Title: Webb v. Leclair

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

Webb v. Leclair (2006-063)

2007 VT 65

[Filed 12-Jul-2007]

                                 ENTRY ORDER

                                 2007 VT 65

                      SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2006-063

                            SEPTEMBER TERM, 2006

  Ann R. Webb                          }  APPEALED FROM:
                                       }
      v.                               }
                                       }  Chittenden Superior Court
  John Leclair and John Leclair d/b/a  }
  Leclair Appraisals                   }  DOCKET NO. S1012-04 CnC

                                          Trial Judge: Ben W. Joseph

       In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

       ¶ 1.  Plaintiff Ann Webb appeals a summary judgment for defendant John
  Leclair on her claims of negligent misrepresentation, fraud, consumer
  fraud, and negligence arising from defendant's appraisal of a home she
  purchased.  The appraisal was done on behalf of plaintiff's mortgage
  lender.  Plaintiff argues that the superior court erred in both requiring
  privity between defendant and her before she could sue for damages caused
  by errors in the appraisal, and in dismissing her consumer fraud count.  We
  hold that, on the facts before the superior court at summary judgment,
  plaintiff failed to show that defendant owed her a duty with respect to her
  common law claims, and that plaintiff's consumer fraud claim is in fact an
  assertion of malpractice that is outside the scope of our consumer fraud
  law.  We therefore affirm. 

       ¶ 2.  Recitation of the facts in this case first requires resolution
  of plaintiff's cry of procedural foul.  Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure
  56(c)(2) requires a party moving for summary judgment to attach to its
  motion a "separate, short, and concise statement of the material facts as
  to which the moving party contends that there is no genuine issue to be
  tried."  The rule provides that the party opposing summary judgment
  "shall":

       include with [its] affidavits and memorandum . . . a
       separate, short, and concise statement of the material facts
       as to which it is contended that there exists a genuine issue
       to be tried.  All material facts set forth in the statement
       required to be served by the moving party will be deemed to
       be admitted unless controverted by the statement required to
       be served by the opposing party.

  V.R.C.P. 56(c)(2) (emphasis added).  

       ¶ 3.  In this case, plaintiff failed to file a statement of contested
  facts in response to defendant's motion for summary judgment and statement
  of undisputed facts.  Instead, she filed a forty-six-page memorandum of law
  with accompanying exhibits.
   

       ¶ 4.  Discrete statements of undisputed and disputed facts have been
  required for more than ten years now.  See Reporter's Notes to 1995
  Amendment, V.R.C.P. 56.  As the Reporter's Notes state, this provision was
  intended to focus summary judgment arguments and allow courts to more
  readily determine the material facts at issue.  Id.  Plaintiff recognizes
  in her appellate brief that we have consistently enforced the rule that a
  plaintiff's failure to controvert facts in a counter statement requires
  that the moving party's undisputed facts be taken as true.  Gallipo v. City
  of Rutland, 2005 VT 83, ¶ 35, 178 Vt. 244,