Case Title: Morrisseau v. Fayette

Citation: 164 Vt 358, 670 A.2d 820

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1995-11-09T00:00:00Z

Document:
MORRISSEAU_V_FAYETTE.94-506; 164 Vt 358; 670 A.2d 820

[Filed 09-Nov-1995]

       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. 94-506


Dennis Morrisseau                           Supreme Court

                                            On Appeal from
     v.                                     
                                            Chittenden Superior Court

Frederick Fayette, Jr. et al                June Term, 1995


Matthew J. Katz, J.

Samuel H. Press of Portnow, Little & Cicchetti, P.C., Burlington,
for plaintiff-appellant

John J. Collins and Michael J. Harris of Sutherland & Collins,
Inc., Burlington, for defendants-appellees


PRESENT:   Allen, C.J., Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ., and
           Cheever, Supr. J., Specially Assigned


       DOOLEY, J.   Plaintiff Dennis Morrisseau appeals the Chittenden County
  Superior Court's grant of summary judgment to defendants, Philip Fayette
  and the heirs to the estate of Frederick J. Fayette, in an action for
  specific performance of a purchase agreement for the sale of Juniper
  Island, an island in Lake Champlain.  Plaintiff argues (1) that the trial
  court improperly reversed previous rulings of law by another judge in the
  same action, (2) that performance of a contract for sale of real estate was
  stayed by defendants' appeal of a probate court order approving that sale,
  and (3) that the liquidated damages clause of the purchase agreement does
  not limit defendants' liability solely to the return of plaintiff's
  deposit.  We affirm.

                                    I.
       At least by anecdotal reputation, this is the latest episode (and we
  hope the last), in the longest running litigation in Vermont.  The matter
  began with the 1974 death intestate of Frederick Fayette, Sr. while he
  owned Juniper Island.  After opening the estate, the probate 

 

  court appointed commissioners, pursuant to the procedure then in
  effect, to assign to the widow the "third in value of the real estate" to
  which she was entitled by statute.  See 14 V.S.A. Sec. 466.  Apparently,
  the commissioners reported that they could not set out the widow's share of
  the many properties involved and they obtained from the probate court a
  license to sell all of the real estate to pay the widow's share.  See 14
  V.S.A. Sec. 469.  Title to some of these properties, including Juniper
  Island, was disputed by one of the Fayette sons; for example, he claimed to
  own 50% of the Island.  The commissioners were specifically authorized to
  sell the properties involved in the disputed claims, subject to the claims. 
  Pursuant to the authority of the license, the commissioners entered into a
  contract with plaintiff, allowing him to purchase Juniper Island if the
  estate perfected title to it by June, 1984, some four years after the
  purchase agreement was signed.  Plaintiff put up $10,000 to insure
  performance, to be refunded if the estate could not clear up the title.

       The heirs objected to certain actions of the commissioners, including
  the sale of Juniper Island.  After hearing, the probate court decided with
  respect to Juniper Island that the applicable statute did not authorize the
  commissioners "to enter into such a long-time, option type, contingent
  contract for the sale of the subject land."  The court ordered the return
  of plaintiff's deposit and that all other rights under the purchase and
  sale contract were "extinguished."

       The commissioners, who still held a license to sell Juniper Island,
  renegotiated the contract with plaintiff to eliminate the estate's
  obligation to clear title and to provide for the payment of the $100,000
  purchase price in three installments, the first two of $2,500 and the third
  of $95,000.  The contract states that it is "subject to the approval of the
  Chittenden District Probate Court" and that it would "become effective and
  binding for all purposes as soon as a court order approving it is issued by
  the probate court."  Closing was to take place "one hundred eighty (180)
  days -- or such lesser period as Buyer may elect on ten (10) days notice to
  sellers -- after Probate Court approval of this agreement."  The probate
  court approved this agreement, 

 

  including the following language in the findings:

         Purchase Agreement is to become effective and
         binding for all purposes as soon as a Court
         Order, approving it, is issued by the Probate
         Court.  It is the expressed intent of both
         parties that the times specified for
         performance shall commence from date of
         Probate Court approval of the Purchase
         Agreement, notwithstanding appeal by any other
         party to this contract of sale.

  Defendants appealed the approval order to the superior court on April
  17, 1980.

       A second installment of $2,500 was due under the contract in July,
  1980.  Plaintiff unsuccessfully sought a stay of his obligations under the
  contract, pending the appeal, from the Chittenden Superior Court.  He
  failed to pay the second installment, prompting the commissioners to
  terminate the contract in a letter to plaintiff, which provided:

         You . . . became obligated to pay the sum of
         $2,500.00 on July 10, 1980.
              We are aware that you requested a stay of
         the above-mentioned order of the probate court
         pending appeal . . . . [I]t is our position
         that such request does not relieve you of any
         of your obligations under the contract.
              Since you failed to make the payment
         specified in the contract and have ignored our
         offer to extend the time of payment for six
         (6) months in return for an increase of the
         additional deposit from $2,500.00 to
         $5,000.00, we regard the contract as
         terminated and hereby give you formal notice
         to that effect.

       On July 22, 1985, the Chittenden County Probate Court entered a decree
  of settlement and distribution regarding the Fayette Estate.  Juniper
  Island was granted to defendants, each of whom received an undivided
  one-eleventh interest in the property.  In August 1995, upon learning that
  title to Juniper Island had been settled, plaintiff tendered to defendants
  the second $2500 payment required by the contract.  Defendants returned
  plaintiff's check and refused to perform.  Plaintiff then brought suit for
  specific performance of the purchase agreement on September 6, 1985.  

       On October 19, 1987 the superior court dismissed plaintiff's action
  for specific performance of the purchase agreement, finding that plaintiff
  had failed to timely serve three of the eleven defendant heirs under
  V.R.C.P. 3, and had not requested an enlargement of time in 

 

  which to serve them under V.R.C.P. 6(b).  The trial court also found
  that paragraph 9 of the purchase agreement restricted plaintiff's remedy to
  the return of his deposit.  Plaintiff appealed, and we affirmed based on
  the trial court's procedural decision, without reaching the remedy issue. 
  Morrisseau v. Estate of Fayette, 155 Vt. 371,  371, 584 A.2d 1119,  (1990).

       In December of 1990, plaintiff commenced this action, known
  colloquially as Juniper IV, seeking specific performance and damages for
  defendant's alleged breach of contract.  On March 4, 1991, defendants'
  motion to dismiss and for sanctions was denied.  Plaintiff's motion for
  summary judgment was denied on September 3, 1991.

       Approximately six months into the litigation, Judge Frank Mahady, who
  had presided over the early stages of the litigation, rotated out of the
  Chittenden Superior Court and the case was assigned to Judge Matthew Katz. 
  On September 6, 1994, Judge Katz granted defendants' motion for summary
  judgment.  In his order, Judge Katz found that plaintiff breached the
  contract and, as a result, was not entitled to the remedy.  He held that,
  notwithstanding the stay of enforcement of the probate court order
  approving the sale occasioned by defendants' appeal, the plain language of
  the contract required plaintiff to tender the second $2500 payment on July
  10, 1980, and he failed to do so.  Judge Katz also found that paragraph 9
  was a valid liquidated damages clause and restricted plaintiff's remedy to
  return of his deposit.

                                    II.

       Plaintiff first argues that Judge Katz erred by reversing Judge
  Mahady's previous rulings of law in this action in the absence of new
  evidence or other grounds for such reversal.  Specifically, plaintiff
  argues that, by granting defendants' motion for summary judgment after a
  similar motion by plaintiff had been previously denied, Judge Katz allowed
  defendants an impermissible "horizontal appeal" and modified the law of the
  case.

       The issue relates to both grounds for the decision granting summary
  judgment.  The first ground, that plaintiff failed to tender the second
  installment of the price and, thus, breached the purchase and sale
  contract, was resolved at least indirectly in Judge Mahady's ruling that
  Juniper 

 

  IV was not barred by the statute of limitations.  Judge Mahady ruled
  that plaintiff did not have to tender further payments once defendants
  appealed the probate court approval of the contract.  On the second issue,
  whether plaintiff's remedy was restricted to return of the deposit, Judge
  Mahady ruled that further factual development was necessary, but Judge Katz
  ruled the remedy was so restricted without this factual development.

       Plaintiff labels defendants' second motion for summary judgment, on
  which Judge Katz ruled, as a "horizontal appeal" from one superior judge to
  another (FN1), prohibited by our opinion in Economou v. Economou, 133 Vt.
  418, 421-22,