Justia Vermont Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

M.W. was born in August 2010. M.W. lived with his young parents in the maternal grandparents’ home for several months before moving into an apartment that the maternal grandfather built over a garage located fifty feet from the grandparents’ home. During the approximately three years that the parents lived there, the mother and her parents were M.W.’s primary caregivers, as father worked two jobs and was away from the home much of the time. In 2013, father was arrested and charged with four counts of aggravated sexual assault on minors under the age of thirteen and four counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child. Father was also charged with two counts of obstructing justice, one count of violating an abuse prevention order, and one count of violating conditions of release. M.W. was not the putative victim of any of the charged crimes. Ten of the twelve counts were felonies, the most serious of which (aggravated sexual assault on a minor under the age of thirteen) had a potential life sentence with a mandatory minimum of ten years to serve. The lewd-and-lascivious-conduct counts had a mandatory minimum sentence of two years to serve. The Department for Children and Families (DCF) substantiated father for abuse based on the conduct that led to the criminal charges. Father administratively appealed the substantiation, and that appeal was stayed pending resolution of the criminal charges. In the meantime, a petition was filed to terminate his parental rights as to M.W. He appealed a superior court order that ultimately terminated those rights, contending that an extended pre-trial incarceration could not support the family court’s termination order. Finding no reversible error as to the termination petition, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "In re M.W." on Justia Law

In December 2014, defendant Jeremy Gates was charged with felony extortion, domestic assault, and unlawful mischief in the amount of $250 or less following an incident involving his mother. Defendant appealed a 2016 superior court ruling revoking his right to bail under 13 V.S.A. 7575 after repeated violations of conditions of release (VCRs). Defendant argued that the trial court ruled on inadequate grounds, without making the necessary findings, and based on probable cause affidavits, rather than on an independent determination by a preponderance of direct evidence required for bail revocation. After review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court could not conclude that the trial court’s findings were sufficient to support its conclusion that defendant had violated section 7575(1) so as to revoke his conditions of release. The Court reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Vermont v. Gates" on Justia Law

Plaintiff-taxpayers Fred Osier and Eugene Shaver sued defendants Burlington Telecom, the City of Burlington and the City’s former Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Jonathan Leopold to recover and restore to the City of Burlington’s general fund $16.9 million in cost overruns incurred by the City in connection with the operation of Burlington Telecom (BT). BT was a City-owned enterprise that provided an optical fiber-to-the-home network to Burlington residents and businesses. The trial court granted judgment to defendants. Taxpayers appealed, challenging the court’s denial of their request for an accounting from the City and its denial of their request to hold Leopold personally liable for the $16.9 million in City funds used for BT. Leopold cross-appealed, offering additional reasons why he should not have been held liable. After review, the Supreme Court concluded that the trial court acted within its discretion in denying taxpayers’ request for an accounting. The Court also agreed that Leopold was not personally liable for the $16.9 million in cost overruns. In reaching this conclusion, the Court adopted the standard identified by the court in its pretrial ruling and held that any claim against Leopold had to include an element of bad faith. That critical element was lacking here. The Court affirmed the trial court’s decision as to Leopold’s liability on that basis. View "Osier v. Burlington Telecom" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Matthew Burgess appealed decisions of the superior court’s civil division which dismissed certain defendants and granting summary judgment to another defendant with respect to plaintiff’s claim that he was entitled to either a tax collector’s deed conveying him property he redeemed from foreclosure or damages compensating him for not being conveyed the deed. Plaintiff’s parents, John and Virginia Burgess, mortgaged property located in defendant Town of Morristown through defendant Lamoille Housing Partnership, Inc. (LHP), a nonprofit corporation that assisted people in finding affordable housing. The Burgesses purchased the property through LHP’s Home Land Program, by which ownership of the underlying land was severed from ownership of the house in which the Burgesses resided. Under the arrangement, a warranty deed from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development conveyed the land and improvements to the Burgesses, who granted a mortgage deed to the USDA Rural Development encumbering both the land and improvements. The Burgesses then conveyed the land to LHP, retaining only the title to the improvements. LHP and the Burgesses then entered into a ground lease granting the Burgesses a leasehold interest in the land for a ninety-nine-year term subject to certain terms and conditions, including that the Burgesses pay the property taxes on the entire property. The Burgesses later disputed their obligation to pay property taxes, which ultimately resulted in their son attempting to redeem the property through foreclosure. The Supreme Court affirmed the superior court: "a simple review of the governing statutes reveals that redemption of property sold at a tax sale does not entitle the redeeming party to a collector’s deed." View "Burgess v. Lamoille Housing Partnership" on Justia Law

Defendant Tisa Farrow was arraigned on charges of driving under the influence (DUI). Before trial, defendant filed a motion in limine seeking to exclude from evidence the arresting officer’s testimony about his observations and opinion regarding defendant’s performance of the “Modified Rhomberg Test” (MRT), as well as the videotape of the event. Defendant had previously declined to perform field sobriety tests. Thereafter, at the officer’s request, defendant began the exercise in question, which involved closing her eyes, leaning her head back, and counting thirty seconds. She stopped five to eight seconds later, indicating that she did not want to do the exercise. Defendant’s written motion stated that the MRT evidence was irrelevant because the exercise was never completed and was thus unreliable, and that even if the evidence was marginally relevant, any probative value it had was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. The issue this case presented for the Vermont Supreme Court's review centered on the admissibility of evidence of defendant’s decision not to complete a field sobriety exercise as requested by a police officer in the context of an answer to a question the Court left open in a prior decision: Under the Vermont Constitution, is a defendant’s refusal or failure to perform voluntary field sobriety exercises admissible if the defendant was not advised at the time of the refusal that evidence of a refusal to perform the exercises may be admissible in court? The Court concluded that the refusal evidence was admissible without regard to whether police advised the individual that a refusal to perform the exercises could be admitted as evidence in court. Because the Court rejected defendant’s argument to the contrary on this point, as well as her arguments that on the record in this case the evidence in question was irrelevant and unduly prejudicial, the Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Farrow" on Justia Law

Unifund CCR Partners, a debt buyer, was in the business of purchasing large portfolios of charged-off debts from original debt holders in the hope of eventually collecting from the original debtors. Unifund asserted the right to judgment against defendant David Zimmer for charged-off debt in the amount of $2453.22, plus costs and statutory pre-judgment interest of 12% under 12 V.S.A. 2903, for a credit card account opened in defendant's name with Citibank. Unifund also alleged that defendant was unjustly enriched in that amount “by virtue of non-payment on an account.” At trial, Unifund asserted that it was authorized to collect the debt by a series of limited assignments, from Citibank to Pilot Receivables Management, LLC (Pilot) on June 18, 2012, and from Pilot to Unifund CCR LLC (UCL) and UCL to Unifund, both on June 1, 2013. To establish standing to enforce the underlying debt, Unifund offered testimony of Brian Billings, who spoke in support of the assignment from Citibank to Pilot, and Elizabeth Andres, who spoke in support of the assignments from Pilot to UCL and UCL to Unifund. The trial court found these documents to be inadmissible as hearsay because Unifund had failed to establish the necessary foundation for their admission. The trial court also found that, even if the assignments were admissible as a business record under Rule 803(6), Unifund had failed to establish standing. Unifund raised four arguments on appeal: (1) that documents proffered to establish the assignment of defendant’s debt were not admissible as business records; (2) that the assignment of the right to collect is itself sufficient for standing; (3) that Unifund sufficiently established the terms of the contract between defendant and Citibank, including the contractual interest rate; and (4) that Unifund demonstrated a basis to recover for unjust enrichment. Finding no reversible error in the trial court's analysis and judgment, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Unifund CCR Partners v. Zimmer" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted by jury of sexual assault. On appeal of that conviction, he argued: (1) the seating of two biased jurors deprived him of his right to an impartial jury; (2) the trial court committed prejudicial error by prohibiting him from using a prior conviction to impeach a witness; and (3) the prosecutor’s comments during closing argument violated his right to a fair trial. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Atherton a/k/a Melton" on Justia Law

Defendant was a citizen of the Dominican Republic who lived and worked legally in Massachusetts as a permanent resident of the United States. In June 2013, he pleaded guilty to one charge of felony domestic assault stemming from a May 2013 incident in which he attempted to strangle his girlfriend at her home in Rutland. Defendant signed a written plea agreement prior to a change-of-plea hearing. Shortly after defendant was released on probation, the federal government issued a detainer to place him into deportation proceedings upon completion of his sentence. Then, in late October 2013, Rutland police responded to two calls in which defendant’s girlfriend alleged that defendant battered or otherwise assaulted her. As a result of the latter two incidents, in August 2014 defendant pleaded guilty both to a charge of violation of probation and to a second, misdemeanor charge of domestic assault. Again, defendant signed a written plea agreement prior to the change-of-plea hearing. The language of this agreement concerning the possible collateral consequences of a conviction on his immigration status was identical to that of the prior written agreement. In January 2015, defendant filed a motion to withdraw both of his guilty pleas on the basis that the court had not properly advised him that deportation was a risk of pleading guilty. The court denied this motion, finding that there was no substantive difference between what the court advised defendant and specifically telling him that he could be “deported.” Defendant appealed the trial court’s denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty pleas in his two domestic assault cases. Defendant argued that the court erred by not using the term “deportation” or “clearly equivalent language” to advise him that deportation was a possible consequence of pleading guilty. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Mendez" on Justia Law

Defendant Michael Rosenfield appealed the denial of his motion, which requested that the trial court “correct the record” by amending his third driving-under-the-influence (DUI) conviction to appear as a DUI-1. Defendant filed the motion with the ultimate goal of reducing his conviction from a felony to a misdemeanor to reduce its collateral consequences. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Rosenfield" on Justia Law

This was a dispute between two computer software companies. SynEcology Partners, L3C challenged the trial court’s order dismissing its complaint against Business RunTime, Inc. stemming from its failure to comply with Business RunTime’s discovery requests. In 2008, SynEcology’s founders, Edward Grossman and Jeanne Conde, sold the company’s assets to Lawrence Kenney. Grossman and Conde subsequently started a new software company, Business RunTime. In August 2011, SynEcology filed a civil complaint against Business RunTime, Edward Grossman, Jeanne Conde, and two former SynEcology employees, Thomas Reynolds and Toby Leong, for alleged fraud, theft of intellectual property, industrial sabotage, computer crimes, burglary, larceny, willful breaches of nondisclosure and employee contracts, theft and disclosure of trade secrets, and tortious interference with contractual relations. What followed was a protracted discovery phase, culminating in Business RunTime’s motion for contempt, sanctions, and attorneys’ fees, filed on July 23, 2014, which ultimately resulted in dismissal of SynEcology’s complaint. The Supreme Court affirmed. " It is clear from its discussion that the trial court lost faith in SynEcology’s willingness to undertake a good faith effort to comply with the discovery orders or motions to compel. Although SynEcology argues that it was willing and able to produce the Comcast emails and privilege log, the trial court had no reason to believe SynEcology would suddenly make good on its promises having failed to do so in the past." View "Synecology Partners L3C v. Business RunTime, Inc." on Justia Law