The plaintiff brought this action under General Statutes § 52-4561 seeking a drainage easement over the defendants’ land in connection with the development of a residential subdivision. The complaint alleged that a subdivision plan had been approved by the Ledyard planning commission. After this action was commenced, however, the present defendants appealed the commission’s approval of the plan to the Superior Court and secured a reversal on January 2, 1981. Since then the plaintiff has withdrawn its subdivision plan from the planning commission.
The trial court in the present action declined to grant the plaintiff the drainage easement, holding that constitutional prohibitions against taking private property2 prevented the plaintiff from *577obtaining the easement because no sufficient public benefit had been demonstrated. We find it unnecessary to reach the constitutional issues addressed by the trial court because we conclude that the demise of the subdivision plan upon which the trial court based its decision leaves this appeal in legal limbo. Gormley v. Panuzio, 166 Conn. 1, 3, 347 A.2d 78 (1974); Young v. Tynan, 148 Conn. 456, 459, 172 A.2d 190 (1961). “When legal relief is sought relative to the doing of any act, the action stands or falls by the facts and governing law existing at the time of bringing suit.” State ex rel. Foote v. Bartholomew, 106 Conn. 698, 700, 138 A. 787 (1927). This rule has special significance in a case such as this where most of the essential facts were stipulated to by the parties and relate specifically to the subdivision plan approved by the planning commission. The withdrawal from the planning commission of the subdivision plan which furnished the basis of the plaintiff’s requested drainage easement detached the easement from its factual moorings. Since appellate review is not designed either to answer academic inquiries; id.; or to float trial balloons, such action by the plaintiff renders this appeal moot.3
The appeal is dismissed.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.