Justia Vermont Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The State of Vermont appealed a family division’s denial of its request to extend an order placing seventeen-year-old D.K. in the conditional custody of his mother. After review, the Vermont Supreme Court agreed with the court’s conclusion that it lacked authority to extend a conditional custody order (CCO) for a third six-month period under 33 V.S.A. § 5320a(a), and therefore affirmed. View "In re D.K." on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Vermont Supreme Court's review centered on whether a non-resident plaintiff could obtain a relief-from-abuse (RFA) order under Vermont’s Abuse Prevention Act. Mother and father were married in Massachusetts in 2015. Together, they had a daughter, age six, and a son, age five. The family’s relationship had been affected at times by father’s violent behavior and by mother’s substance abuse. Since 2019, father has lived in Dummerston, Vermont, while mother has maintained residency in Massachusetts. The couple remained married. After a November 2017 incident, mother reported father's abuse to police, and he was prosecuted for felony domestic violence. His contact with mother and the children was limited by a Massachusetts court. In June 2018, father sought emergency custody of the children in Massachusetts. He alleged that the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families had investigated mother for child neglect and that mother had been arraigned on a DUI, second offense, in early July 2018. A Massachusetts court held that despite father’s history of domestic violence, mother’s substance abuse impaired her ability to parent, and awarded custody to father and ordered that mother’s time with the children be restricted to supervised visits. The order also allowed father to move with the children to Vermont. Mother visited the children in Vermont, and on several occasions, father drove the children to Massachusetts to visit mother. When mother and father were getting along, mother had father’s permission to spend the night at his house. Mother’s time with the children was often unsupervised by father. They often spent time with the children together. Between January and April 2021, mother and father reconciled their relationship. By May 2021, this reconciliation had ended. Father told mother she could no longer see the children during unsupervised periods. However, mother still apparently spent considerably more time with the children than the Massachusetts court order allowed. Father subjected the children to corporal punishment and inappropriate outbursts of anger, some of which was witnessed by mother. In August 2021, she filed a complaint for an emergency RFA in Vermont; a Vermont court issued a temporary RFA order the same day. Father moved to dismiss the RFA order, contending that because mother was a resident of Massachusetts, she could not proceed under the Abuse Prevention Act. The family division concluded that mother could obtain both an emergency and final RFA order against father. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the family division's order. View "Bacigalupo v. Bacigalupo" on Justia Law

Father appealed a sanctions order imposed by the family division enjoining him from submitting filings in this case unless the filing was signed by a licensed attorney or he first obtained permission from the court. The Vermont Supreme Court determined the trial court acted within its discretion in sanctioning father given his pattern of filing numerous motions that lacked factual or legal support, failing to adhere to procedural rules, and acting without good faith. The Court concluded, however, that the court’s order was overly broad in scope because it applied to all of father’s submissions to the court in this matter and did not clearly provide father with instructions on how to comply. Therefore, the case was remanded for the trial court to amend its sanctions decision accordingly. View "Fox v. Fox" on Justia Law

Mother appealed a family division order modifying legal parental rights and responsibilities and parent-child contact as to son. The court first issued a parental rights and responsibilities order in 2015, based on the parties’ agreement. In October 2017 father filed emergency motions to modify legal and physical parental rights and responsibilities and parent-child contact, alleging that mother was suicidal and unable to care for son. On the same day, the court granted a temporary modification solely on the basis of father’s filings, awarding sole legal and physical parental rights and responsibilities to father pending a hearing to determine whether a longer-term modification would be appropriate. Following a hearing in January 2018, the court ordered the parties to return to the terms of the original 2015 parentage order, pending a final determination on the motions to modify. At the conclusion of merits hearings held in March 2020 and 2021, the family division issued its order dividing legal responsibility for son between the parties, awarding father responsibility for educational matters and mother responsibility for all other matters. Physical parental rights and responsibilities remained shared, but the court modified the parent-child contact schedule so that the parties alternated weeks on Fridays instead of Thursdays and mother would only care for son after school every other week. On appeal, mother argued this order should have been reversed because the court: (1) abused its discretion by dividing legal rights and responsibilities between the parties; (2) impermissibly relied on DCF history; (3) erred in allowing son’s attorney to participate at the merits hearing; and (4) did not make sufficient findings relative to son’s best interests. Finding no reversible error, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vance v. Locke" on Justia Law

In dividing the divorcing parties’ assets, a Massachusetts court ordered a special master to sell the Vermont property. After the sale, plaintiff filed an action in a Vermont superior court to rescind the sale and quiet title to the property. Applying the doctrine of comity, the civil division dismissed his action, deferring to the ongoing proceeding in Massachusetts. Plaintiff appealed, arguing that the Vermont court should not have dismissed his suit on comity grounds because the Massachusetts court lacked jurisdiction to order the special master to sell the property. The Vermont Supreme Court concluded the Vermont court acted within its discretion and affirmed. View "Nijensohn v. Ring" on Justia Law

Grandparents appealed the probate division’s dismissal of their petition for guardianship of S.O. They argued that: (1) the court should have held a hearing and addressed the merits of their petition; (2) the Department for Children and Families (DCF) violated their due process rights by moving to dismiss the petition; and (3) if there had been a merits hearing, they would have shown that they were suitable guardians and that a nonconsensual custodial guardianship was in S.O.’s best interests. Finding no reversible error, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. View "In re Guardianship of S.O." on Justia Law

Wife appealed the family division’s May 2021 order granting husband’s motion to permit him to purchase the marital home. Wife argued this was an impermissible modification of the stipulated property division incorporated into the 2017 final divorce order. After review, the Vermont Supreme Court agreed with her, and reversed. View "Horgan v. Horgan" on Justia Law

Husband’s estate, through a special administrator, appealed a family division’s order concluding that in light of husband’s death prior to entry of a final divorce order, it lacked jurisdiction to consider the enforceability of the parties’ stipulated agreement. The Vermont Supreme Court concluded the family division correctly determined that it lacked jurisdiction. "Although the parties’ agreement may be enforceable as a contract independent of the anticipated divorce, the civil division of the superior court, and not the family division, is the proper forum for litigating that issue." View "Maier v. Maier" on Justia Law

Defendant-father Mahlon Peachey appealed a final relief-from-abuse order issued by the family division of the superior court, which prohibited father from contacting mother Sarahann Peachey or the parties’ children except during one weekly telephone call with the children. Father argued his right to due process was violated because the court conducted the evidentiary hearing remotely and he missed a portion of the hearing due to technical issues. He further argued the restrictions on parent-child contact imposed by the court were an impermissible modification of the existing contact order that was not supported by a finding of changed circumstances or an assessment of the statutory best-interests factors. Finally, he claimed the protective order had to be reversed because it is self-contradictory and not supported by the evidence. Finding no reversible error, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. View "Peachey v. Peachey" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs were W.H. and B.H., who were abused as children, and their grandparents. They brought this tort action for damages in 2014, arguing that DCF failed to accept or respond to dozens of reports of physical and sexual abuse of the children between 2008 and 2012. Among other things, plaintiffs made claims of negligence based on the Vermont Department for Children and Families’ (DCF) failure to perform its statutory obligations and negligent undertaking. The State moved for summary judgment on all counts, arguing in part that the State did not breach any duty owed to plaintiffs, that the State was entitled to sovereign immunity because its actions were discretionary and grounded in public policy, and that plaintiffs could not prove causation. In June 2019, the trial court denied DCF’s motion for summary judgment, and the case proceeded to trial. After the close of the evidence, the trial court granted the State’s motion for judgment as a matter of law on the record, holding that even if the jury accepted all plaintiffs’ evidence as true and made all reasonable inferences in favor of plaintiff, “the jury could not find the presence of proximate causation.” It determined that the jury would have had to speculate as to “what actions [DCF] would have taken had they acted on reports of maltreatment of the children that were made and not acted upon” as well as “what it is that would have happened had DCF received that report and acted on it.” Plaintiffs challenged the trial court’s decision granting judgment as a matter of law to the State. They argued the court erred in narrowing the scope of DCF's legally actionable duty and in concluding that no reasonable jury could find that DCF’s actions were the proximate cause of then-children B.H. and W.H.’s injuries. They also argued the discretionary function exception to the State’s tort liability did not bar their claim and that the trial court improperly considered factors other than the law and evidence in granting the State judgment as a matter of law. Finding no reversible error, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. View "Stocker, et al. v. Vermont, et al." on Justia Law