Title: Sweet v. Roy

State: vermont

Issuer: Vermont Supreme Court

Document:

Sweet v. Roy  (99-230); 173 Vt. 418; 801 A.2d 694

[Filed 26-Apr-2002]

       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. 1999-230

Jodi L. Sweet	                                   Supreme Court

                                                   On Appeal from
     v.	                                           Bennington Superior Court

Marcien Roy, Leon Roy, and the 	                   June Term, 2000
Marcien and Mary Anne Roy Trust

John P. Wesley, J.

  Geoffrey F. Walsh and Gregg Meyer, Vermont Legal Aid, Inc.,
  Springfield, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

  Christina A. Jensen of Lisman & Lisman, P.C., Burlington, for
  Defendants-Appellants.

PRESENT:  Dooley and Morse, JJ., and Toor Supr. J., and Gibson, J. (Ret.),
          Specially Assigned

       DOOLEY, J.   Defendants Marcien Roy, Leon Roy, and the Marcien and
  Mary Anne Roy  Trust (the trust) appeal from a judgment entered in
  Bennington Superior Court on a jury verdict in  favor of plaintiff Jodi
  Sweet.  Defendants made several claims of error in a post-judgment motion
  for  judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial, and renew those
  arguments here: (1) the trial court  abused its discretion in admitting
  evidence of defendants' prior bad acts; (2) the court erred in ruling 
  plaintiff was entitled to the protections of the Mobile Home Park Act, 10
  V.S.A. §§ 6201-6266; (3)  the trust was entitled to judgment as a matter of
  law; (4) the jury's damage award should have been  set aside; (5) it was
  error to dismiss defendants' counterclaim for slander; and (6) the court
  erred in  excluding evidence of a threat made against defendants by an
  alleged agent of plaintiff.  We affirm. 

 

       The trial focused on events with respect to Jodi Sweet after she
  purchased a mobile  home located in the Royal Pine Villa Mobile Home Court
  (the park), and with respect to others who  owned homes in the park.  The
  park had been owned and managed by Marcien and Mary Anne Roy  for twenty
  years, but in 1993 ownership was transferred to the trust.  The park was
  originally  managed by Marcien, but by the time of this case management
  responsibilities had been assumed by  Leon Roy, son of Marcien and Mary
  Anne.  Paula Roy, wife of Leon, was responsible for running  the park
  office, bookkeeping and answering the telephone.  The Roys all lived on the
  park premises.

       The park consists of sixty-six mobile home lots.  Some of the mobile
  homes are owned by  individual lessees who pay defendants a monthly lot
  rental; others are owned by defendants, in  which case the rent is higher
  than it would be for the lot alone.  For example, lot rent typically runs 
  about $200-230 per month, whereas rent for a lot and mobile home is two to
  three times that amount.

       Plaintiff purchased her mobile home, which was located on lot 35 in
  the park, from Justin  Schwartz in February 1997 after several unsuccessful
  attempts to contact defendants in order to  determine what she needed to do
  to obtain a lease.  Plaintiff and her three-year-old daughter moved  into
  the mobile home that month.  She called defendants and left voice messages
  with them on a  daily basis; she also sent them letters and mailed them lot
  rent checks for February and March 1997.  The checks were not cashed, and
  defendants never responded to the calls and the letters.  Plaintiff  spent
  $3800 on improvements to the heating, flooring and wiring of the mobile
  home.

       Soon after sending her third letter to defendants in March 1997,
  plaintiff returned home from  work and discovered that someone had
  systematically smashed out all thirteen glass windows in her  mobile home. 
  One week later, plaintiff approached Marcien Roy in the park, and he told
  her he  wanted her out of the park and offered her $500 for her mobile
  home.  Shortly thereafter, plaintiff 

 

  returned home from work to discover she had no electricity.  She called an
  electrician, who  determined that the underground electrical wires to her
  mobile home had been cut and covered  between the home and the service
  meter.  To restore service, plaintiff and several friends spent a day 
  hand-digging a trench approximately two feet deep and sixty feet long so
  that new wires could be  installed the next day.  Leon Roy backfilled the
  trench with a backhoe before the wires could be run.  Plaintiff had to
  redig the trench again by hand.  By the time the new wiring was installed,
  she had  been without power for about a week.  Upon returning to the mobile
  home with her daughter after  power was restored, she "felt terrified" and
  "under a lot of stress."

       Defendants Marcien and Leon Roy denied responsibility for the
  vandalism to plaintiff's  mobile home, although Leon did admit to filling
  in plaintiff's hand-dug ditch because "it was a  dangerous thing." 
  Marcien, Leon, and Paula testified that plaintiff was a trespasser and had
  no rights  as a resident because she and the party she bought the mobile
  home from had not followed the  required procedures.

       Virtually all of the rest of plaintiff's evidence dealt with other
  mobile home owners who  resided at one time in the park.  The most
  important of this evidence involved an earlier similar suit  brought in
  1986 by Mark Wright and the State of Vermont against Marcien and Mary Anne
  Roy.  In  that suit plaintiffs alleged defendants had instituted an illegal
  policy requiring that any tenant who  wished to sell a home in the park
  sell to defendants and prohibiting any sale to others unless the  home was
  removed from the park.  Plaintiffs also alleged that defendants had
  vandalized plaintiff  Wright and his mobile home when he tried to sell it
  to a third party.

       The court found that the plaintiff's allegations were true and that
  the Roys had initiated the  plan to acquire homes in the park because they
  could charge substantially higher rents for a lot and 

 

  mobile home than they could for a lot alone, and would realize larger
  profits from their park,  especially if they were able to drive down the
  capital expenses associated with this enterprise - namely, the purchase
  price of the mobile homes.  The court found that in June 1986, the Roys
  sent  the park residents a notice declaring their policy to require all
  mobile homes to be moved out of the  park upon resale.  The Roys also
  required each resident who sold a mobile home to pay the Roys a  $200
  brokerage fee whether or not the Roys assisted in the sale of the mobile
  home.  The court found  that the Roys would refuse to accept willing
  purchasers when a park resident sought to sell a mobile  home to a third
  party.

       The court found that the Roys used illegal self-help eviction measures
  against Mr. Wright.   Specifically, the court found that in May 1986, Mr.
  Wright wanted to sell his mobile home and move  in with his parents in
  order to regain a solid financial footing.  Wright had a willing purchaser
  who  offered $12,000, but the Roys refused to approve the sale and said no
  prospective purchasers would  be approved.  In September of that year,
  Wright told the Roys he would withhold his lot rent until  allowed to sell
  his mobile home.  Later that fall, Wright took a roommate to share
  expenses.  In  December, the roommate moved out after the tires on his and
  Wright's cars were slashed and the cars  were spray painted.  The
  television cable was cut, and snow was plowed into the driveway, blocking 
  in the cars.  The court found by a preponderance of the evidence that these
  acts were performed by  Leon Roy.

       The court found that defendants had violated the Vermont Mobile Home
  Park Act, 10 V.S.A.  §§ 6201-6266 (the Act) in four respects. 
  Specifically, it found illegal the policy of requiring tenants  who wished
  to leave the park to remove the mobile home or sell it to defendants.  It
  found illegal the  rejection of prospective purchasers "for reasons that
  theretofore had not been prohibitions in the 

 

  terms of the lease."  The court also found two violations of the Vermont
  Consumer Fraud Act, 9  V.S.A. §§ 2451-2480g.  Specifically, it found that
  defendants violated the act in "the strong-arm  tactics used in an apparent
  attempt to persuade Mr. Wright to abandon his tenancy in the park."

       As part of its relief, the court enjoined the Roys from "unreasonably
  refusing entrance [to the  park] to purchasers or prospective purchasers"
  and from refusing entry to any purchaser who  "qualif[ies] under uniformly
  enforced, written, reasonable terms of the park lease."  The court also 
  awarded damages and attorney's fees for the State and Mr. Wright.

       At the time of the Wright suit, the park contained sixty-six lots of
  which sixty-five contained  a mobile home.  Residents of the park owned
  fifty-seven of these mobile homes, and the Roys  owned just eight.  By the
  time of this trial in January 1999, and despite the judgment in the Wright 
  case, the Roys owned approximately thirty of sixty-three mobile homes in
  the park.  From 1993 until  1997, no homes were sold to new park residents.

       Most of the rest of plaintiff's evidence involved incidents close in
  time to the events  involving plaintiff.  Ken Scott testified that he
  purchased the mobile home on the lot next to  plaintiff's, lot 34, in
  February 1997.  He used his $5000 savings to buy the mobile home.  Prior to 
  doing so, he had his real estate agent send defendants a certified letter
  asking to be qualified as a park  resident.  Defendants orally refused
  without stating any reason and told Scott the park did not have a  standard
  written lease.  Scott moved in and began sending rent payments to
  defendants.  He was later  confronted by Leon Roy, who advised him that he
  would not be able to stay in the park.  Soon after  this encounter, someone
  removed the drain plug from Scott's kerosene tank causing a fuel spill and
  a  costly clean up by a state environmental team.  Someone also threw rocks
  through his windows and  cut off his power.  Scott eventually left the park
  due to the vandalism and associated stress.  

 

  Although he was offered $7000 for his mobile home, he could not sell it
  because Leon Roy refused  all purchasers.  A realtor used by Scott
  testified that she had sent defendants a certified letter on  behalf of two
  prospective purchasers of the Scott mobile home, but that she had received
  no response  from defendants with respect to either.

       Tracey Schwartz and Justin Schwartz testified that the mobile home
  involved in the instant  appeal, located on lot 35, was sold to plaintiff
  by Justin Schwartz in February 1997.  He purchased  the mobile home from
  his aunt, Tracey Schwartz in 1996; Tracey Schwartz had lived in the mobile 
  home on lot 35 from 1982 to 1996.  She tried to sell the mobile home once
  before.  She testified that  her attorney had sent defendants a letter and
  received no response.  Later, defendants declined her  prospective
  purchaser without a reason: they merely stated that the purchaser was
  declined and that  "they knew the reason."  Tracey eventually sold the
  mobile home to Justin without notifying  defendants.

       Before moving into the mobile home, Justin Schwartz repeatedly
  attempted to call defendants  to obtain a lease.  In December of 1996,
  someone threw a rock through his front door.  Schwartz also  testified that
  he had arranged to have cable service installed at the mobile home.  When
  the company  failed to come, he called them, and they told him that
  defendants had said not to install the cable  because Schwartz was not
  going to be there long.  In late December or early January, Schwartz 
  noticed that there was a bullet hole in his kerosene tank that caused the
  fuel to leak out onto the  ground.  After this was repaired, someone poured
  water into his fuel tank, and the fuel lines froze.   Finally, Schwartz
  decided to sell the mobile home and move out.  He repeatedly tried to
  contact  defendants in an effort to follow whatever procedures were
  required to sell the mobile home, but  defendants never responded.

 

       Joe Candal testified that he had been a park resident for seven and a
  half years, residing on  lot 29.  He eventually decided to sell his mobile
  home, and sent registered letters to defendants to  notify them on each
  occasion that he had a prospective purchaser.  He had an offer of $11,000
  cash  from a woman from Massachusetts who had money from a divorce
  settlement and was looking to  buy a home in Vermont.  She, along with
  several other prospective purchasers, was refused by  defendants, and 
  eventually he had to sell the mobile home for only $4000.

       Dolores Goodell testified that she had been a park resident for
  twenty-two years, and that  when she approached an area realtor to sell her
  mobile home, the realtor laughed at her when she  revealed where it was. 
  She decided to sell the home herself, and she and her daughter put out a
  sign  and listed the home in a circular.  When she first moved into the
  park, she had a lease, but it ran out  and was not renewed.  When she put
  her mobile home up for sale in January 1998, she tried to get a  copy of
  the lease from defendants, but they never sent her one until she called the
  Attorney General's  Office.  After receiving the lease, Goodell sent
  defendants several certified letters over the next few  months to notify
  them of prospective purchasers.  She testified that in each case she had to
  wait  thirty days for a response, and each applicant was denied.  This
  happened four times, until, in mid  June, defendants finally accepted one
  of the prospective purchasers.  Originally, she was asking  $5000 for her
  mobile home, and she had purchasers willing to pay that amount, but she
  ended up  selling it for $2000.

       In April 1997, plaintiff filed this action in Bennington Superior
  Court for damages and  injunctive relief.  Plaintiff alleged that
  defendants broke her windows, cut her electric line and  refilled her
  trench in an effort to illegally evict her, and she sought relief under the
  Vermont Mobile  Home Park Act and on theories of equitable estoppel and
  intentional infliction of emotional distress. 

 

  On April 23, 1997, based on the consent of the parties, the court issued a
  temporary order prohibiting  defendants from engaging in any further
  self-help eviction measures pending resolution of the suit,  and no further
  acts of vandalism occurred.

       The parties skirmished over the admissibility of the facts and order
  in the Wright case and the  testimony of other mobile home owners as
  described above.  As discussed in detail below, the court  denied
  defendants' motion to exclude the evidence, finding it admissible to
  identify defendants as  those responsible for the acts of vandalism and to
  show a continuing plan and motive behind their  conduct.

       Defendants argued that plaintiff was not protected by the Act because
  she had never been  accepted as a tenant.  The court rejected this
  argument, ruling that plaintiff was a resident of the park  and was
  entitled to the protections of the Act as a matter of law, and instructed
  the jury accordingly.   The court dismissed defendants' counterclaims for
  foreclosure of lien, ejectment, and trespass,  dismissed plaintiff's claims
  based on equitable estoppel and intentional infliction of emotional 
  distress, and dismissed plaintiff's claim for injunctive relief as unripe. 
  The case was then submitted  to the jury on special interrogatories, and
  the jury returned a verdict for plaintiff.  The jury found that  Leon Roy
  did attempt "to evict plaintiff by force or other self-help means," but
  found that Marcien  Roy was not liable for the same conduct.  In addition,
  the jury found that Leon Roy "wilfully caused,  directly or indirectly, the
  interruption or termination" of plaintiff's utility service, but found that 
  Marcien Roy did not do the same.  The jury awarded plaintiff $10,000
  compensatory damages  against Leon and the trust.  It also found that both
  Marcien and Leon Roy "acted recklessly and in  wanton disregard of
  plaintiff's rights" and awarded $100,000 punitive damages against Leon, 
  Marcien, and the trust.  The jury was precluded from considering
  defendants' counterclaim for 

 

  slander because it found for plaintiff on the illegal eviction claim.

       After judgment on the verdict was entered, defendants moved for
  judgment as a matter of law  or for a new trial pursuant to V.R.C.P. 50(b)
  and 59.  Defendants argued that the jury's verdict  finding Marcien acted
  recklessly and in wanton disregard of plaintiff's rights was at odds with
  its  finding that Marcien did not "directly or indirectly" cause the
  interruption of utilities or otherwise  use force or other self-help means
  to evict plaintiff.  The court agreed with defendants on this issue  and
  set aside the verdict against Marcien Roy for punitive damages.

       Defendants also argued in their motion that the trust was entitled to
  judgment as a matter of  law.  The court denied this part of defendants'
  motion, ruling that as a matter of law Leon Roy was  acting in the scope of
  his employment and for the benefit of the trust when he carried out the
  illegal  eviction acts because "the only reasonable inference" from the
  evidence was that Leon Roy's actions  were "related solely to his position
  as a mobile home park manager and the employee/beneficiary of  the trust. 
  His self-help eviction efforts directed at plaintiff could only have been
  motivated by the  overall financial goals of the family and the family
  trust."  The court then upheld the punitive  damage award against the
  trust, again ruled that plaintiff was a resident of the park and entitled
  to the  Act's protections, declined to order a new trial due to the prior
  bad acts testimony, and upheld the  jury awards as "plainly within the
  jury's discretion, and not clearly excessive."  The court also ruled  that
  defendants were not entitled to a new trial because the court had excluded
  threats against  defendants made by plaintiff's ex-boyfriend, and that
  defendants' slander claim failed because the  jury verdict demonstrated
  that the statements alleged to have been made by plaintiff were true.

                                     I.

       On appeal, defendants reassert the same arguments made in their
  post-trial motion.  We begin 

 

  with the claims that one or more defendants should have prevailed as a
  matter of law.  There are two  such claims: (1) as a matter of law,
  plaintiff was not entitled to the protections of the Mobile Home  Park Act;
  and (2) the Marcien and Mary Anne Roy Trust is not liable because plaintiff
  failed to state  a claim against it.

                                     A.

       The first argument relates to plaintiff's complaint count that
  defendants violated the Act  because they did not provide adequate and
  reliable utility services to her as required by 10 V.S.A.  § 6262, the only
  count that went to the jury.  After discussion among the parties and the
  court, this  count was charged as an allegation that defendants attempted
  to evict plaintiff "by force or . . . other  self-help means."  Id. §
  6237(a)(1).  The provision prohibits such conduct by a park owner against a 
  "mobile home resident."  Id. § 6237(a); see also id. § 6237(d) (limiting
  applicability of § 6237 to  mobile home park owners).

       Defendants argue that plaintiff was not entitled to the protection of
  the prohibition on self-help eviction because she was not a resident.  She
  was not a resident, they argue, because the prior  owner failed to comply
  with § 6240(a) and provide defendants with the name of plaintiff as the 
  prospective purchaser before the sale occurred so they could determine
  whether to accept her as a  tenant.

       The Act defines the term "mobile home park resident" as "an individual
  . . . who occupies a  mobile home on a permanent or temporary basis in a
  mobile home park."  Id. § 6201(6).  We can  find no support for defendants'
  position in this definition.  The definition turns on the fact of 
  occupancy rather than its legality.  Even if plaintiff were unlawfully
  occupying her mobile home and  lot, an issue that was hotly disputed
  between the parties, there is nothing in the words of the 

 

  definition to suggest that she did not have the protection of the Act. 
  Indeed, the broad coverage of  temporary and permanent occupancies suggests
  that the occupant need not have a particular status to  be a resident for
  purposes of the Act.  Normally, we must apply a statute in accordance with
  the plain  meaning of its language.  See McMurphy v. State, 171 Vt. 9, 12,