Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff Tina Fleurrey appealed the dismissal of her negligence claim against defendant landlord 3378 VT Route 12 LLC. In her complaint, she alleged that landlord was responsible for the drowning death of decedent Scott Fleurrey, a fifty-four-year-old man with developmental disabilities, on the property that landlord leased to decedent’s caretakers, Upper Valley Services (UVS) and Azwala Rodriguez. The question on appeal was whether the civil division properly dismissed plaintiff’s claim. Plaintiff argued the civil division erred by misunderstanding the controlling law because landlord owed decedent a duty to protect and because the civil division drew inferences favorable to landlord. The Vermont Supreme Court held that the civil division properly granted landlord’s dismissal motion because: (1) Vermont precedents required an invitee to seek redress for injuries sustained on negligently maintained property from the land possessor who invited the injured invitee to the defective property, rather than from the absentee landlord; (2) §§ 343 and 343A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts were inapplicable here because those Restatement sections addressed only land possessors, and plaintiff did not allege that landlord was the possessor of the subject property; and (3) no duty could arise where, as here, a plaintiff did not allege that a legal relationship existed between a decedent and a landlord. View "Fleurrey v. Department of Aging and Independent Living, et al." on Justia Law

Jeffrey and Alyssa Gladchun appealed the grant of summary judgment to their neighboring landowners, Michael and Diane Eramo, and the Eramos’ lessee, New Cingular Wireless, PCS, d/b/a AT&T (AT&T). The civil division concluded that a deed granting a right-of-way for “ingress and egress” to the Eramos was unambiguous and did not limit AT&T from installing utility lines under the right-of-way to service a planned communications tower. The Vermont Supreme Court agreed the deed was unambiguous as to the right-of-way. However, the Supreme Court disagreed that it expressed more than the plain, ordinary meaning of “ingress and egress,” which did not include installing underground utilities. Accordingly, judgment was reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Gladchun v. Eramo, et al." on Justia Law

In 2018, City of Montpelier voters approved a proposed amendment to the city’s charter that would allow noncitizens to vote in its local elections. The Legislature authorized the amendment in 2021, overriding the Governor’s veto. Plaintiffs included two Montpelier residents who were United States citizens and registered to vote in Montpelier, eight Vermont voters who were United States citizens and resided in other localities in the state, the Vermont Republican Party, and the Republican National Committee. They filed a complaint in the civil division against the City and the City Clerk in his official capacity, seeking a declaratory judgment that Montpelier’s new noncitizen voting charter amendment violated Chapter II, § 42 of the Vermont Constitution, and an injunction to prevent defendants from registering noncitizens to vote in Montpelier. The Vermont Supreme Court concluded that the complaint alleged facts to establish standing at the pleadings stage for plaintiffs to bring their facial challenge to the statute. However, the Supreme Court concluded that the statute allowing noncitizens to vote in local Montpelier elections did not violate Chapter II, § 42 because that constitutional provision did not apply to local elections. The Court accordingly affirmed the trial court’s grant of the City’s motion to dismiss. View "Ferry, et al. v. City of Montpelier" on Justia Law

Employer Howard Center appealed a trial court order that confirmed an arbitration award in favor of grievant Daniel Peyser and AFSCME Local 1674. In May 2019, employer expressed concern over grievant’s billing practices, specifically, his submission of billing paperwork in May for services provided in April. Employer told grievant that it was considering disciplining him for “dishonesty and unethical action” concerning the backdated bills. Grievant brought two billing notes from patient records to show that other employees engaged in the same billing practices. Employer did not reprimand grievant for the billing practices. In August 2019, however, employer informed grievant that he breached employer’s confidentiality policy by sharing the billing notes with his union representative at the June meeting. Employer issued a written reprimand to grievant. The reprimand stated that sharing client records without redacting confidential information violated protocols and state and federal regulations, and that grievant knew or should have known of these standards. Employer also explained that it was required to report the breach to state and federal authorities and to those individuals whose records were disclosed. Grievant filed a grievance under the terms of his collective-bargaining agreement, arguing in part that employer lacked just cause to discipline him. In an October 2020 decision, the arbitrator sustained the grievance. Employer then filed an action in the civil division seeking to modify or vacate the arbitrator’s award, arguing in relevant part that the arbitrator manifestly disregarded the law in sustaining the grievance. Employer asked the Vermont Supreme Court to adopt “manifest disregard” of the law as a basis for setting aside the arbitration award and to conclude that the arbitrator violated that standard here. The Supreme Court did not decide whether to adopt the manifest-disregard standard because, assuming arguendo it applied, employer failed to show that its requirements were satisfied. The Court therefore affirmed. View "Howard Center v. AFSCME Local 1674, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff Berkshire Bank filed this action seeking possession of funds in an investment account owned by defendant Thomas Kelly, which defendant purportedly pledged as security for a business loan to his sister Dorothea Kelly. The civil division granted summary judgment in favor of defendant, concluding that plaintiff did not have a valid security interest in the account. After review, the Vermont Supreme Court agreed and affirmed. View "Berkshire Bank v. Kelly" on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from third-party claims in a legal-malpractice action. Plaintiffs Gail Haupt and Thomas Raftery filed suit against defendant, attorney Daniel Triggs, who represented plaintiffs in a property dispute. Triggs filed a third-party complaint for contribution and indemnification against third-party defendants, Liam Murphy, Elizabeth Filosa, and MSK Attorneys, who succeeded Triggs as counsel to plaintiffs in the property matter. Plaintiffs hired Triggs to represent them in a land-ownership dispute with their neighbors. Triggs took certain actions on behalf of plaintiffs, including sending a letter in 2016 to neighbors asserting that neighbors were encroaching on plaintiffs’ land and threatening litigation against neighbors, but never filed a lawsuit on plaintiffs’ behalf. In 2018, neighbors filed a lawsuit against plaintiffs asserting ownership over the disputed land by adverse possession, and plaintiffs hired third-party defendants to represent them. The adverse-possession lawsuit eventually settled. Plaintiffs then filed this malpractice action against Triggs, alleging that he was liable for legal malpractice by allowing 12 V.S.A. § 501’s statute of limitations for recovery of lands to run without filing an ejectment suit against neighbors, thereby enabling neighbors to bring an adverse-possession claim. Third-party defendants moved to dismiss Triggs’s complaint, and the civil division granted their motion. Triggs appealed this dismissal. The Vermont Supreme Court determined Triggs did not allege that any legal relationship—contractual or otherwise— existed between him and third-party defendants, and the civil division found that no legal relationship existed between the two parties. Instead, Triggs alleged that third-party defendants’ independent actions caused plaintiffs’ injury. The Court determined this is not a basis for implied indemnity. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "Haupt, et al. v. Triggs, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, the developer of a solar electric generation facility and the owner of the project site, appealed the dismissal of their complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief against the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources (ANR). Plaintiffs sought a ruling that two guidance documents and a plant-classification system created by ANR were unlawful and therefore could not be relied upon by ANR or the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in determining whether to issue a certificate of public good for a proposed facility under 30 V.S.A. § 248. The civil division granted ANR’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ claims, concluding that the guidance documents and classification system were not rules and did not have the force of law, and that the proper forum to challenge the policies was in the PUC proceeding. Finding no reversible error in that judgment, the Vermont Supreme Court affirmed. View "Otter Creek Solar, LLC, et al. v. Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, et al." on Justia Law

Stephen Ankuda, Esq., as the administrator of the Estate of Miriam Thomas, appealed a court order granting former guardian Paul Thomas’s motion to dismiss a decision of the probate division. The probate division ordered Thomas to reimburse his mother’s estate for what it described as damages incurred during his tenure as her financial guardian. However, the Vermont Supreme Court found the civil division did not have subject-matter jurisdiction because the probate division’s order was not a final order. Accordingly, the Supreme Court vacated the civil division’s order and remanded to the probate division for further proceedings. View "In re Estate of Miriam Thomas" on Justia Law

The issue presented in this case before the Vermont Supreme Court stemmed from a dispute between former business partners and the turnover of records pursuant to a stipulated judgment entered following the dissolution of their business relationship. Plaintiff filed a complaint seeking to enforce the judgment’s record turnover requirement, and pled various causes of action for injuries arising out of defendant’s refusal to turn the records over immediately after the judgment. The trial court dismissed the related claims as time-barred, and ultimately adjudicated the enforcement claim on the merits in favor of defendant. The Vermont affirmed the trial court in all but one aspect: because the Supreme Court came to a different conclusion on whether certain types of documents were subject to the stipulated judgment’s turnover requirement, the Supreme Court remanded for the trial court to amend its judgment. View "Sutton v. Purzycki" on Justia Law

The State of Vermont appealed a family division’s denial of its request to extend an order placing seventeen-year-old D.K. in the conditional custody of his mother. After review, the Vermont Supreme Court agreed with the court’s conclusion that it lacked authority to extend a conditional custody order (CCO) for a third six-month period under 33 V.S.A. § 5320a(a), and therefore affirmed. View "In re D.K." on Justia Law