Opinion ID: 1944074
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Corrective Permit Case

Text: White also appeals the decision of the Board affirming the conditions imposed by the District Commission, with its amendments, on White's corrective permit. He first argues that the Board erred when it excluded two of his prefiled exhibits. The first exhibit is a study of noise levels in the vicinity of White's property prepared by Audiology Associates, and the second is an excerpt from the transcript of the District Commission proceedings reflecting a portion of Peel's testimony in those proceedings. In its order following the prehearing conference in White's appeal of the new permit conditions, the Board stated the following: The Chair asked those parties present whether they would have objection to the Board taking official notice of the Revocation Permits and any supporting decisions. Additionally, he asked whether the parties would have any objection if the Board took official notice of the exhibits admitted by the Commission with respect to the Revocation Permits. .... This is a de novo proceeding, and the parties are expected to offer evidence anew as though there had been no hearing below. Therefore, with the exception of the items to be noticed by the Board pursuant to 3 V.S.A. § 810(4), the parties are expected to prefile testimony and exhibits, both direct and rebuttal, in accordance with the schedule and terms of the Prehearing Conference Order. In the last section, titled Order, was the following provision: The Board takes official notice of the Revocation Permits and supporting decisions. The Board also takes official notice of all exhibits admitted by the Commission in these proceedings. White argues that the statement that the Board took official notice of the exhibits in these proceedings reflected its intent to take official notice of the exhibits in the new permit proceedings before the District Commission which were on appeal to the Board and which included the study prepared by Audiology Associates, as opposed to the exhibits from the proceedings concerning the revoked permits. He contends that the Board's subsequent decision to exclude the report by Audiology Associates was at odds with the Board's own order. Alternately, White argues that the report was an exhibit before the Commission with regard to the revoked permits, so whether the Board was taking official notice of the exhibits before the Commission in the new permit proceedings or the revoked permit proceedings is of no moment; the report was officially noticed either way. At the hearing on White's new permit application, the Board assumed that the report had not been officially noticed and decided to exclude it on hearsay grounds because no one from Audiology Associates was slated to testify about the exhibit. White does not challenge the Board's ruling regarding the hearsay nature of the study, but relies purely on the Board's prehearing order to argue that the exhibit should have been admitted. He argues that the exhibit contained vital information regarding noise levels of passing traffic on Route 7 which would have changed the Board's assessment of the noise generated by White's operations. Reading the portion of the order in which the Board states, [t]he Board takes official notice of the Revocation Permits and supporting decisions. The Board also takes official notice of all exhibits admitted by the Commission in these proceedings, alone, as well as reading the statement in the context of the Board's previous statements quoted above, we cannot agree that the Board took official notice of the exhibits admitted by the Commission in the new permit proceedings. White's argument that the report was also an exhibit admitted by the Commission with regard to one of the revoked permits, permit number 1R0391-5, however, appears to have merit. Although the exhibits originally submitted to the District Commission in support of the revoked permits are not part of the record on appeal (the record includes only the revoked permits themselves and their supporting District Commission decisions), the exhibit list from the new permit proceedings also lists exhibits which were submitted as part of the applications for the revoked permits. Listed under the exhibits for permit number 1R0391-5 is an exhibit described as dBA Results, Audiology Associates, 12/18/90. Therefore, it appears that the Audiology Associates report was an exhibit admitted by the Commission in the proceedings concerning one of the revoked permits. Thus, the Board's exclusion of it was in contravention of its previous order, relied upon by White, taking official notice of exhibits admitted by the Commission with respect to the revoked permits. Furthermore, because the Board's subsequent exclusion of the report prejudiced White, the error merits a new hearing. See V.R.C.P. 61 (error in the exclusion of evidence may not be grounds for a new hearing unless refusal to grant one is at odds with substantial justice); Keus v. Brooks Drug, Inc., 163 Vt. 1, 7, 652 A.2d 475, 480 (1994) (absent prejudice resulting from evidentiary ruling, this Court will not reverse). The Board specifically identified the auditory impact of White's operations as one of the areas of concern with respect to the aesthetics of the area under statutory criterion 8. See 10 V.S.A. § 6086(a)(8) (reflecting concern for adverse impacts on the aesthetics of an area). Although the Board had the benefit of its own site visit at which it made observations regarding noise levels generated by White's operation, as well as that of passing traffic on Route 7, White was denied the benefit of submitting a report compiling specific sound measurements taken at various locations in the vicinity of White's operation that reflected favorably on White's operation in comparison to other sources of noise in the area. Given the amount of evidence submitted in opposition to White on the issue of noise, including the testimony of Les Blomberg of the Noise Pollution Clearing House on both the quality and degree of noise generated by White's operations, and the degree of attention focused on noise levels in the Board's findings and conclusions, we cannot say that its exclusion was harmless. Additionally, White was not able to bring in this information from any other source, compare Greene v. Bell, 171 Vt. 280, 284-85, 762 A.2d 865, 869-70 (2000) (no prejudice where party was able to produce from another source similar evidence to that erroneously excluded), and Trombley v. Southwestern Vermont Med. Ctr., 169 Vt. 386, 396, 738 A.2d 103, 110-11 (1999) (no prejudice where excluded evidence was cumulative and duplicative of evidence elicited from other sources), especially in light of the limitations place on the presentation of evidence by the Board in this case (the Board required that all testimony, direct and rebuttal, as well as exhibits, be prefiled; the Board also required that all objections be prefiled or they would be considered waived). Accordingly, remand for a new hearing on White's auditory impact under criterion 8 is appropriate in this case. Because the issue may recur on remand, we will also address White's argument regarding the exclusion of Peel's prior testimony on relevancy grounds. Cf. Russell v. Russell, 157 Vt. 295, 305, 597 A.2d 798, 804 (1991) (addressing issue likely to recur on remand). White argues that the Board erred by excluding a portion of the transcript of Peel's testimony before the District Commission submitted as rebuttal evidence to Peel's prefiled testimony regarding sound measurements he took in the vicinity of White's property. The transcript excerpt included testimony from Peel regarding sound readings of passing traffic on Route 7 that were greater than the measurements of activities on White's property. The DPA had objected to the testimony in its pre-filed objections on the basis that testimony before the Commission was irrelevant in the de novo proceedings before the Board. The Vermont Rules of Evidence are generally applicable in administrative proceedings. 3 V.S.A. § 810(1). In fact, administrative bodies have greater latitude than courts in the nature of evidence that they may consider. Id.; In re Quechee Lakes Corp., 154 Vt. 543, 552, 580 A.2d 957, 962 (1990). But as we have noted previously, this greater latitude does not imply that agencies are also free to exclude relevant evidence. In re Cent. Vermont Pub. Serv. Corp., 141 Vt. 284, 293, 449 A.2d 904, 909 (1982) (citation omitted). As noted above, one of the issues identified by the Board as an area of focus in these proceedings was the auditory impact of White's operation on the surrounding area. The substance of White's exhibit, i.e., sound measurements taken at an adjoining property, certainly meets the test for relevance on the issue of whether White's operation was having an adverse impact on the surrounding area with respect to the generation of noise. See V.R.E. 401 (noting that relevant evidence is that having any tendency to make the existence of any consequential fact more or less probable). Although we review evidentiary rulings under Rule 401 for an abuse of discretion, see Haynes v. Golub Corp., 166 Vt. 228, 236, 692 A.2d 377, 382 (1997), the Board did abuse its discretion by excluding White's exhibit on the basis of relevancy. We express no opinion on other potential bases for excluding the transcript, however; we merely note that the substance of the exhibit meets the test for relevancy. Because we are remanding for a new hearing on the issue of the auditory impact of White's operations under criterion 8 and whether permit conditions are necessary to mitigate any impact, we need not address White's last argument that the conditions numbered 5a (limiting the hours of operation), 6 (prohibiting use of a portable rock crusher at the site), and 11 (limiting the noise levels at the site boundaries to 70 dBA) imposed by the new permit are unreasonable. The Board will necessarily be revisiting the conditions appealed by White, as they were imposed in part or in whole to mitigate the noise generated by White's operation. The decision of the Environmental Board revoking permits numbered 1R0391-3, 1R0391-4, 1R0391-5, 1R0391-5A, 1R0391-6 is affirmed. The decision of the Environmental Board issuing permit number 1R0391-8 is reversed and remanded for a new hearing on the auditory impact of permit applicant White's operations under criterion 8 of 10 V.S.A. § 6086. AMESTOY, C.J., dissenting. If ever resort to the law could be compared to having a wolf by the ears, one need look no further than Lawrence White's experience with Act 250. Although the majority candidly acknowledges that it was the Environmental Board's fundamental misinterpretation of our decision in In re Conway, 152 Vt. 526, 567 A.2d 1145 (1989), that led to the revocation of White's longstanding Act 250 permits and the otherwise baseless requirement that he initiate an entirely new permit process, today's decision denies the benefit of its holding to White because he allegedly failed to preserve the issue below. Because I believe the majority's overly rigid application of the preservation rule compounds the utter unfairness of a process that virtually devoured the applicant, I respectfully dissent. The extraordinary procedural maze in which White found himself has been admirably summarized in the majority opinion, but a few salient points bear emphasis. First, the filing of a petition by the adjoining landowner (Harris Peel) to revoke White's Act 250 permits based on White's failure to provide notice to Peel in applying for the permits in question came eight years after the first relevant permit was granted. Second, in response to the claim that White's failure to provide notice was either wilful or grossly negligent, the Board concluded: In each instance, an effort was made to identify the adjoining landowners and then list them as part of the applications. This effort was complicated by the Town of Danby not having a tax map which identifies ownership of property. While these efforts were faulty, the omission of Peel was not intentional nor was it so flagrant as to constitute the failure to exercise even a slight degree of care. Third, among the perhaps unforeseen consequences acknowledged by the majority was that neighbors who had participated in the original permitting process, and who were later denied party status in the revocation hearing, were ultimately allowed to participate in the joint revocation/new permit proceeding. The more fundamental point, however, concerns the majority's conclusion that we are foreclosed from addressing the Board's erroneous overextension of Conway. The majority concedes that White did argue below that the Board incorrectly applied Rule 38(A)(2) and further that he addressed arguments to both subsections (a) and (b). As to subsection (a), White contended that his permits should not be revoked because he did not omit Peel either wilfully or with gross negligence. As to subsection (b)while the majority is correct that White argued below that his innocent failure to list an adjoining landowner should not lead to the draconian step of revocation (implicitly conceding that such failure could be considered a violation of 2(b))it takes an extraordinarily cramped view of White's argument to conclude that he therefore failed to preserve his challenge to Rule 38(A). This is especially so where White filed proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law which urged the District Commission to conclude that the facts in Conway are so significantly different from those in this proceeding, that a departure from its reasoning is justified. In this regard, White specifically noted that it was the Commission in Conway that erroneously denied the adjoining landowner party status, not the inadvertent omission of the applicant, and that the permit application process in Conway was ongoing, not final for over eight years, as in this case. To be sure, White did not precisely assert that the inadvertent omission of the adjoining landowner from his application was not a violation of a Board rule. Yet the essence of the argument was there, and was certainly stated with sufficient clarity to fairly alert the Commission and the Board to the question whether Conway controlled in these circumstances. This was enough to preserve the issue for appellate review. See Bull v. Pinkham Eng'g Assocs., 170 Vt. 450, 459, 752 A.2d 26, 33 (2000) (matters not fairly presented to trial court are not preserved for review); State v. Ben-Mont Corp., 163 Vt. 53, 61, 652 A.2d 1004, 1009 (1994) (purpose of preservation rule is to afford trial court a fair opportunity to rule on issue before it reaches this Court). The final consequence of today's ruling is that an undisputed error by the Board fairly raised and asserted belowremains uncorrected, and White is left with a result that is neither fair nor compelled by law. Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the Board.