Justia Vermont Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The parties in this case met in 2002 or 2003 and had a romantic relationship. In August 2007, the pair bought a house in Orwell. Prior to the purchase, plaintiff had been renting an apartment within the house from the owners of the property, the Tricketts. After the sale, defendant moved in with plaintiff. The parties bought the house for $245,000: Defendant’s mother contributed $200,000, defendant paid about $4,300 in closing costs, and the Tricketts financed a $45,000 private mortgage to the parties. Defendant’s mother did not ask for a promissory note, and her contribution was a gift rather than a loan. In particular, the contribution was intended as a gift to defendant, not to plaintiff. Although both parties signed the promissory note to the Tricketts, plaintiff took responsibility for making those payments, and was supposed to pay the balloon payment on the mortgage in August of 2010. The property was titled to the parties as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. Sometime after the closing, plaintiff signed an indemnification agreement that expressly acknowledged that defendant paid $200,000 plus the closing costs, that plaintiff was solely responsible for the $45,000 mortgage debt, and that plaintiff would indemnify defendant for any default on that debt. Plaintiff testified that she always believed that each party had a fifty percent interest in the property, while defendant testified that his understanding was that the parties had interests in the property commensurate their respective contributions. The trial court expressly rejected plaintiff’s testimony and concluded that both parties understood that their interests were defined by their respective contributions to the purchase price. The parties’ relationship ended, and defendant moved out of the house in 2009. In February, he stopped paying the expenses for the property and ignored plaintiff’s requests for assistance. Plaintiff has rented out a portion of the house since April 2010, collecting $700 per month. As of the trial, plaintiff had earned $27,300 from renting the house. She did not share any of this income with defendant. Plaintiff did not pay the balloon payment on the mortgage, and in 2010, the Tricketts filed a petition for foreclosure. In November 2011, plaintiff filed for bankruptcy to avoid losing the property. Plaintiff’s mother helped her to redeem the property by borrowing $143,000 against the equity in her own home. Plaintiff paid toward the mortgage on her mother’s house used to finance the redemption of the parties' house, $56,691 to the Trinketts, $12,031 for past-due property taxes, and $71,722 to pay off a home equity loan. In August 2011, in the face of an inevitable foreclosure sale, the court ordered plaintiff to sell the house. Plaintiff did not comply with the order, and the court found plaintiff in contempt on that basis. In a partition action, plaintiff sought to keep the house and buy out defendant’s interest. Defendant wanted the property awarded to him so that he could sell it and then disburse the amounts allocated by the court to plaintiff. Neither party sought to divide the property into two lots. The property was appraised at $240,000. The parties submitted the matter to the court. Plaintiff challenged the partition order reflecting the trial court’s conclusion that defendant had an 81.7% interest in the home and for applying various setoffs for contributions to the maintenance of the home after the parties purchased it. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the order. View "Currie v. Jané" on Justia Law

This case centered on a disputed permit for a wastewater system and potable water supply granted to applicants David and Martha Musto for a home on Lake Bomoseen. Next-door neighbor Carolyn Hignite appealed the environmental court's decision to deny her request to revoke the permit issued to applicants in 2009, and to dismiss her direct appeal of the permit. Applicants cross-appealed the environmental court's holding that neighbor had standing to appeal in either instance. Along with her brothers, Hignite was part owner of a lake property that has been in their family for sixty-two years. Applicants' property is a .38-acre lot on the western shore of the lake, which contained a single-story seasonal camp of about 960 square feet. In 2009, applicants submitted a permit application to the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) to replace the camp's septic system and on-site water supply. On the permit application, applicants described the project as the "reconstruction of a 3 bedroom year-round single use family residence using a new wastewater disposal system and drilled bedrock water supply well." ANR issued the requested permit to applicants on March 30, 2009. In August 2009, Hignite filed a petition with ANR to revoke the permit, claiming that applicants submitted false or misleading information on the permit application regarding the number of bedrooms in the camp. ANR held a hearing in May 2010, and denied neighbor's petition to revoke the permit. Hignite subsequently appealed the permit to the environmental court in 2010, over a year after the permit was issued to applicants. Hignite also appealed ANR's denial of revocation in 2013. The environmental court reviewed both cases de novo but did not conduct a new hearing, instead basing its review on exhibits and testimony from the ANR hearing, as the parties stipulated. Hignite appealed the court's decision on both dockets. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the court's holding in both of the neighbor's appeals. View "In re Musto Wastewater System" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed a superior court order concluding that defendant violated 13 V.S.A. 3701(c) by intentionally knocking down a tree that belonged to plaintiff and trespassed on plaintiff’s land, and granted plaintiff $1 in damages plus attorney’s fees and costs. On appeal, defendant argued: (1) that plaintiff failed to demonstrate that defendant violated the statute; (2) that nominal damages did not support an award of attorney’s fees; and (3) that the court abused its discretion in awarding attorney’s fees of $22,406 based on $1 of actual damages. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Evans v. Cote" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs’ family began renting a lakeside property 1949 and eventually purchased it in 1976. Throughout their lease and ownership of the Mahoney Lot, and by the terms of their deed, plaintiffs enjoyed the use of approximately seventy-five feet of lake frontage. The adjacent lot to the northeast (the Tara Lot) was owned by Vermont Catholic Charities, Inc. (VCC) from 1958 until 2006 when it was sold to defendant. During VCC’s ownership of the Tara Lot, VCC recognized the disputed boundary line where plaintiffs believed it to be and marked it with signs. In 2007, defendant filed an application to subdivide the Tara Lot and included in the application a survey showing its southerly boundary line cutting plaintiffs’ beach in half (the Disputed Portion). In response to defendant’s development application, plaintiffs filed a complaint to quiet title in December 2007. Defendant filed a motion to dismiss in January 2008, which the trial court granted, but did not file an answer or counterclaim, nor did it assert affirmative defenses. The Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ claim that they had acquired the land by adverse possession and remanded to the trial court for further development of the factual record to determine whether VCC’s use of the property qualified for the exemption. On a second appeal to the Supreme Court, plaintiffs argued that the trial court erred in holding that plaintiffs’ suit to quiet title and defendant’s unilateral grant of permission for plaintiffs to use the disputed land tolled the statute of limitations on their adverse possession claim, that 12 V.S.A. 462 did not apply to acquiescence claims, that the trial court erred in determining that plaintiff’s predecessors did not acquire the property by acquiescence prior to 1949 when Camp Tara bought the property, and that, as a result of erroneous fact finding, the trial court failed to correctly determine the time during which the statute of limitations for adverse possession ran in plaintiffs’ favor. Though its reasoning was different in certain aspects, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court. View "Mahoney, et al. v. Tara, LLC" on Justia Law

Thirteen Town of Williston residents appealed the Superior Court, Environmental Division’s grant of a discretionary permit to All Metals Recycling, Inc., to establish an outdoor storage area and install a scale and scale house. The discretionary permit allowed All Metals to continue operating a previously unpermitted scrap-metals recycling business in Williston. Finding no abuse of discretion, the Supreme Court affirmed the Superior Court's decision. View "In re All Metals Recycling, Inc." on Justia Law

In consolidated appeals, the Supreme Court reviewed rulings by the environmental and civil divisions concerning a subdivision application for a property located within a residential development in the City of Burlington. Appellants’ principal contention was that the courts erred in concluding that the subdivision had the requisite access to a public road. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the judgments. View "Regan v. Pomerleau, DeForest Realty, Inc. and City of Burlington" on Justia Law

Developer Vermont North Properties (VNP) appealed from the trial court’s decision in favor of the Village of Derby Center. The dispute centered on VNP’s rights, if any, to water and sewer allocations from the systems managed by the Village in connection with a VNP construction project. The trial court determined that: the Village could charge fees for reserved water and sewer allocations; the Village’s fees were reasonable; the Village could revoke VNP’s reserved allocations for nonpayment of fees; and the Village was not estopped from denying water and sewer connections to VNP on account of nonpayment. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that VNP had enforceable reserved water and sewer allocations, but the Village could charge equitable fees for these reservations and may revoke the reservations for nonpayment. Furthermore, the Court concluded that VNP failed to meet its burden of demonstrating the unreasonableness of the Village’s reservation fees, and on that basis the Court affirmed the trial court’s decision. View "Vermont North Properties v. Village of Derby Center" on Justia Law

In February 2005, tenants Brian Ayer and Debbie Martell began leasing a single-family home from landlord-plaintiff JW, LLC. Tenants resided in the home with their children and animals, including dogs and chickens. At the time tenants moved in, the house was relatively new and in excellent condition. The monthly rent was $1300. Tenants paid no rent in March and April 2012. They paid rent in May 2012 plus $300 in arrears, but made no further rental payments. Landlord filed for eviction in July 2012. The court issued a rent escrow order. Tenants made only a partial rental payment in August, and the court issued an order for a writ of possession. The writ issued on August 10, 2012 and was served ten days later. The writ stated that tenants had to vacate the premises by midnight on September 6, 2012. On the return of service, the sheriff noted that he had explained the writ and tenants had no questions, and, although tenants refused to take the paperwork, the sheriff left it at the residence. Landlord denied tenant further access to the residence to claim property. Landlord also denied tenant access to the items that landlord had retained. Landlord claimed that the justification for retaining tenants’ personal property was based on two statutes. The issue this case presented to the Supreme Court centered on the status of tenants’ personal property, which landlord cleared from the leased premises at the time a writ of possession was executed. The trial court concluded that landlord did not rightfully have possession of the property and ordered landlord to return it to tenant. Landlord argued that pursuant to statute he was entitled to retain the property, and, in the alternative, the court erred in denying his request for a writ of attachment for the property. The Supreme Court disagreed with the trial court that 12 V.S.A. 4854a only allowed a landlord who has evicted a tenant to dispose of trash without the threat of liability, and for other property requires a landlord "to make reasonable efforts to find out what tenant plans to do and to store the property for 60 days." Because the dwelling unit was not abandoned and the tenant did not vacate, 9 V.S.A. 4462 did not apply, and there was no statutory basis to require a landlord to store property remaining in a dwelling unit after an eviction. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded this case for further proceedings. View "JW, LLC v. Ayer and Martell" on Justia Law

Appellant-taxpayer Elaine Hoiska appealed the Vermont State Appraiser’s valuation of her property in the Town of East Montpelier. She argued that the appraisal incorrectly treated her property as comprising two contiguous lots under common ownership, and accordingly assigns a higher value to the property than if it were a single developable lot. More specifically, appellant took issue with the appraiser’s legal conclusion that she legally subdivided the land in 1978 by procuring a survey, not filed in the land records, that includes a line purportedly dividing the lot into two parcels. Upon review, the Supreme Court agreed that the state appraiser’s findings did not support the legal conclusion that appellant effectively subdivided her property in 1978, and reversed. View "Hoiska v. Town of East Montpelier" on Justia Law

Landowners Owen and Katherine Beauchesne appealed various proceedings involving their complaints challenging the operation of Hale Mountain Fish and Game Club. Here, they appealed the Environmental Division of the superior court's judgment that Hale Mountain was entitled to reissuance of a zoning permit for certain enumerated improvements on its property once it received site plan approval from the Town of Shaftsbury Development Review Board. Based primarily on principles of preservation and res judicata, the Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s judgment. View "In re Hale Mountain Fish & Game Club" on Justia Law