Case Title: LaBrie, Inc. v. VT Dept. of Environmental Conservation

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: vermont

Court: Vermont Supreme Court

Date: 1990-12-01T00:00:00Z

Document:
ENTRY ORDER

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 90-111

                            DECEMBER TERM, 1990


LaBrie, Inc.                      }          APPEALED FROM:
                                  }
                                  }
     v.                           }          Washington Superior Court
                                  }
                                  }
Vermont Department of             }
Environmental Conservation, et al.}          DOCKET NO. S0345-WnC


             In the above entitled cause the Clerk will enter:

     This action was dismissed by the superior court because the plaintiff
corporation is being represented by one of its stockholders and officers, a
non-lawyer, who refuses to obtain counsel for it.  We concur with the trial
court that generally a corporation must appear through counsel and that the
failure to obtain counsel in this case was grounds for dismissal.  See Jones
v. Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, 722 F.2d 20, 22 (2d Cir.
1983).  The record does not support plaintiff's claim that the corporation
cannot afford counsel so that a requirement of counsel will deny the
corporation access to the courts. Thus, there is no factual basis for
plaintiff's argument that the counsel requirement offends Chapter I, Article
4 of the Vermont Constitution.  Nor does the record support plaintiff's
argument that one superior judge denied a motion to dismiss on the same
ground as the action was eventually dismissed.  Since the entry order of the
first superior judge does not mention the counsel issue, we conclude that
the decisions were on separate grounds and there was no horizontal appeal
from one judge to another.  See In re Knapp, 152 Vt. 59, 62-63, 564 A.2d 1064, 1065-66 (1989).  There was no judge shopping or violation of V.R.C.P.
11.

     Affirmed.

                                   BY THE COURT:



                                   Frederic W. Allen, Chief Justice


[ ]  Publish                       Ernest W. Gibson III, Associate Justice

[ ]  Do Not Publish
                                   John A. Dooley, Associate Justice


                                   James L. Morse, Associate Justice