Case Title: Dalmer v. State

Citation: 174 Vt. 157, 811 A.2d 1214

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 2002-08-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
Dalmer v. State (99-479); 174 Vt. 157; 811 A.2d 1214

[Filed 15-Aug-2002]


       NOTICE:  This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under
  V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont
  Reports.  Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions,
  Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801 of
  any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes
  to press.


                                No. 1999-479


  Brian Dalmer, et al.	                         Supreme Court
       
                                                 On Appeal from
       v.	                                 Lamoille Superior Court


  State of Vermont, et al.	                 November Term, 2000


  Alden T. Bryan, J.
      
  Harold B. Stevens, Stowe, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
      
  Philip C. Woodward and Afi Ahmadi of Dinse, Knapp & McAndrew, P.C.,
    Burlington, for Defendants-Appellees.

  William H. Sorrell, Attorney General, and James C. Shea and Michael O.
    Duane, Assistant Attorneys General, Montpelier, for Amicus Curiae
    Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.


  PRESENT:  Dooley, Morse, Johnson and Skoglund, JJ., and Burgess, D.J.,
            Specially Assigned

        
       DOOLEY, J.   In December 1993, Jeremy Dalmer ran away from home for
  the first of five separate times during the ensuing two years.  This act is
  at the center of this litigation.  In December 1995, Brian Dalmer and his
  wife Colleen Dalmer, parents of Jeremy, filed this lawsuit against
  defendants, the Vermont Department of Social and Rehabilitative Services
  (SRS), Gerald Jeffords (a SRS employee), the Lamoille Family Center (LFC)
  and David Connor (an LFC employee), alleging: defendants negligently took
  and retained custody of Jeremy in violation of the Juvenile 

 

  Proceedings Act, 33 V.S.A. §§ 5501-5561; defendants deprived plaintiffs of
  their fundamental liberty interest in family integrity in violation of
  their civil rights, 42 U.S.C. § 1983; SRS maliciously brought an action to
  terminate plaintiffs' parental rights; defendants negligently placed Jeremy
  in foster homes where he was neglected and did not receive proper care,
  food or supervision; and defendants intentionally inflicted emotion
  distress on plaintiffs.  The trial court granted summary judgment to
  defendants on the civil rights claim.  After testimony in a jury trial
  concluded, the trial court granted judgment as a matter of law on the
  remaining claims.  Appellants then dismissed all claims against Gerald
  Jeffords and SRS, leaving only those against Connor and LFC.  Father
  appeals both the summary judgment and the judgment as a matter of law as to
  these defendants.  We affirm.

       The material facts in this case are not in dispute.  On December 26,
  1993, Jeremy Dalmer, who was fifteen years old at the time, had an argument
  with his father over some house rules, including ones relating to curfews,
  televison viewing, snowboarding, and other issues about Jeremy's lifestyle. 
  That night, Jeremy ran away from home.  He traveled thirty-five miles by
  bicycle through the cold snow to a motel in Morrisville, where he stayed
  the night.  The next day he rode his bicycle to a nearby friend's house. 
  That day, December 27, his friend's mother contacted Washington County
  Youth Services, which advised her to contact SRS.  She told Jeremy that she
  was uncomfortable with him staying at her house without his parents'
  permission, so he left her residence and went to the Fisk residence.
   
       The next day, Jeremy contacted the Morrisville SRS office himself to
  inform them that he ran away from home.  SRS referred Jeremy's case to the
  LFC and David Connor.  LFC had a contract with SRS to run the LINK program
  (the Lamoille Inter-agency Network for Kids) to provide shelter and other
  services to unmanageable youths and runaways in the area.  LINK is a
  program "to 

 

  assist children who have run away for the purpose of reuniting them with
  their parents, guardian or legal custodian."  33 V.S.A. § 5511(3).  Connor
  was the director of this program.  Prior to this, Connor had no contact
  with Jeremy.  On December 29, Connor contacted Jeremy's mother and father
  and told them that their son had run away from home.  Connor obtained a
  history of Jeremy's problems from his father, who demanded that Connor
  return Jeremy to his parents' home.  Connor refused to force Jeremy to go
  home because Jeremy had made it clear that, if forced to return home, he
  would run away again.  Connor did attempt to negotiate Jeremy's return to
  his home, rather than calling the police to have them take Jeremy into
  their custody as a runaway.  Father rejected Connor's attempts at
  reconciling the parties and continued to demand that the LFC and SRS return
  Jeremy to his home.

       While Jeremy was staying at the Fisk residence, Connor drove him
  thirty miles to school each day.  During the daily drives he encouraged
  Jeremy to return home; he also told Jeremy that he had legal options other
  than going home, including turning himself over to SRS custody.  Despite
  Connor's encouragement to return home, Jeremy chose to remain with the
  Fisks.  On January 6, 1994, at Jeremy's request, Jeremy entered the LINK
  shelter program and began to stay with the Stone family.  At the Stone
  residence, Jeremy was allowed to watch television and stay out later than
  his parents had allowed him to when he was living at home.  While Jeremy
  was staying with the Stones, Connor continued to encourage Jeremy to go
  back to his family.  Jeremy also spoke with his family a number of times on
  the telephone and returned home to eat several meals with them.
   
       On January 20, 1994, Connor informed Jeremy that he could no longer
  take advantage of the LINK program because LINK's contract with SRS allowed
  for only a two-week stay at a shelter.  He gave Jeremy three options: go
  home to his family, call his family to work out an agreement with 

 

  them, or turn himself in to the police.  He told Jeremy that if he did not
  choose one of these three options, he would be considered a runaway child
  and the police would detain him.  That same day, Connor also informed
  father that the LFC's contract had ended.  Jeremy did not exercise any of
  the three options Connor had given him.  Instead, he went to the Fisk
  residence again, but later that night a state trooper picked Jeremy up and
  first took him to the State police barracks in Waterbury and then back home
  to his parents.

       The next morning, as he promised, Jeremy ran away again; this time he
  took a taxi to the Morrisville police station and turned himself in as a
  runaway.  He ran away from home again in May 1994 and a fourth time in
  November 1994.  Finally, he ran away a fifth time in May 1995 over a
  dispute about his prom.  After several termination-of-parental-rights
  hearings, the family court issued an order placing Jeremy in the legal
  custody of his parents and giving SRS protective supervision.  Throughout
  the hearings, Jeremy testified that if the court ordered him to go home, he
  would run away again.

       In December 1995, Plaintiffs Brian and Colleen Dalmer sued defendants
  SRS, Gerald Jeffords, the LFC, and David Connor, listing the five causes of
  action set out at the beginning of this opinion.  The trial court granted
  summary judgment for defendants on the civil rights and malicious
  prosecution claims.  After hearing plaintiffs' evidence, the court granted
  defendants judgment as a matter of law on the remaining claims.  Following
  the final judgment, plaintiffs dismissed all claims against SRS and Gerald
  Jeffords, leaving only the claims against the LFC and David Connor for our
  review.  They have raised issues with respect to each of the counts except
  the malicious prosecution count.

 
        
       Our understanding of the issues on appeal is somewhat affected by the
  confusing series of amendments, or attempted sets of amendments, to the
  complaint that added and dropped parties and significantly modified the
  central issues in the case.  On the eve of trial, plaintiffs attempted to
  amend their complaint to modify the first and fourth causes of action. 
  Significantly, that proposed amendment also appeared to change the parties,
  identifying the plaintiffs only as "Brian Dalmer and Jeremy Dalmer."

       The most important amendment changed the first count from one that
  alleged a violation of the Juvenile Procedures Act to one that alleged that
  defendants were negligent or grossly negligent by taking and keeping
  custody of Jeremy in violation of the Juvenile Procedures Act.  Plaintiff
  called this a "negligence per se" count.  Although this amendment was never
  formally authorized, the court and parties proceeded as if it had occurred. 
  See V.R.C.P. 15(b).

       Plaintiffs also attempted to amend the fourth count, which alleged
  defendants were negligent in placing and supervising Jeremy in certain
  foster homes.  This amendment was never formally authorized.  None of
  plaintiffs' arguments on appeal appear to relate to this count.  We
  therefore need not determine whether the amendment occurred.
   
       Plaintiffs' first two appeal issues relate to the trial court's
  resolution of their negligence claim.  As discussed above, we address these
  issues in relation to the first amended count.  In practical terms, this
  means we are addressing the actions of defendants only up to and including
  January, 1994 - that is, only with respect to the first time Jeremy ran
  away from home.  Although the proper parties were never clearly resolved,
  we will assume that by the time of trial the plaintiffs were Brian and
  Jeremy Dalmer.  With that background in mind the first two issues are: (1)
  whether the court erred in concluding that "plaintiffs did not have a
  presumed negligence claim against 

 

  defendants for violation" of 33 V.S.A. § 5512(c); and (2) the court erred
  in holding that a jury could not find that defendants were negligent and
  that there was no proximate cause.

       The logical progression of plaintiffs' first argument is as follows:
  defendants violated 33 V.S.A. §§ 5511, 5512(c) by failing to return Jeremy
  to his father after 7 days; §§ 5511 & 5512(c) are safety statutes so
  violation is negligence per se; the court erred in failing to submit
  plaintiffs' negligence per se case to the jury.  We cannot accept any of
  the steps of this argument.
        
       The statutory sections on which plaintiffs rely deal generally with
  the taking of juveniles into custody, normally prior to the formal
  commencement of juvenile proceedings.  Title 33, section 5510 specifies
  four methods by which a juvenile may be taken into custody: (1) by arrest;
  (2) by order of the juvenile court; (3) by a law enforcement officer who
  has reasonable grounds to believe that a "child is in immediate danger from
  his surroundings;" and (4) by a law enforcement officer who has reasonable
  grounds to believe that the child "has run away from his parents, guardian
  or legal custodian." (FN1)   The person who takes custody of a child has
  three options: (1) to release the child to the child's parents, guardian or
  custodian; (2) to deliver the child to the juvenile court; and (3) in case
  of a runaway child, a law enforcement officer can deliver the child to an
  organization designated by SRS "as qualified to assist children who have
  run away for the purpose of reuniting them with their parents, guardian or
  legal custodian."  Id. § 5511(3).  Under § 5512(a), SRS "shall designate
  shelters throughout the state where a child taken into custody pursuant to
  section 5510(4) of this title may be housed for a period not to exceed 7
  days."  When a child is delivered to a designated shelter program, the
  program director or designee must notify the parents, guardian or custodian
  "that the 

 

  child has been taken into custody," id. § 5512(b)(1), and attempt "to
  mediate the differences between the parties," id. § 5512(b)(2).  During the
  time that the child is in the shelter, legal custody of the child remains
  with the parent unless the juvenile court otherwise orders.  Id. § 5512(d). 
  Upon the expiration of the 7 day period set out in § 5512(a) or at the
  request of the child or parents, the child must be released to the child's
  parents, guardian or custodian or a law enforcement officer who must
  deliver the child to the juvenile court pursuant to § 5511(2).  Id. §
  5512(c).

       Plaintiffs allege that defendants took Jeremy into custody and failed
  to deliver him to his parents as required by § 5512(c).  Alternatively,
  they allege that defendants were required by § 5511 to deliver Jeremy to
  his parents or the juvenile court.

       As the superior court held, plaintiffs' arguments fit neither the
  facts nor the law.  Plaintiffs particularly rely upon § 5512(a) which
  authorizes that children taken into custody under § 5510(4) be housed for
  no more than 7 days and argues that defendants held Jeremy over 7 days.
  (FN2)   By its terms, however, the limit applies only to children taken
  into custody under § 5510(4) - that is, by a law enforcement officer.  No
  law enforcement officer was involved in this case during the period covered
  by plaintiffs' argument.  If Jeremy was held in physical custody, it was
  not by a law enforcement officer.
   
       We emphasize that the absence of the involvement of a law enforcement
  officer is not a technicality in this context.  Under § 5510, the
  Legislature limited the persons who could take custody of a child without a
  court order.  If defendants took custody of Jeremy, as plaintiffs allege,

 

  they did so unlawfully.  Cf. State v. Sullins,