Justia Vermont Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

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

Michael Hazlett (Father) appealed a trial court's award to Michelle Toomin (Mother) of primary legal and physical rights and responsibilities for their daughter.  On appeal he contended that: (1) the court gave insufficient consideration to his superior ability to foster a positive relationship between the daughter and mother as compared to mother's ability to support daughter's relationship with him; (2) the court did not properly weigh an incident of Mother allegedly abusing the daughter in drawing its conclusion to award her custody; and (3) the court gave undue weight to the conclusion that mother was the primary caregiver because it did not consider the quality of her caregiving relationship with the daughter.  Finding no flaw in the trial court's conclusions, the Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's decision. View "Hazlett v. Toomin" on Justia Law

Landlord Downtown Barre Development appealed a trial court's denial of its request for declaratory relief. Landlord argued that Tenant GU Markets of Barre, LLC established a corporate structure that entitled it to terminate the parties' commercial lease.  Landlord claimed the trial court erred by not considering Tenant's conduct when deciding whether tenancy under the terms of their agreement could be terminated.  Upon review of the lease and the applicable legal authority, the Supreme Court concluded that the essence of Landlord's claim was for "anticipatory repudiation." Even assuming Landlord could rely on this common law principle, Tenant had not indicated to Landlord an intent to breach, nor did Tenant commit an act to render it "unable to perform." Accordingly, because the language of the lease was clear and unambiguous and Tenant's conduct did not constitute notice as required by the plain language of the lease, the Court affirmed the trial court's ruling that landlord was not entitled to terminate the agreement on this ground. View "Downtown Barre Development v. GU Markets of Barre, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Pamela Allen-Pentkowski appealed the Vermont Employment Security Board's (Board) determination that she was discharged from work for actions constituting misconduct, a decision which temporarily disqualified her from collecting unemployment compensation benefits.  Prior to her discharge, Plaintiff had worked for over five years at Liebert Engineering, Inc. as a computer assisted design operator. Over the course of her work for Liebert, a dispute arose when Plaintiff's work schedule changed. She claims she told her supervisor that she could make a requested change in her work hours after she had her baby, but until then, could not work an extra hour beyond 4:00 p.m. on days requested by her supervisor. In an e-mail to the company's president, Plaintiff explained she could not work the extra hour, that her supervisor would not listen to her, and that she felt harassed by his repeated insistence. Hearing an exchange between Plaintiff and the supervisor, the president came from his office and told Plaintiff that "can't is equal to refusal, refusal is reason for termination," at which point, he discharged Plaintiff. Plaintiff filed for unemployment compensation benefits but the claims adjudicator determined the nature of plaintiff's discharge from her employer was misconduct connected with her work. On appeal, plaintiff argued that her inability to work the hours requested by her employer was not misconduct within the meaning of the statute and should not disqualify her from unemployment compensation benefits.  Upon review, the Supreme Court held the employer failed to carry its burden of proof and reversed the Board's decision. View "Allen-Pentkowski v. Dept. of Labor" on Justia Law

Plaintiff US Bank National Association appealed a trial court order that granted summary judgment to Defendant Homeowner Christine Kimball and dismissed with prejudice US Bank’s foreclosure complaint for lack of standing.  On appeal, US Bank argued that it had standing to prosecute the foreclosure claim and that the court’s dismissal with prejudice was in error.  Homeowner cross-appealed, arguing that the court erred in not addressing her claim for attorney’s fees. Homeowner purchased the property in question in June 2005.  To finance the purchase, she executed an adjustable rate promissory note in favor of Accredited Home Lenders, Inc. (Accredited).  The note was secured by a mortgage deed to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) as nominee for Accredited. In 2009, US Bank filed a foreclosure complaint for Homeowner’s failure to make required payments.  The complaint alleged that the mortgage and note were assigned to US Bank by MERS, as nominee for Accredited.  Attached to the complaint was a copy of the instrument signed by a "Duly Authorized Agent" of MERS.  The promissory note was also attached to the complaint and appended to it was an undated allonge signed by a corporate officer of Accredited, endorsing the note in blank. Homeowner moved for summary judgment claiming, among other things, that US Bank failed to present sufficient evidence that it held homeowner’s note and corresponding mortgage. Because neither note submitted by US Bank was dated, the court concluded that there was no evidence that the note was endorsed to US Bank before the complaint was filed.  Therefore, the court held that US Bank lacked standing to bring the foreclosure action.  Following a hearing, the court denied the motions for reconsideration and to amend the complaint.  The court concluded that US Bank had submitted a defective complaint and the deficiencies were not mere technicalities, but essential items, without which the case could not proceed.  The court held that US Bank lacked standing when the complaint was filed, and dismissed the complaint “with prejudice.”  Upon review of the trial record and briefs submitted by the parties, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's decision in all respects but for the 'with prejudice': "this may be but an ephemeral victory for homeowner.  Absent adjudication on the underlying indebtedness, the dismissal cannot cancel her obligation arising from an authenticated note, or insulate her from foreclosure proceedings based on proven delinquency." The Court dismissed the foreclosure complaint and remanded the case for consideration of the parties' fees dispute. View "U.S. Bank National Association v. Kimball" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Defendant Jeffrey Kinney of driving while intoxicated and attempting to elude an officer while operating a vehicle.  On appeal, Defendant argued: (1) the trial court erred in admitting defendant’s refusal to take a preliminary breath test; (2) the prosecutor, in closing, impermissibly injected personal opinion about his credibility and commented on his failure to testify; and (3) the State failed to introduce sufficient identity evidence to support the verdict. A Bennington police officer was patrolling in his cruiser at about ten o’clock at night when he observed an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) being driven on the street in Bennington.  Although it was dark, the officer was able to observe the driver, whom he recognized as Defendant from prior contacts and from his knowledge that Defendant owned that particular model of ATV. The ATV ultimately went over an embankment and the police pursuit continued on foot.  Another officer testified that he found the abandoned two-seat ATV in the woods, followed voices, and found two men, Defendant and another individual.  Defendant appeared to be intoxicated; he was unsteady on his feet, had slurred speech, and smelled of alcohol.  Defendant’s clothes generally matched the clothes worn by the driver of the ATV.  Defendant told the officer that a third person named Jason Webb had been driving the ATV, and had since taken off running.  Defendant also said that he was in the area for a bonfire.  The officer saw no signs of a bonfire, and no third person was ever located in the area. The officers recovered the key to the ATV from defendant’s pocket. Upon review, the Supreme Court found " no basis to disturb the judgment" and affirmed Defendant's conviction. View "Vermont v. Kinney" on Justia Law