Title: Farr v. Searles

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

Farr v. Searles (2005-563); 180 Vt. 642; 910 A.2d 929

2006 VT 110

[Filed 01-Nov-2006]

                                 ENTRY ORDER

                                 2006 VT 110

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2005-563

                            SEPTEMBER TERM, 2006


  Dawn Farr (Glover)                   }         APPEALED FROM:
                                       }
      v.                               }
                                       }         Rutland Family Court
                                       }
  David Searles                        }
                                       }         DOCKET NO. 229-6-05 RdFa

                                                 Trial Judge: John Liccardi

             In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       ¶  1.  Defendant appeals from a relief-from-abuse order entered in
  the Rutland Family Court by Acting Judge John Liccardi, ordering defendant
  to refrain from abusing plaintiff Dawn Farr, a neighbor with whom defendant
  had been engaged in a long-standing dispute over parking.  Plaintiff
  claimed that defendant ran into her with his van, causing her to fall down.  
  Defendant argues on appeal that plaintiff failed to plead and prove that
  she was a vulnerable adult under the Abuse of Vulnerable Adults statute, 33
  V.S.A. §§ 6901-14, and the trial court failed to find the facts necessary
  to invoke such jurisdiction or make findings required to support a legal
  conclusion that abuse had occurred.  Defendant also contends that the
  acting judge had no authority to try the case without a knowing waiver of
  the right to a constitutional judge.  We vacate the order because we agree
  with defendant that the trial court failed to make any findings on whether
  plaintiff was a vulnerable adult within the meaning of the statute, and the
  evidence on this point was insufficient as a matter of law.  It is
  unnecessary, therefore,  to reach defendant's constitutional question.  

       ¶  2.  Plaintiff claimed that she was a "72 year old vulnerable
  adult as defined by Title 33.  She suffers from infirmities of aging: has
  two bad hips that need replacement and two bad knees.  [She] also suffers
  from congestive heart failure. [She] also lives alone."  The trial court
  stated in its decision that its "job is to determine under the appropriate
  statute whether or not it is more likely than not that abuse or
  exploitation of an elderly person has occurred." (Emphasis added.)  It then 
  concluded that abuse could be defined in numerous ways, that the plaintiff
  was injured by defendant, and that an order would issue. (FN1)
   
       ¶  3.  Although we do not require extensive findings for relief from
  abuse proceedings, the trial court erred when it made no factual findings
  on the evidentiary issues and no findings on the jurisdictional issue of
  whether plaintiff was a vulnerable adult.  Begins v. Begins, 168 Vt. 298,
  301,