Justia Vermont Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Mountain View Community School, Inc. appealed a trial court order that rejected its request for a property tax exemption for "lands owned or leased by colleges, academies or other public schools" under state law. Mountain View contended the court misinterpreted the law in denying the requested exemption. For a number of years, Mountain View operated a private nonsectarian school for students from preschool through eighth grade at two separate locations in the City of Rutland. Mountain View's only use of the properties was as a school. While maintaining that it was statutorily exempt from the payment of property taxes, Mountain View nevertheless paid them under protest from 1994 through 2007. When the school's assessed value increased dramatically in 2006 and 2007, however, it sought an exemption. The City declined to grant the exemption, and in response, Mountain View filed suit for declaratory relief and an injunction to prevent a threatened tax sale. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the lower the court mistakenly conflated the "public use" and "public school" exemptions in the statute, seeking to determine whether the school served "an indefinite class" under the former when, in fact, Mountain View was relying on the latter. The Court reversed the decision of the lower court. View "Mountain View Community School, Inc. v. City of Rutland" on Justia Law

In 2008, Plaintiff Timothy Price filed a pro se complaint in the Superior Court seeking access to the ballots and tally sheets from the November, 2006 election from the town clerk âbefore they are in any way tampered with or destroyed.â The Town of Fairlee moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the time to contest an election or ask for a recount had long since passed. The trial court reviewed Plaintiffâs complaint and concluded that Plaintiff was really requesting public records under the stateâs Public Records Act (PRA). The trial court noted that state law required the town clerk to retain all election materials for a 90-day period following an election, and authorized the clerk to destroy those materials after the 90 days passed. The court reasoned that destruction of the election materials had rendered the case moot since it could not grant the relief Plaintiff requested. Plaintiff then submitted a request to the Town for the election records pursuant to the PRA. This time the Town denied the request, saying the records were not subject to the PRA because the records had been destroyed. Taking the matter to court again, the Town moved to dismiss Plaintiffâs request as moot. This time, however, the trial court denied the Townâs motion to dismiss, holding that the records fell into an exception to the mootness doctrine, for actions âcapable of repetition, yet evading review.â The Town then moved for summary judgment, arguing that the election materials had to be âsecurely sealedâ if they hadnât already been destroyed, and were not available for public disclosure. The court granted the Townâs motion. On appeal, the Supreme Court concluded that the trial court was correct to entertain Plaintiffâs petition, but erred in ruling that the election records requested were exempt from disclosure under the PRA and erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the Town. Accordingly, the Court reversed the lower courtâs decision.