Justia Vermont Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

At issue in this appeal was whether a 180-foot telecommunications tower in the town of Hardwick would have an undue adverse effect on the aesthetics of the area in violation of Criterion 8 of Act 250.  Neighboring landowners appealed the issuance of an Act 250 land-use permit for the project.  Specifically, they contested (1) whether the project violated a clear, written community standard intended to preserve the aesthetics of the area, and (2) whether a reduction of the tower's height was a mitigating step that the developer should have taken to improve the harmony of the project with its surroundings.  Upon review of the briefs submitted by all interested parties and the applicable legal authority, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Environmental Division of the Superior Court that determined that the tower would not have an undue adverse effect under Criterion 8. View "In re Rinkers, Inc." on Justia Law

Defendant David Boglioli appealed his conviction for voluntary manslaughter and raised multiple grounds for reversal.  Among them, Defendant alleged he was denied a fair trial when he was precluded from presenting evidence of the victim's threats against others.  Defendant claimed reversible error on various theories regarding the jury instructions.  He also argued that the evidence presented was insufficient to support the verdict of guilty for voluntary manslaughter and that this verdict was against the great weight of the evidence.  Prior to the killing, Defendant and his victim had a history.  The two were neighbors and the victim made a habit of tormenting Defendant.  According to the evidence presented at trial, the victim physically assaulted defendant on numerous occasions and shot projectiles at defendant's home including BBs, darts, pellets, rocks, and bullets.  He also threatened to kill and hurt Defendant and verbally harassed him. Defendant raised the affirmative defense of self-defense.  The State requested a jury instruction on the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter, which the trial court granted over Defendant's objection.  The jury convicted defendant of voluntary manslaughter. Upon review of all of the issues Defendant raised on appeal, the Supreme Court took all in turn and affirmed the trial court's decision in its entirety. View "Vermont v. Boglioli" on Justia Law

In this complaint for review of governmental action under Vermont Rules of Civil Procedure 75, Plaintiff-inmate Brian LeClair appealed a superior court's refusal to order the Department of Corrections to give him double credit for time served in a correctional facility after his furlough status was improperly revoked.  In November 2006, Plaintiff was charged with burglary. This charge was based on an incident that occurred in April 2004, before Plaintiff's conviction on previous charges.  The new charge arose when DNA evidence connected Plaintiff to the earlier offense.  At the time of the new charge, Plaintiff had completed his minimum, but not his maximum, sentence.  Although he was on conditional reentry furlough when the new charge was filed, he was incarcerated for what was to be a short period of time for violating the terms of his conditional reentry furlough agreement.  When the new charge was filed, however, the Department revoked Plaintiff's furlough status, and he remained incarcerated.  Independent of his furlough revocation, Plaintiff was held for lack of bail on the new charge. In an August 2007 decision, the superior court ruled that because the sole basis of the revocation was plaintiff's alleged violation of his promise in the furlough agreement not to commit any illegal act, his furlough status had been improperly revoked based on an incident that occurred before he signed the agreement. Plaintiff filed a complaint for review of governmental action under Rule 75, arguing that the Department was compelled to award him credit for the 279 days between the revocation of his furlough and his conviction on the new burglary charge not only against his original sentences, but also against his sentence on the new charge.  In a May 2010 decision, the superior court ruled that plaintiff was not entitled to double credit for those 279 days, notwithstanding the fact that his furlough status had been improperly revoked. According to the State, the expiration of Plaintiff's underlying sentences and his acceptance into drug court on the most recent charge means that the Supreme Court's decision on the merits of Plaintiff's appeal would have no impact on Plaintiff, and thus there is no live controversy.  Plaintiff responded that a live controversy continued to exist because, if the Court found in his favor in this appeal, his maximum sentence would be considered completed in February 2010, before the latest charge, and thus he could receive credit against any new sentence for the time he spent in custody after the new charge was filed. Upon review, the Supreme Court dismissed Plaintiff's appeal as moot. View "In re LeClair" on Justia Law

Appellant, Testator Orville Tucker's daughter, sought to reverse a trial court judgment that declined to admit Testator's purported last will and testament to probate.  This judgment followed a trial by jury, which rendered a special verdict that found Testator lacked testamentary capacity.  Appellant raised various issues relating to the burden of proof, the use of the doctrine of suspicious circumstances, the jury instructions, and the denial of post-judgment motions.  Upon review of the trial court record and the applicable legal authority, the Supreme Court concluded that all of Appellant's claims were moot or unpreserved, and accordingly, the Court affirmed the trial court's judgment. View "In re Estate of Orville Tucker" on Justia Law

On the afternoon of June 5, 2009, Defendant Theodore de Macedo Soares was stopped on Interstate 91 and issued a citation for speeding.  The citation stated that Defendant was traveling eighty miles per hour in a sixty-five-mile-per-hour speed zone.  The citation further stated that the accused could either pay the specified waiver amount or challenge the ticket. For the latter, if the prosecution proved its case, any fine within the specified penalty range could be imposed.  The citation noted that the waiver amount plus $50 for court costs is commonly assessed following a hearing.  The citation indicated a waiver amount of $140 and a penalty range from $36 to $1186. Defendant elected to contest the ticket at a judicial bureau hearing.  At the hearing, Defendant did not testify but cross-examined the state trooper who had cited him for speeding.  At the close of the hearing, the hearing officer upheld the citation and fined defendant $140 plus $50 for court costs, noting that defendant had been stopped for speeding nine times.  Defendant appealed to the district court, which upheld the judicial bureau's judgment.  The Supreme Court then granted defendant's request for permission to appeal. Defendant first argued that the traffic citation was unconstitutional because: (1) the penalty range applies only when a defendant chose to maintain a constitutionally protected right to challenge the citation; (2) the $50 in court costs is assessed only if a defendant is found guilty following a hearing; (3) the waiver amount is an improper incentive to settle that chills a defendant's right to challenge a citation; (4) the solicitation of a guilty plea violates the principle of a presumption of innocence; and (5) the process for issuing a citation does not assure a knowing and intelligent waiver of constitutional rights. Upon review, the Supreme Court found "no constitutional violation and no merit to these arguments." The Court affirmed the lower court's decision. View "Vermont v. de Macedo Soares" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs Lisa and Thomas Ketchum as trustees for the Saddlebrook Farm and North Farm Trusts appealed the Town of Dorset's decision to reclassify a town road from a class 3 to a class 4 highway.  Plaintiffs argued that the court erred in reviewing the selectboard's reclassification using a deferential standard instead of a de novo procedure involving appointment of a panel of commissioners.  In the alternative, Plaintiffs contended that, even under a deferential standard, the court's decision was erroneous because the findings were not supported by the evidence and they were denied an opportunity to supplement the record on appeal.  Plaintiffs own property that is serviced by a town highway known as Upper Kirby Hollow Road.  There is one residence on the road, and the remaining properties are undeveloped.  Some of the property is under a conservation easement and open to the public for recreational activities.  In October 2008, the Town provided notice that it intended to consider altering the classification of certain town highways, including a 0.55 mile section of Kirby Hollow Road.  The selectboard made a site visit to the property.  The Town also held a public meeting and heard from interested parties.  Plaintiffs attended and spoke against reclassification.  Other members of the public also opposed reclassification and questioned whether it would have an impact on the public's ability to use the conserved property.  The Town road foreman supported reclassification and testified that the road is dangerous to maintain and snow plow because it is narrow and steep.  In December 2008, the Town issued a written decision, finding, among other things, that: the road's width is too narrow to allow two vehicles to safely pass one another or for access for emergency vehicles; Town snow removal vehicles have slid off the road causing danger to the vehicles and impairing snow removal of other roads; and the cost to improve the road is prohibitive.  The Town also found that the road services only one seasonal residence with limited winter usage.  The Town concluded that continuing summer maintenance and winter plowing did not serve the public good of the Town and reclassified the road. The trial court concluded that there was no statutory authority providing for review of the reclassification and therefore the only jurisdiction for the appeal was pursuant to Rule 75 in the nature of certiorari.  Upon review, the Supreme Court found that while Plaintiffs argued that their opinions and evidence should have been weighed more heavily, the selectboard did not err in resolving the competing considerations in the manner that it did.  The decision was within the Town's authority and not erroneous. The Court affirmed the lower court's decisions. View "Ketchum v. Town of Dorset" on Justia Law

The issue at the heart of this appeal asked the Supreme Court Court to decide if an eighteen-year-old has a duty to control the behavior of a fifteen-year-old friend and, if the fifteen-year-old later commits suicide, whether the eighteen-year-old is at fault.  Alexandra Brown was fifteen years old when she committed suicide in the early morning of February 21, 2007.  Two nights before, she and eighteen-year-old Defendant Kayla Leonard decided to go to a party at an acquaintance's apartment.  Each girl had lied to her parents, telling them that she was sleeping over at the other's house.  Kayla picked Alex up at her home and drove them both to the apartment.  There the girls danced and drank alcohol Alex provided. Ultimately, the girls spent the night, sharing a room with a nineteen-year-old man who lived in the apartment.  During the night Alex had sexual intercourse with the nineteen-year-old.  Kayla was aware the two were intimate but did not know they had intercourse. Kayla drove Alex home the next morning.  Her stepfather became suspicious when he saw Alex leave the house, walk down the driveway to a car, and drive away.  He called Alex's mother, who was in Florida at the time, and told her of his suspicions.  Alex's mother called the girl's house and found out that there were no plans for Alex to spend the night.  She then called Alex's cell phone and left a message to confront Alex.  The police were called. Alex's mother called several more times and left messages, including one that threatened "massive, massive consequences" because of Alex's behavior. Throughout the night, while driving around Rutland with a friend and later alone at her house, Alex sent numerous text messages to her friends telling them she had been caught by her parents and describing the trouble she was in.  She also sent numerous text messages to her boyfriend, who was away at college, one of which said, "I got caught tonight.  I'm grounded forever. Goodbye." While she mentioned suicide in some of her text messages, she never sent Kayla such a message. At some point in the evening, back at her house, Alex composed a suicide note.  Alex carried out the plan she had discussed in her note and hanged herself from a tree in her yard.  Her body was discovered by a neighbor the next morning. Plaintiff, Alex's mother acting as administrator of her estate, sued Kayla alleging that Kayla was negligent for bringing Alex to the apartment party, that Kayla should have intervened to prevent Alex from having sexual intercourse with the nineteen-year-old, and that, because she failed to do so, Kayla negligently caused Alex to suffer emotional harm.  Plaintiff further claimed that Kayla's negligence caused a delirium or insanity in Alex and "as a proximate result thereof, she committed suicide."  Kayla moved for summary judgment arguing that she owed no duty to Alex and that her actions were not the proximate cause of Alex's suicide.  The trial court granted Kayla's motion, and from that decision Plaintiff appealed. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment to Defendant and concluded she had no duty to intervene to prevent the tragedy that occurred: "Plaintiff essentially advocates that we find a duty simply because one girl was eighteen and the other was fifteen.  The law does not impose such a duty in this situation a duty for an eighteen-year-old to protect a high school friend who has not reached the age of majority from the consequences of the younger person's independent behavior or to control such behavior." View "Lenoci v. Leonard" on Justia Law

Claimant Katrina Blue appealed an Employment Security Board decision that denied her claim for unemployment compensation benefits.  Claimant contended the Board erred in: (1) finding that she was disqualified from receiving benefits because she left her employment voluntarily; and (2) assigning her the burden of proof.  Claimant worked for about four years for Hickok & Boardman Realty.  In the early summer of 2010, claimant left her employment to participate in a three-month cross-country bicycle ride for multiple sclerosis. Claimant acknowledged that she did not submit a written request for leave, as required in the company's personnel policy, which stated that employees who apply for unpaid personal leave, "must apply in writing" and that, "reinstatement is not guaranteed" but rather, "at the Company's sole discretion."  While conceding that her leave arrangement "was not typical," Claimant maintained that her supervisor had agreed, "that an exception would be made in this instance." In its ruling, the ALJ's findings indicated that Claimant "requested a three-month leave of absence" but do not state whether the request was granted or, if so, on what terms.   Its key conclusion, however, was that, "[w]hile the claimant maintain[ed] that she was fired when the employer would not allow her to come back from a personal leave of absence, it was the claimant who initiated the separation from employment by requesting the leave of absence . . . thus making this a voluntary separation from employment."  Since there was no claim that the separation was for "good cause attributable" to the employer, the ALJ concluded that claimant was disqualified from receiving benefits. In a divided ruling, the Employment Security Board adopted the ALJ's findings and conclusions and sustained its decision.  The dissenting member of the Board would have found that claimant's "departure for her cross-country ride was . . . not a voluntary abandonment of her employment, but a temporary unpaid leave of absence," that claimant was let go upon her return in late August, and therefore that she was entitled to unemployment compensation benefits from that time forward.  This appeal followed. Upon review of the record, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case to the Department of Labor's ALJ: "[m]indful that our unemployment compensation scheme must be broadly construed so that no claimant is "excluded unless the law clearly intends" it … we direct the ALJ on remand to enter additional findings and conclusions on the material issues presented, and to award unemployment compensation benefits to claimant in the event it is determined that she  did not leave her employment voluntarily." View "Blue v. Dept. of Labor" on Justia Law

Petitioner Ronald Combs appealed a trial court order that denied his petition for post-conviction relief (PCR) where he alleged ineffective assistance of counsel. Petitioner was initially arrested and charged with murder in 1990.  At that time, he retained a private attorney as his defense counsel.  Shortly after his arrest, petitioner's competency and sanity were evaluated, and he was deemed incompetent to stand trial because he suffered from schizophrenia paranoid type.  Petitioner spent the following four years involuntarily committed to the Vermont State Hospital, until the State raised the issue of his competency again in 1994.  A second psychiatric evaluation in 1994 led to the conclusion that petitioner was competent to stand trial, though the evaluation deemed his competence to be "marginal."  Both physicians who evaluated petitioner concluded that the insanity defense could be supported given petitioner's psychiatric condition at the time of the crime.  All psychiatric evidence suggested that petitioner was insane at the time of the murder.  At a later hearing, the State prosecutor questioned the ethics of prosecuting a defendant who may have been legally insane at the time of the alleged crime. Without consulting petitioner, who was present in court, defense counsel responded that he had discussed "all of this" with his client and that petitioner was "quite adamant about the fact that he [did] not wish to pursue [the insanity] defense in any way, shape or strategy." In 1995, Petitioner was convicted of first degree murder and was sentenced to serve thirty-five years to life in prison. In October 2006, Petitioner filed a PCR petition claiming that the State had not met its burden of proof in his criminal case.  Petitioner amended his petition several years later, focusing on the claim that he had received ineffective assistance from his defense counsel.  The trial court adjudicating petitioner's petition (PCR court) conducted an evidentiary hearing on October 6, 2009, and subsequently denied the PCR petition. On appeal, Petitioner made two arguments: (1) the trial court erred in holding that petitioner's criminal defense counsel did not render ineffective assistance by failing to seek a bifurcated trial and explaining its merit to petitioner; and (2) the trial court failed to consider his claim that his counsel rendered ineffective assistance by not seeking a stipulation that petitioner was insane at the time of the offense.  Upon review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court on Petitioner's first claim, but agreed that the trial court failed to resolve the second.  For this reason, the Court reversed the decision and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "In re Ronald Combs" on Justia Law

Employer Ethan Allen, Inc. appealed the Commissioner of the Department of Labor's decision that Claimant Robin Houle's right shoulder condition was compensable under the Workers' Compensation Act.  Claimant experienced pain and weakness in her left shoulder and arm, and her job duties as a furniture refinisher were modified to account for her medical restrictions.  Claimant was assigned to an inventory control/stockroom clerk position where she engaged in a variety of duties.  Interspersed among these duties, claimant also wrapped finished shelves to prepare them for shipping. Claimant was initially treated for the increased symptoms in her shoulder and neck by her primary care provider.  The primary care provider referred her to an orthopedist for further evaluation.  The orthopedist suspected that her left shoulder complaints were most likely due to her repetitive work for Ethan Allen.  He attributed claimant's right shoulder pain to normal wear and tear to be expected of someone claimant's age.  Claimant was dissatisfied with this evaluation and was then referred to an orthopedic surgeon for further evaluation and treatment. In view of the competing expert medical opinions, the Commission relied on a traditional five-part test to evaluate their persuasiveness. Ethan Allen raised numerous arguments on appeal to the Supreme Court. Principal among them, Ethan Allen challenged the Commissioner's use of the five-part test to evaluate competing medical opinions, both as applied in this case and in general.  According to the Employer, the use of this test improperly shifts the burden of proof from claimant to employer, unfairly places employers at a disadvantage, and erroneously employs a "winner take all" approach to evaluating a claimant's expert testimony. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that Ethan Allen failed to show that the Commissioner's findings were clearly erroneous or that her conclusions were unsupported by the findings. The Court affirmed the Commissioner's decision in this case. View "Houle v. Ethan Allen, Inc." on Justia Law