Title: Corbin v. Buchanan

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

CORBIN_V_BUCHANAN.89-118; 163 Vt 141; 657 A.2d 170

[Filed:  28-Oct-1993]

[Motion for Reargument Denied 5-Jan-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. 89-118


Rita Corbin, Administratrix                  Supreme Court
of Estate of Michael M. McGuire
                                             On Appeal from
     v.                                       Windham Superior Court

Leonard B. and Mary Lou Buchanan,            June Term, 1994
Brattleboro Housing Authority,
Town of Brattleboro


Robert Grussing III, J.

William M. McCarty and Bruce Hesselbach of McCarty Law Offices,
 Brattleboro, for plaintiff-appellee

Allan R. Keyes, Martha M. Smyrski and John A. Serafino of Ryan
 Smith & Carbine, Ltd., Rutland, for defendant-appellant Town of Brattleboro

Deborah L. Markowitz, Montpelier, for amicus curiae Vermont League of Cities 
 and Towns


PRESENT:  Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley and Morse, JJ.


     GIBSON, J.   In a wrongful death action, defendant Town of Brattleboro
appeals from a jury verdict in favor of decedent's estate for compensatory
and punitive damages arising out of the Town's alleged failure to properly
inspect premises where decedent was killed in a fire.  Plaintiff
cross-appeals on the issue of the allocation of damages.  We reverse.     
In 1986, a third-floor apartment in Brattleboro inhabited by a
seven-year-old boy and his father was destroyed by a fire that started when
the father fell asleep while smoking a cigarette.  No smoke detectors had
been installed in the apartment, either by the tenant or the landlord. 

 

The father escaped with injuries, but his son died from smoke inhalation. 

     In 1984, the Town adopted the BOCA Building and Fire Prevention Codes,
which include provisions requiring the inspection of buildings and the
enforcement of orders to correct dangerous conditions.  The Town did not
conduct regular inspections of existing buildings, but enforced the codes
in response to complaints or as part of the process of granting new
building permits.  Shortly after the adoption of the BOCA codes, a Town
employee inspected the first-floor apartment of the building in question
for wiring, plumbing and sewer problems.  He noticed that there was no
smoke detector in the apartment, but limited his investigation to the scope
of the specific complaints.  According to the evidence, no further
complaints were ever received, and no additional inspection of the building
was ever conducted. 

     Steven McGuire and the child's mother, Rita Corbin, on behalf of the
estate of her son, sued the landlord, the Town, and the Brattleboro Housing
Authority, which subsidized the rents for the units.  The landlord and the
Housing Authority settled the case before trial.  The Town moved for
summary judgment, arguing that the Town's failure to enforce the BOCA codes
created no private right of action on behalf of plaintiffs.  The court
denied the Town's motion for summary judgment, ruling that local ordinances
created a duty to individual members of the public 

 

and that the violation of the local ordinance was a prima facie showing of
negligence.  The court also submitted the issue of punitive damages to the
jury on grounds that a finding that the Town was grossly negligent would be
sufficient for the award of such damages.  The jury awarded compensatory
and punitive damages, and the present appeal followed. 

     The central issue on appeal is whether an individual plaintiff may
recover in tort against a municipality for its failure to enforce an
ordinance whose purpose is protection of the public as a whole.  We hold
that no such action exists in Vermont under the applicable statute or
common law. 

     First, we note the absence in Vermont of any general inference of a
private action based on government regulations whose clear purpose is the
general welfare.  We reaffirmed this principle in Cronin v. State, 148 Vt.
252,