failing *250to name the clerk in the citation of the appeal, “the sheriff had no authority to command the clerk’s appearance for any purpose.” Id., 421. Specifically, we stated: “[The] citation is a matter separate and distinct from the sheriffs return and is the important legal fact upon which the judgment rests. . . . [Thus, a] proper citation is essential to the validity of the appeal and the jurisdiction of the court. ... A citation is not synonymous with notice.” Id., 420. “Because of the failure to name the clerk of the municipality in the citation, the sheriff had no authority to command the clerk’s appearance for any purpose. Therefore . . . the delivery to the clerk of the papers comprising the appeal was of no legal significance.” Id., 421. Thus, we held “that the failure to name a statutorily mandated, necessary party in the citation is a jurisdictional defect which renders the administrative appeal subject to dismissal.” Id.

Immediately following the release of our decisions in Simko, the legislature amended General Statutes (Rev. to 1987) § 8-8 (b) to provide, inter alia, that “service upon the clerk of the municipality shall be for the purpose of providing additional notice of [the] appeal to [the] board and shall not thereby make such clerk a necessary party to such appeal.” Public Acts 1988, No. 88-79, § 1. “By this amendment, the legislature indicated that, contrary to our conclusion in Simko, service of the appeal on the town clerk is not for the purpose of making the town clerk a necessary party to the appeal but, rather, to provide the board with additional notice of the appeal.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 763.

The legislature also amended § 8-8 to include the savings provision at issue in the present appeal, which, as we explained in Fedus, “signaled the preference of the legislature that zoning appeals, like civil actions, shall be treated with sufficient liberality such that tech*251nical or procedural deficiencies in the appeal do not deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal.” Id., 770; see Public Acts 1989, No. 89-356, § 1. These amendments sought to ameliorate the harshness of our holding in Simko that a defect in the citation deprives the court of subject matter jurisdiction even though proper service has been made. Thus, we concluded in Fedus that, although a failure of service in a zoning appeal does implicate the court’s subject matter jurisdiction; Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 770 n.17; technical or procedural deficiencies in the appeal, such as a defect in the citation, do not deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction, as long as proper service nevertheless is effectuated.15 See id., 768-70.

In the present appeal, the trial court relied on this court’s decision in Gadbois v. Planning Commission, 257 Conn. 604, 778 A.2d 896 (2001), in support of its conclusion that the plaintiffs failure to serve the borough clerk was not a technical defect in form but, rather, a substantive defect in service that could not be cured by the savings provisions of § 8-8 (q). In Gadbois, as in the present case, the citation directed the sheriff to serve the chairman of the defendant planning commission but contained no mention of the town clerk. Id., 606-607. Under then applicable law, however, service was required on both the chairperson of the planning commission and the town clerk. Id., 606, citing General *252Statutes (Rev. to 2001) § 8-8 (e). The sheriff effectuated service in accordance with the citation and, accordingly, did not serve the town clerk. Gadbois v. Planning Commission, supra, 606-607. We concluded that the trial court properly had determined that the failure to make service on the town clerk was a “fatal jurisdictional defect” that could not be remedied under § 8-8 (q). Id., 608. Specifically, we explained that § 8-8 (q) did not apply because the defective service was not the result of negligence or error by the sheriff; see id., 609; who had fully discharged his responsibility by serving the summons and complaint in accordance with the citation. We agree with the trial court that Gadbois is dispositive of this appeal.

The plaintiff nevertheless maintains that the plaintiff in a zoning appeal has no legal duty to instruct the marshal whom to serve. Specifically, the plaintiff asserts that its only duty is to identify the defendant by name and address in the summons, and, after that, “it is up to the marshal himself to determine how to make proper service.”

To the contrary, “it is well established in Connecticut that if a writ appears to be [valid] on its face, appears to have been issued by a competent authority, and has been issued with legal regularity, a [marshal] has a duty to serve it and will be protected in making such service. Watson v. Watson, 9 Conn. 140, 147 (1832).” Fair Cadillac Oldsmobile Corp. v. Allard, 41 Conn. App. 659, 662, 677 A.2d 462 (1996). “When we speak of process ‘valid on its face,’ in considering whether it is sufficient to protect an officer, we do not mean that its validity is to be determined upon the basis of scrutiny by a trained legal mind; nor is it to be judged in the light of facts outside its provisions which the officer may know. . . . Unless there is a clear absence of jurisdiction on the part of the [authority] issuing the process, it is sufficient if upon its face it appears to be valid in the judgment *253of an ordinarily intelligent and informed layman. To hold otherwise would mean that an officer must often act at his peril or delay until he has had an opportunity to search out legal niceties of procedure .... ‘A result subjecting him to constant danger of liability would be an intolerable hardship to him, and inevitably detract from the prompt and efficient performance of his public duty.’ ” (Citations omitted.) Aetna Ins. Co. v. Blumen-thal, 129 Conn. 545, 553-54, 29 A.2d 751 (1943).

Indeed, under General Statutes § 6-32,16 a marshal “has a statutory duty to serve and to make prompt return of all process that is given to him [or her] for service”; Fair Cadillac Oldsmobile Corp. v. Allard, supra, 41 Conn. App. 662; and is subject to double damages for failing to comply with that requirement. General Statutes § 6-32. It would be manifestly unfair to expose a marshal to such liability merely for effecting service in compliance with the dictates of the citation, as Gyle did in the present case, especially because “[t]he law does not require or expect [marshals] to have the education and training” to do anything more. Fair Cadillac Oldsmobile Corp. v. Allard, supra, 663. In fact, § 6-38b-6 (3) of the Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies expressly precludes marshals from “engaging] in the practice of law or rendering] legal advice” in the course of performing their duties. Requiring a marshal to exercise independent judgment with respect to the legal sufficiency of a citation arguably would place the marshal in jeopardy of violating that prohibi*254tion. Thus, the responsibility for identifying the person or persons to be served with process rightly lies with the plaintiff and the plaintiffs attorney, not with the marshal.

The limited nature of the marshal’s legal duty necessarily informs our interpretation of § 8-8 (q) as applied to the facts of the present case. Because a marshal’s sole duty is to make service as directed by the citation, the conduct of a marshal who faithfully discharges that responsibility cannot be deemed to constitute “default or neglect” for purposes of § 8-8 (q). The word “default” signifies a “failure to do something required by duty or law,” and “neglect” means “to carelessly omit doing (something that should be done) either altogether or almost altogether . . . .”17 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary. Simply put, a marshal who makes service in accordance with the citation has neither failed to do what the law requires nor carelessly omitted to do something that he or she should have done.

Furthermore, the evident purpose of § 8-8 (q) is to avoid the unfairness that otherwise would result from holding a plaintiff responsible for a failure of service that is attributable not to the plaintiff, but to the marshal. In enacting § 8-8 (q), the legislature recognized that neither a plaintiff nor the plaintiffs counsel personally effects service of process; rather, such service is delegated to a third party, a marshal, over whom the plaintiff does not have complete control. The plaintiff — or, as is most often the case, the plaintiffs counsel — is responsible for instructing the marshal whom to serve, but *255neither can control the actions of the marshal thereafter. Consequently, it is eminently fair and reasonable that, under § 8-8 (q), a plaintiffs right to appeal will not be extinguished merely because the marshal, for reasons not attributable to the plaintiff or the plaintiffs attorney, fails to effectuate service as instructed.

Thus, in Vitale v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 279 Conn. 672, 904 A.2d 182 (2006), we observed that the plaintiffs in that case could rely on § 8-8 (q) to save their zoning appeal from dismissal due to the marshal’s failure to serve both the chairperson of the zoning commission and the town clerk in accordance with the applicable version of § 8-8 (f). Id., 681-82 n.9. In Vitale, the process prepared by the plaintiffs’ attorney had directed the marshal to serve both the chairperson of the zoning commission and the town clerk, but the marshal, acting on the mistaken belief as to the applicability of a recent amendment to § 8-8 (f), served only the town clerk. See id., 675. Although we concluded that the trial court properly had dismissed the original appeal for lack of proper service; see id., 681; we also concluded that § 8-8 (q) permitted the refiling of the appeal because the defective service was attributable to the default or neglect of the marshal in failing to follow the express command of the citation. See id., 681-82 n.9. We further concluded that because § 8-8 (q) is a remedial statute, it must be construed liberally, and that, so construed, the fifteen day grace period of § 8-8 (q) did not begin to run until this court finally had determined that the original service was insufficient. Id.

We fully agree with the plaintiff in the present action that § 8-8 (q) should be construed liberally to accomplish its remedial purpose. To conclude that Gyle’s failure to seive the borough clerk constitutes “default or neglect” within the meaning of § 8-8 (q), however, when Gyle did exactly what he was directed to do, is not to read § 8-8 (q) liberally to achieve its purpose; rather, it *256is to assign § 8-8 (q) a meaning that it clearly does not have.18

It is true, of course, that if Gyle had served the borough clerk notwithstanding the faulty citation, then § 8-8 (q) would have permitted the plaintiff to refile its appeal; by serving the borough clerk, the marshal effectively would have remedied the mistake of the plaintiffs counsel in failing to name the borough clerk in the citation. Indeed, that is precisely what occurred in Fedus. See Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 755. Gyle, however, did not serve the borough clerk, and because he had no duty to do so, the insufficient service was not attributable to his default or neglect within the meaning of § 8-8 (q).19 Consequently, *257the trial court properly granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss.20

*258The judgment is affirmed.

In this opinion ROGERS, C. J., and BORDEN, KATZ and ZARELLA, Js., concurred.

with whom VERTEFEUILLE, J., joins, dissenting. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the plaintiff, R.C. Equity Group, LLC, was not entitled to refile this zoning appeal from the decision of the defendant, the zoning commission of the borough of Newtown, under the savings statute, General Statutes § 8-8 (q).1 In my view, the majority opinion fails to implement the broad construction given to remedial statutes such as § 8-8 (q), as well as the increasingly flexible approach to the law governing the procedure in zoning appeals articulated in this court’s recent decision in Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, 278 Conn. 751, 900 A.2d 1 (2006). Rather, I would conclude that this court’s per curiam decision in Gadbois v. Planning Commission, 257 Conn. 604, 778 A.2d 896 (2001), no longer is good law, and therefore, that the initial failure of service in the present case was attributable to the “default or neglect” of the marshal, Robert B. Gyle III, and not just a legal error by the plaintiffs attorney, Robert H. Hall, because Gyle admittedly knew of, yet *259failed to follow, the requirements of § 8-8 (f) (2).2 I would, therefore, reverse the judgment of the trial court dismissing the plaintiffs zoning appeal. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

I

1 begin by noting my agreement with the majority’s statement of the facts and procedural history of this case, as well as its understanding of the parties’ arguments. Before I discuss the majority’s erroneous construction and application of § 8-8 (q), I must, however, address the defendant’s claim that this case is moot because there is no practical relief available to the plaintiff. I do so because “[m]ootness implicates the court’s subject matter jurisdiction and is thus a threshold matter for us to resolve.”3 Ayala v. Smith, 236 Conn. 89, 93, 671 A.2d 345 (1996). “It is a well-settled general rule that the existence of an actual controversy is an essential requisite to appellate jurisdiction; it is not the *260province of appellate courts to decide moot questions, disconnected from the granting of actual relief or from the determination of which no practical relief can follow. ... An actual controversy must exist not only at the time the appeal is taken, but also throughout the pendency of the appeal. . . . When, during the pen-dency of an appeal, events have occurred that preclude an appellate court from granting any practical relief through its disposition of the merits, a case has become moot.” (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 93-94.

The mootness issue in the present case is unusual because it does not arise from events occurring subsequent to the filing of the appeal. Rather, the defendant claims that, if the challenged regulations, which were adopted in March, 2005, are declared invalid, they will be replaced by the identical regulations that were adopted in May, 2003,4 which have not been challenged specifically by the plaintiff in this case.5 6The defendant further contends that any subsequent challenges to the *261May, 2003 regulations are time barred by § 8-8 (r),6 which means that invalidation of the March, 2005 regulations would not afford the plaintiff any practical relief. Because of the substantive nature of the plaintiffs challenge to the March, 2005 regulations, which are identical in all relevant aspects to the May, 2003 regulations that would replace them, I conclude that practical relief is available to the plaintiff in this zoning appeal.

Both the defendant’s brief and my independent research have failed to reveal any case law directly on point that supports the defendant’s mootness theory, namely, that no practical relief is available when a successful challenge to a zoning regulation will lead to replacement of the regulation at issue with an identical predecessor provision. In my view, this issue is best resolved by a logical extension of the line of cases addressing the effect of subsequent legislative changes, which hold that “[w]hen the provisions of an original act are repeated in the body of amendments, either in the same or equivalent words, it is considered that the intent of the legislature is that the original law should continue.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Downey v. Retirement Board, 22 Conn. App. 172, 178, 576 A.2d 582 (rejecting claim that city charter provision was repealed by implication), cert. denied, 216 Conn. 811, 580 A.2d 56 (1990); see also, e.g., Chicago v. Gordon, 146 Ill. App. 3d 898, 901, 497 N.E.2d 442 (1986) (“[w]here portions of an ordinance or statute are repeated and retained in the amendatory enactment, or where there *262is a simultaneous repeal and reenactment, such an amendatory ordinance or statute will not affect the rights, duties or liabilities accrued under former portions of ordinance which have been reenacted”); State v. Sundling, 248 Neb. 732, 736, 538 N.W.2d 749 (1995) (“the simultaneous repeal and reenactment of substantially the same statutory provisions is ordinarily construed to be an affirmation or continuation of the original provisions rather than a true repeal”); Raleigh v. Fisher, 232 N.C. 629, 633, 61 S.E.2d 897 (1950) (zoning ordinance enacted in 1923 remained in effect because 1944 repeal “simultaneously reenacted [it] in substantially the same terms”).

My research has revealed two cases wherein courts have applied this rule to conclude that a pending action was not rendered moot by a regulatory or statutory change that did not change the substance of the provision at issue.7 See Chicago v. Gordon, supra, 146 Ill. App. 3d 901 (constitutional challenge to ban on outdoor advertising signs or displays in certain residential neighborhoods not moot because “reenactment of the subject *263ordinance did not . . . affect the prosecution for offenses previously committed”); Goodman v. Kennedy, 459 Pa. 313, 318, 329 A.2d 224 (1974) (repeal and reenactment without substantive change did not render moot declaratory judgment action challenging state’s Sunday closing statute); but see Peterson Outdoor Advertising v. Beaufort County, 291 S.C. 533, 535, 354 S.E.2d 563 (1987) (per curiam) (rejecting this approach because it “would require an appellate court to make a line-by-line, or word-by-word, comparison of the two ordinances and to divert its attention from the merits of the [zoning] appeal”).8 In contrast, cases arising from challenges to the procedure by which a regulation has been adopted, such as compliance with notice requirements, may be rendered moot by a repeal and reenactment in accordance with the correct procedure. See Real Estate Planners, Inc. v. Newmarket, 134 N.H. 696, 701-702, 597 A.2d 78 (1991) (trial court properly dismissed declaratory judgment action challenging procedure by which town meeting adopted zoning regulations in 1988, after those zoning regulations were repealed and reenacted by validly held meeting in 1990).

In my view, the defendant’s mootness claim is best resolved by an inverse application of this rule governing the effect of repealed and simultaneously reenacted statutes and regulations. That is, the defendant’s repeal and simultaneous reenactment of the challenged regula*264tions in December, 2003, and March, 2005, indicates that it intended no substantive change in the original law, which was enacted in May, 2003. This, therefore, saves the case from mootness because the plaintiffs challenge focuses not on the circumstances under which the March, 2005 regulation was enacted, but rather, on their substantive validity under General Statutes §§ 8-2 and 8-2j, as well as the federal and state constitutions.9 Put differently, a regulation that is invalid under statutory or constitutional law remains equally infirm no matter when it was enacted.10 Indeed, acceptance of the defendant’s mootness argument would mean that a municipality potentially could immunize its zoning regulations from substantive challenge simply by repealing and reenacting them, even without change, on a regular basis. I, therefore, conclude that there is practical relief available to the plaintiff and, thus, this appeal is not moot.

II

Accordingly, I now turn to the principal issue in this appeal, namely, whether Gyle committed “default or neglect” when he failed to serve process in compliance *265with the governing statute, of which he admittedly was aware, thus entitling the plaintiff to refile its appeal pursuant to the savings statute, § 8-8 (q). See footnote 1 of this dissenting opinion. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that, because this case is governed by this court’s decision in Gadbois v. Planning Commission, supra, 257 Conn. 604, the plaintiff is not entitled to invoke § 8-8 (q) because the duties of the marshal and the attorney issuing the summons are distinct, the marshal’s duty being limited solely to serving those individuals named in the process itself. Because § 8-8 (q) is a remedial statute that must be read and applied broadly, particularly in light of our recent decision in Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 751, I conclude that Gadbois no longer is good law and that the trial court improperly dismissed the plaintiffs zoning appeal.

As a preliminary matter, I note that a motion to dismiss tests the jurisdiction of the trial court, and I agree with the standard of review set forth in the majority opinion, namely, that “because [a] determination regarding a trial court’s subject matter jurisdiction is a question of law, our review is plenary.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Nine State Street, LLC v. Planning & Zoning Commission, 270 Conn. 42, 45, 850 A.2d 1032 (2004). Moreover, the principal issue in this appeal, which requires the court to determine the breadth of § 8-8 (q), and specifically whether the service error must be the sole fault of the marshal, “involves a question of statutory interpretation that also requires our plenary review. . . . When construing a statute, [o]ur fundamental objective is to ascertain and give effect to the apparent intent of the legislature. ... In other words, we seek to determine, in a reasoned manner, the meaning of the statutory language as applied to the facts of [the] case, including the question of whether the language actually does apply. ... In seeking to deter*266mine that meaning, General Statutes § l-2z directs us first to consider the text of the statute itself and its relationship to other statutes. If, after examining such text and considering such relationship, the meaning of such text is plain and unambiguous and does not yield absurd or unworkable results, extratextual evidence of the meaning of the statute shall not be considered. . . . When a statute is not plain and unambiguous, we also look for interpretive guidance to the legislative history and circumstances surrounding its enactment, to the legislative policy it was designed to implement, and to its relationship to existing legislation and common law principles governing the same general subject matter . . . .” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 756.

“The test to determine ambiguity is whether the statute, when read in context, is susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Small v. Going Forward, Inc., 281 Conn. 417, 422, 915 A.2d 298 (2007). The text of § 8-8 (q) provides in relevant part: “If any appeal has failed to be heard on its merits because of insufficient service or return of the legal process due to . . . the default or neglect of the officer to whom it was committed, or the appeal has been otherwise avoided for any matter of form, the appellant shall be allowed an additional fifteen days from determination of that defect to properly take the appeal. ...” (Emphasis added.) Because the text of § 8-8 (q) is not plain and unambiguous with respect to the type of conduct on the part of the marshal that constitutes the requisite “default or neglect,” and also, whether it applies when the plaintiffs attorney has played a significant part in the failure of service, I agree with the majority that our inquiry may be informed by extratextual sources, including the legislative history and our case law.

*267I agree with the majority that this court “do[es] not write on a blank slate” in its application and construction of § 8-8 (q), because, in my view, the resolution of this appeal turns on the continuing vitality of Gadbois v. Planning Commission, supra, 257 Conn. 604, a factually similar case, in light of our more recent decision in Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 751. In Gadbois, the plaintiffs appealed from the planning commission’s approval of a developer’s subdivision plan. Gadbois v. Planning Commission, supra, 606. At that time, § 8-8 required the plaintiffs to commence the appeal by serving process upon “ ‘the chairman or clerk of the board’ ” and “ ‘the clerk of the municipality.’ ” Id. The plaintiffs in that case “commenced their appeal of the commission’s decision by means of a citation directed to a proper officer to ‘summon the . . . [cjommission ... by leaving with or at the usual place of abode of the chairman or clerk of that [cjommission a true and attested copy of the complaint and of this citation ....’” Id. The plaintiff served legal process on the chairperson of the commission and the developer’s agent for the service of process, but not on the clerk of the municipality, who was not named in the citation. Id., 606-607. The trial court dismissed the zoning appeal. Id., 607.

On appeal, the court noted its now superseded and overruled decision in Simko v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 206 Conn. 374, 538 A.2d 202 (1988), which was superseded by statute as stated in Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 763, and concluded that the trial court properly had dismissed the appeal because, although the clerk is not a necessary party, service on the clerk still was mandatoiy and, therefore, subject matter jurisdictional under § 8-8 (e), as amended by Public Acts 1988, No. 88-79 (P.A. 88-79). Gadbois v. Planning Commission, supra, 257 Conn. 608. This court determined that, although “nei*268ther the chair nor the clerk, as individuals, are necessary parties to this administrative appeal; see General Statutes § 8-8 (e); the commission is a necessary party and the failure to provide sufficient notice of the appeal to that commission deprives the court of subject matter jurisdiction. Service on the chairman . . . and on the clerk of the municipality shall be for the purpose of providing legal notice of the appeal to the board . . . .” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Gadbois v. Planning Commission, supra, 608.

The court further concluded in Gadbois that “[t]he trial court properly concluded that the failure to make service upon the town clerk, a fatal jurisdictional defect, cannot be remedied by the so called ‘savings provisions,’ ” including § 8-8 (q). (Emphasis added.) Id. The court concluded that the adoption of the savings provision had not “changed th[e] strict [service] requirement except in very specifically defined exceptions. Defective service of process may not be fatal when either the strict adherence to the mandate of § 8-8 (e) would work surprise or injustice, or the problem with the service is due to negligence or error on the part of the sheriff, not the plaintiff Because the circumstances of this case do not satisfy either narrowly drawn exception, the failure of the plaintiffs to serve legal process correctly is a fatal defect. As a result, the court had no subject matter jurisdiction and correctly dismissed the appeal.” (Emphasis added.) Id., 609.

In my view;, this court’s per curiam decision in Gad-bois no longer is good law in light of the legislative developments articulated in our recent decisions in Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 751, and Vitale v. Zoning Board of Appeals, 279 Conn. 672, 904 A.2d 182 (2006).11 In Fedus, we con-*269eluded that, because of legislative changes made in the wake of this court’s Simko decisions,12 the plaintiffs failure to name the clerk in the citation did not deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction over the zoning appeal.13 See Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 753. The court emphasized that Public Acts 1989, No. 89-356 (P.A. 89-356), which also enacted § 8-8 (q), “signaled the preference of the legislature that zoning appeals, like civil actions, shall be treated with sufficient liberality such that technical or procedural deficiencies in the appeal do not deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal.”14 Fedus v. Plan*270ning & Zoning Commission, supra, 770. In light of that conclusion, Fedus also explicitly disapproved the dicta in Gadbois and two other cases that “deprived [courts] of subject matter jurisdiction over appeals filed under § 8-8 merely because of technical defects in the service of process, including defects in the appeal citation. In other words, for such purposes, zoning appeals shall be treated in the same manner as civil actions. We believe that this conclusion is warranted in light of the legislature’s response to Simko . . . and because there is no persuasive reason to follow the exacting common-law principles that led to our decisions in Simko.” Id., 776, discussing Gadbois v. Planning Commission, supra, 257 Conn. 604; Spicer v. Zoning Commission, *271212 Conn. 375, 562 A.2d 21 (1989); Capalbo v. Planning & Zoning Board of Appeals, 208 Conn. 480, 547 A.2d 528 (1988). Indeed, we reaffirmed our commitment to “the well established principle that, in determining whether a court has subject matter jurisdiction, every presumption favoring jurisdiction should be indulged.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 778-79.

Most important with respect to the present case is the court’s discussion in Fedus of the history of P.A. 89-356, § 1, which enacted the present subsections (p) and (q) of § 8-8. We emphasized in particular' the addition of § 8-8 (p), which provides: “The right of a person to appeal a decision of a board to the Superior Court and the procedure prescribed in this section shall be liberally interpreted in any case where a strict adherence to these provisions would work surprise or injustice. The appeal shall be considered to be a civil action and, except as otherwise required by this section or the rules of the Superior Court, pleadings may be filed, amended or corrected, and parties may be summoned, substituted or otherwise joined, as provided by the general statutes.” (Emphasis added.) The court stated that subsection (p), as well as § 8-8 (q), the subsection at issue in the present case, responded to the traditional approach of “the common law courts of England . . . [that] insisted upon rigid adherence to the prescribed forms of action, resulting in the defeat of many suits for technical faults rather than upon their merits. Some of that ancient jurisprudence migrated to this country . . . and has affected the development of procedural law in this state. . . . [Hjowever, our legislature enacted numerous procedural reforms applicable to ordinary civil actions that are designed to ameliorate the consequences of many deviations from the prescribed norm . . . [that] result largely from the fallibility of the legal profession, in order generally to provide errant *272parties with an opportunity for cases to be resolved on their merits rather than dismissed for some technical flaw.”15 (Emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted.) Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 768-69.

We further noted that “Connecticut law repeatedly has expressed a policy preference to bring about a trial on the merits of a dispute whenever possible and to secure for the litigant his or her day in court. . . . [Thus] [o]ur practice does not favor the termination of *273proceedings without a determination of the merits of the controversy whe[n] that can be brought about with due regard to necessary rules of procedure. . . . For that reason, [a] trial court should make every effort to adjudicate the substantive controversy before it . . . and, whe[n] practicable, should decide a procedural issue so as not to preclude hearing the merits of an appeal.” (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 769-70; see also Nine State Street, LLC v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 270 Conn. 50-52 (relying on “clear directive” of § 8-8 [p] to conclude that occurrence of Memorial Day extended fifteen day appeal period under § 8-8 [b] by one day because “a strict adherence to the fifteen day statutory period prescribed in § 8-8 [b] would work suiprise or injustice by reducing the statutory period from fifteen days to twelve days, the Friday before the holiday when the city clerk’s office would last have been open”). In sum, the court emphasized in Fedus that the “language of P.A. 89-356, § 1, signaled the preference of the legislature that zoning appeals, like civil actions, shall be treated with sufficient liberality such that technical or procedural deficiencies in the appeal do not deprive the court of subject matter jurisdiction over the appeal.” Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 770.

Indeed, this court’s recent opinion in Vitale v. Zoning Board of Appeals, supra, 279 Conn. 672, reflects the increased flexibility embodied by the Fedus decision in the context of § 8-8 (q). After concluding that the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the marshal had disregarded the instructions on the summons and failed to serve process in accordance with the statute then in effect;16 id., 680; the court noted *274its disagreement with the trial court’s determination “that § 8-8 (q), one of the savings provisions contained in § 8-8, was unavailable to the plaintiffs in the present case because they had not attempted to correct the service defect by serving the chairperson or clerk of the defendant within fifteen days of receiving notice of the defective service by way of the marshal’s return.” Id., 681-82 n.9. It emphasized that “[t]he savings provision codified at § 8-8 (q) is a remedial provision that warrants a broad construction,” and stated that “§ 8-8 (q) is available to a plaintiff upon any determination by a court that service was defective. Section 8-8 (q) therefore is available to the plaintiffs, should they choose to invoke it, upon the determination by this court that the service of process in this matter was insufficient because it failed to comply with [Public Acts 2004, No. 04-78].” (Emphasis altered.) Id.

In the present case, the record reveals that service failed because of Gyle’s failure to follow the proper statutory procedure governing the service of process in zoning appeals — a procedure that he admittedly was aware of, but nevertheless did not comply with.17 Thus, *275it is undisputed that the marshal knew the law, but failed to follow it due to his own inadvertence or inattention, which would fit under the dictionary definition of “neglect” properly articulated by the majority, namely, “ ‘to carelessly omit doing (something that should be done) either altogether or almost together . . . .’18 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.” *276Although I agree with the majority that the plaintiffs attorney certainly is not blameless for the failure of service in this case, the broad reading that the legislature has directed this court to give to the zoning appeal statutes; see General Statutes § 8-8 (p); requires me to conclude that § 8-8 (q) permits the refiling of a zoning appeal that previously has been dismissed for any reason that is in some way attributable to the marshal charged with serving the process therein.19

The majority’s construction and application of § 8-8 (q) also has the added flaw of changing the statute by inserting the word “solely” therein. The majority appears to read § 8-8 (q) as providing: “If any appeal has failed to be heard on its merits because of insufficient service or return of the legal process [solely] due to unavoidable accident or the default or neglect of the officer to whom it was committed . . . the appellant shall be allowed an additional fifteen days from determination of that defect to properly take the appeal.” (Emphasis added.) “We are not permitted to supply statutory language that the legislature may have chosen to omit.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Ventres v. Goodspeed Airport, LLC, 275 Conn. 105, 160, 881 *277A.2d 937 (2005), cert. denied, 547 U.S. 1111, 126 S. Ct. 1913, 164 L. Ed. 2d 664 (2006). Accordingly, given the broad construction that the legislature has required us to give to § 8-8 (q), I believe that it applies in situations such as the present case, wherein the service failure is in some way attributable to the marshal, even if the attorney is partially, or even largely, responsible for the failure as well.20

In sum, it is undisputed that, if Gyle had remembered the amendment to § 8-8 (f) correctly and had, accordingly, served the borough clerk, this zoning appeal could have proceeded without a jurisdictional problem, despite the plaintiffs failure to name the clerk in the summons used as process in this appeal. See Fedus v. Planning & Zoning Commission, supra, 278 Conn. 753. Thus, the majority’s construction and application of § 8-8 (q) invites a return to the pre-Fedus interpretations of the zoning appeal statutes that were rife with the opportunities for the dismissal of land use appeals on the basis of hypertechnicalities. The majority’s opinion fails to effectuate those changes implemented by the legislature in the enactment of P.A. 89-356 that were “designed to ameliorate the consequences of many devi*278ations from the prescribed norm . . . [that] result largely from the fallibility of the legal profession, in order generally to provide errant parties with an opportunity for cases to be resolved on their merits rather than dismissed for some technical flaw.” (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id., 769. Put differently, the majority frustrates the legislative purpose of P.A. 89-356 by keeping the present zoning appeal from being heard on its merits based on technical mistakes, while at the same time sowing legal malpractice claims. In the absence of clarifying legislation providing explicitly to that effect, I would not interpret § 8-8 (q) in such a restrictive manner, and would have the plaintiffs appeal heard on its merits.

I would, therefore, reverse the judgment of the trial court, and remand the case to that court with direction to deny the defendant’s motion to dismiss and for further proceedings according to law. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.