Jeffrey L. Amestoy

This case involved a lawsuit by Marcel and Raymonde Rochon against the State of Vermont for injuries from a collision with a state trooper's vehicle en route to a domestic assault emergency. The trooper was driving at the speed limit with lights on but no siren and attempted to pass the plaintiffs' car, which turned left into their driveway. The trial court granted summary judgment to the state, and the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed, holding that under 23 V.S.A. § 1015(c), plaintiffs must prove recklessness rather than ordinary negligence to overcome sovereign immunity in such cases. The court reasoned that the statute's emergency vehicle privileges require a showing of reckless disregard for liability to attach, which was not pleaded here.

torts & liabilityprocedure

The case concerned whether a restrictive covenant in defendants' deed, which prohibited installing 'mobile homes, campers or trailers' for residential use, barred placement of a modern manufactured home on their lot in a Vermont subdivision. Plaintiffs, neighboring lot owners, sought and obtained a permanent injunction from the trial court, which interpreted the covenant as intending to exclude all non-site-built homes based on the overall deed language and the historical context of covenants in the area. The Vermont Supreme Court reversed, holding that the trial court erred by relying on the grantor's intent from 1982 rather than the parties' intent at the time of defendants' 2002 deed conveyance, and by finding a common development scheme where none existed across the subdivision's deeds. The court reasoned that absent evidence of intent to include manufactured homes and given industry changes, the covenant could not be extended by implication, and remanded for additional findings on the specific parties' understanding.

property

The case involved Marine Midland Bank's attempt to domesticate and enforce a 1991 New York judgment against David Bicknell in Vermont after he relocated there around 2000. The trial court dismissed the action, and the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed, holding that it was barred by the eight-year statute of limitations under 12 V.S.A. § 506. The court reasoned that Vermont's tolling provision in 12 V.S.A. § 552 did not extend the time because both parties were New York residents at the time the cause of action accrued, and the plaintiff had other enforcement mechanisms available in New York. It rejected arguments that the action had not accrued under New York law or that tolling should apply due to the defendant's later move.

procedure

This case concerned the nonjudicial foreclosure sale of plaintiff Anne Will's condominium unit by the Mill Condominium Owners' Association for unpaid dues under 27A V.S.A. § 3-116. The trial court confirmed the sale to the Seiples for $3,510 and granted summary judgment to the defendants. On appeal, the Vermont Supreme Court vacated the judgment, holding that the sale was not conducted in a commercially reasonable manner as required by the UCIOA, based on the large disparity between the sale price and the $70,000 fair market value, the lack of efforts to obtain a higher price, and the disclosure of a minimum bid to the sole bidder. The court remanded for entry of judgment voiding the foreclosure sale.

propertyprocedure

The case involved a defendant convicted of driving under the influence after police responded to a report of erratic driving, located his vehicle, and questioned him at a hotel parking lot, obtaining statements that he had driven and been drinking. The trial court denied the defendant's motions to suppress pre-arrest statements on Miranda grounds, to dismiss for lack of evidence of operation, and for a mistrial after an officer testified about the erratic driving complaint despite a prior exclusion ruling. On appeal, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, reasoning that the interaction was a permissible investigative detention rather than custodial interrogation requiring warnings, the statements provided prima facie evidence of operation, and any improper evidence did not prejudice the defense that someone else had been driving.

criminal lawprocedure

In this workers' compensation case, firefighter Paul Crosby sought benefits for a psychological injury he attributed to workplace events including a building collapse during a fire and a shift transfer, claiming it triggered post-traumatic stress disorder. The Commissioner of Labor and Industry denied the claim, finding the stress was not objectively unusual compared to other firefighters and lacked an objectively sound basis. On appeal, a jury in superior court found in Crosby's favor under an instruction requiring comparison to the general employee population, but the Vermont Supreme Court reversed and remanded, holding that the jury instruction used an incorrect standard inconsistent with the Commissioner's approach in prior cases like Bedini, which requires showing stress significantly greater than that faced by similarly situated employees. The court also rejected the City's constitutional argument that the Vermont Constitution bars compensation for purely psychological injuries without physical trauma.

labor & employmentprocedure

The case involved a Vermont prisoner with Prinz-Metil angina, a heart condition causing unpredictable spasms, who sued the state Department of Corrections commissioner under Title II of the ADA after being denied transfer to a work camp program that provides greater earned reductions in sentence due to insufficient on-site medical staffing. Following a bench trial, the Orleans Superior Court dismissed the claim, and the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. The court held that the plaintiff was not disabled under the ADA because his condition did not substantially limit a major life activity such as working in a broad class of jobs, as evidenced by his ability to perform janitorial and laundry duties at his current facility. The opinion applied the statutory definition requiring a physical impairment that substantially limits major life activities and compared the plaintiff's restrictions to those of the general population, concluding no such limitation existed here.

civil rightscriminal law

The case involved competing claims over the sale of the Buttolph Farm and its owning corporation, Buttolph Farms, Inc., between the Buttolphs as sellers, Campbell and Houghton as potential buyers via a stock purchase, and the Quennevilles as alternative buyers. The superior court extinguished Campbell and Houghton's claims, finding no binding contractual relationship due to unresolved details like equipment lists and the absence of a formal signed agreement, while enforcing an oral agreement between the Buttolphs and Quennevilles based on agreed essential terms including debt assumption, financing, and a promissory note. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed, reasoning that the trial court properly construed the contract without remaking it, that the parties had reached agreement on all material elements, and that the exclusion of expert testimony was within the trial court's discretion.

propertybusiness & regulatory

The case concerned an appeal by the New England Coalition from a Vermont Public Service Board order approving the sale of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station to Entergy Nuclear Vermont Yankee and granting certificates of public good under 30 V.S.A. § 231 for ownership and operation. The Board had rejected the need for review under 30 V.S.A. § 248, finding the transaction did not involve new construction or a change in the plant's use, as the output would continue to serve Vermont utilities under an existing power purchase agreement until 2012. On appeal, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed, holding that unchallenged findings showed no change in use of the facility and that § 231 properly applied because the electricity would ultimately be used by the Vermont public.

business & regulatoryenvironment

The case involved landowners appealing the environmental court's approval of Casella Waste Management's plan to build an access road from its preexisting nonconforming solid waste transfer station to Route 7A on an adjacent parcel in Manchester, Vermont. Landowners argued that the town's zoning ordinance and state law prohibited extending the nonconforming use onto new land without a variance. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the approval, interpreting the ordinance's provision allowing extensions with ZBA approval (if no adverse effects on health, safety, or property values) to permit the road, which was found to improve traffic conditions on rural roads. The court reasoned that state zoning statutes authorize municipalities to adopt flexible approaches to nonconforming uses rather than mandating their strict elimination.

environmentpropertybusiness & regulatory

In Habecker v. Giard, the mother appealed a Chittenden Family Court order transferring legal and physical custody of the parties' four children to the father after she announced plans to relocate from Vermont to Arizona. The court affirmed the family court's decision, which found a real, substantial, and unanticipated change of circumstances based on the impending move and concluded that modification of the prior custody order was in the children's best interests. The reasoning emphasized that relocation by a custodial parent does not automatically constitute changed circumstances but did so here due to the distance involved and its impact on the existing arrangement, with the burden properly remaining on the father as the moving party. The court evaluated the statutory best-interests factors, including stability, extended family support, and each parent's willingness to foster the children's relationship with the other parent, before awarding custody to the father.

family law

Carol Ann Martin challenged the Vermont DMV's denial of her application for a vanity license plate reading "IRISH" (or "IRISH1"), which was based on an administrative regulation categorically excluding references to ethnic heritage. The superior court upheld the denial, reasoning that the regulation was authorized by statute and necessary to avoid First Amendment viewpoint discrimination while preserving the vanity plate program. The Vermont Supreme Court reversed, concluding that the regulation exceeded the authority granted by 23 V.S.A. § 304(d), which permits the Commissioner to refuse only plates that might be offensive or confusing to the general public. The Court held that the agency could not expand the statutory criteria through regulation to address potential constitutional concerns.

free speech

The case involved the conviction of defendant for second-degree murder after a jury found him guilty of causing fatal head trauma to a sixteen-month-old child left in his care. Defendant appealed, claiming errors by the trial court in denying a motion to dismiss for failure to preserve potentially exculpatory hair evidence from the victim, excluding certain defense evidence, admitting his statements to police, denying a presentence investigation report, and not holding a hearing on his new trial motion. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, reasoning that the medical evidence strongly contradicted the defendant's account of the injury being caused by a dog pushing the child onto a toolbox, that the trial court properly handled the evidence issues including using blood samples for mitochondrial DNA testing as an alternative, and that defendant failed to show prejudice or any reversible error in the other discretionary rulings.

criminal lawprocedure

In these consolidated appeals, defendants Boskind and Boardman challenged the use of their prior DUI convictions to enhance their current DUI sentences under Vermont law, arguing that the earlier guilty or nolo contendere pleas were invalid due to the trial courts' failure to comply with V.R.Cr.P. 11. The Vermont Supreme Court held that defendants may collaterally attack predicate convictions used for sentence enhancement on grounds other than denial of counsel, but such challenges must be brought through post-conviction relief proceedings in superior court rather than during the sentencing phase in district court. The court further ruled that a defendant remains "in custody under sentence" for PCR jurisdiction purposes when attacking a prior conviction that enhances the current sentence, and that the burden of proof stays with the defendant to demonstrate that any Rule 11 noncompliance caused prejudice. The enhanced sentences were affirmed on that basis.

criminal lawprocedure

The case consolidated appeals from two defendants convicted of sex offenses who received deferred sentences under Vermont’s deferred sentencing statute, 13 V.S.A. § 7041. The question was whether they must register as sex offenders under the Sex Offender Registration Act (13 V.S.A. §§ 5401-5413) despite the deferral of sentencing. The Vermont Supreme Court held that registration is required, ruling that the Act mandates registration upon conviction for covered sex offenses and that a deferred sentence does not exempt defendants from this obligation. The court reached this conclusion by examining the plain language of the reporting provisions in § 5403, the overall statutory scheme, and legislative intent, rejecting arguments that ambiguity or the penal nature of the law required a different result.

criminal lawprocedure

In Huntington v. McCarty, plaintiff George Huntington filed a foreclosure action on a mortgage deed securing a promissory note issued by defendant Patricia Raitt Baker after the note went into default in 1991, with the complaint brought in 1998 after the six-year statute of limitations on the note had run. The trial court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss, ruling that the note was time-barred but the mortgage remained enforceable under its separate fifteen-year limitations period, and later entered a stipulated foreclosure judgment by power of sale. On appeal, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the mortgage creates an independent remedy that survives the barring of the note. The court reasoned that statutes of limitations affect only remedies, not the underlying debt for foreclosure purposes, and that the power of sale was available as no separate limitations period applied to it under the governing statutes.

propertyprocedure

Joan Wentworth sued Crawford & Company, the vocational rehabilitation provider hired by her employer after a workplace back injury, claiming negligence for failing to prepare a written rehabilitation plan, inform her of reinstatement rights under the Workers’ Compensation Act, pursue suitable employment, and provide training, which allegedly caused her economic losses. The trial court dismissed the complaint under V.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) on the ground that the Workers’ Compensation Act’s exclusivity provision barred the claim. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal on different grounds, holding that the relevant statutes and Department rules did not create a legal duty on the part of the provider to perform the specific actions alleged in the complaint. The court further observed that Wentworth had not alleged any additional physical injury and that her grievances should have been pursued through available administrative remedies.

labor & employmenttorts & liabilityprocedure

In State v. Pitts, the defendant was acquitted as the principal but convicted by jury as an accessory to aggravated assault after an altercation in which her visiting friend cut the victim's face with a box cutter, leaving permanent scars. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, rejecting the claim that the jury instructions on accomplice liability were erroneous for failing to require a finding that the defendant shared the principal's specific intent as to the means of the crime. The court held that the instructions adequately conveyed the requirement under State v. Bacon that the defendant must have acted with the same intent needed to convict the principal. It further ruled that the defendant had adequate notice of the accomplice theory despite being charged only as a principal, because Vermont law under 13 V.S.A. § 3 expressly permits conviction on that basis when the evidence establishes the requisite shared intent.

criminal lawprocedure

In State v. Brunet, the defendant was charged with felony domestic assault after a probation revocation hearing arising from the same incident had found no violation of probation conditions. The trial court rejected the defendant's motion to dismiss on collateral estoppel grounds, and the jury convicted him at retrial. The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed, holding that collateral estoppel does not bar the criminal prosecution because probation revocation hearings serve different purposes, apply a lower standard of proof, and do not provide the State a full and fair opportunity to litigate criminal guilt or innocence. The court reasoned that public policy favors preserving ultimate determinations of criminal liability for full trials rather than preliminary revocation proceedings. The opinion examined the elements of issue preclusion and concluded they were not satisfied here.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a dispute between the buyers and sellers of a weekly advertisement newspaper in Vermont after their purchase agreement was canceled. The sellers sued the buyers for conversion of business assets like customer lists and equipment, and for unfair competition through misappropriation of those assets and use of a similar name and format for a competing paper. A jury awarded the sellers over $400,000 in damages, which the trial court largely upheld. On appeal, the Vermont Supreme Court remitted the conversion award but otherwise affirmed the judgment, holding that the evidence sufficiently supported the unfair competition claim based on misappropriation of business assets without needing to resolve the trade name or trade dress issues.

business & regulatorytorts & liability