Opinion ID: 2364266
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Facts Pertinent to the Building-Code Violations

Text: In November 1995, the town's alternate building official, John Pagliaro, cited defendants for building-code violations involving various decks, sheds, and other such structures that campers built on their individual campsites. The town sent notice of these violations to defendants, but it did not send any notice to the individual campers themselves. The defendants appealed this notice to the town's building code board of appeal, which upheld most of the violations. The defendants then appealed this decision to the Rhode Island Building Code Standards Committee, sitting as the Board of Standards and Appeals (state building-code board). In this appeal, the defendants also requested variances from the code sections cited. In 1996, the state building-code board upheld most of these violations and denied most of defendants' variance requests. Although defendants did not appeal this decision to the District Court, as they were entitled to do under G.L.1956 § 23-27.3-127.1.4(f), (g), they also failed to abate or to correct all the building-code violations at the campsites. In 1997, the town, in its second amended complaint, [1] sought a permanent injunction that would require defendants to correct or abate the building-code violations and to terminate the unlawful use of the campsite structures in question. Some of the violations cited in the town's second amended complaint were not among those that the state-building-code board had considered in its 1996 decision. Before trial, in 2000, the town's new alternate building official, Russell Brown, once again inspected the campground and determined that most of the structures on the individual campsites  ones that the town had cited as violations in 1995 and that the state building-code board had found to be such in 1996  remained in violation in 2000. These violations included decks and sheds that individual campsite occupants had constructed without first submitting plans or obtaining building permits to do so. In addition, some of these structures failed to use pressure-treated wood, to have footings at least one foot below grade, or to comply with applicable load-bearing requirements. By the time the Superior Court reached this case for trial in 2001, the parties had dismissed many of the allegations by stipulation. The trial focused on the building-code violations found in a pool-house building that defendants owned and on the various structures at individual campsites. The trial justice, in a written decision, found that the pool house violated § 809.2 (currently § 1010.2) of the Rhode Island State Building Code because the deck lacked the proper number of exits. In addition, he found that various structures at certain individual campsites violated the state building code. He decided that defendants were responsible for these violations because they exercised control over the individual sites, prescribing, inter alia, the requisite sizes for platforms and approving sheds and the materials for their construction. He concluded that defendants have complete control of the area and are well positioned to have campers comply with the [b]uilding [c]ode. [2] Consequently, the trial justice ordered the defendants to ensure that the individual campsites complied with the building code by August 30, 2003. This appeal ensued. At a pretrial conference, we entered an order consolidating the zoning and building-code appeals.
The defendants first contend that the Superior Court justice presiding over both cases erred in permitting Russell Brown (Brown), the town's Deputy Zoning Enforcement Officer and Alternate Building Official, to testify about defendants' zoning and building-code violations. The defendants insist that Brown was not qualified to testify because his appointment violated § 23-27.3-107.2 of the state building code, which permitted the local authority to appoint an alternate building official to act on behalf of the local building official during any period of disability caused by, but not limited to, illness, absence, or conflict of interest. In 2000, the town appointed Brown to serve as Deputy Zoning Enforcement Officer and Alternate Building Official. The defendants now allege that this appointment was improper under § 23-27.3-107.2 because the town's local building official was not under any disability at that time. Given this allegedly improper appointment, defendants maintain on appeal that the hearing justice erred in admitting Brown's testimony concerning defendants' zoning and building-code violations. We rebuff this argument for several reasons. Initially, we conclude that defendants failed to properly raise the propriety of Brown's appointment at trial as an alleged reason to preclude him from testifying. It is axiomatic that we will not entertain on appeal an issue that the aggrieved party did not specifically raise before the trial court. E.g., Harvey Realty v. Killingly Manor Condominium Association, 787 A.2d 465, 467 (R.I.2001). When an issue is not explicitly raised in the trial court with sufficient clarity so that the trial justice may appropriately respond to the claims of a party, we shall not consider the alleged error on appeal. Scully v. Matarese, 422 A.2d 740, 741 (R.I. 1980). In addition, the party must raise the issue in reasonably clear and distinct form before the trial justice. Town of Smithfield v. Fanning, 602 A.2d 939, 942 (R.I.1992). Here, defendants assert that they raised the issue of Brown's appointment during their voir dire of this witness. They also maintain that they asked him during cross-examination whether the town's regular zoning enforcement officer was ill or incapacitated in any way. But it does not appear from the record that they specifically objected on this ground when Brown took the stand to testify, nor did they argue that Brown's improper appointment precluded him from testifying at trial. At no time did they move to strike his testimony or to bar him from testifying because of the allegedly improper manner or method of his appointment to office. Merely by asking questions during the trial that were relevant to this issue while they were examining Brown, defendants, we hold, failed to afford the trial justice an opportunity to rule on whether the manner and method of Brown's appointment disqualified him from testifying at trial. Hence, they cannot raise this issue now for the first time on this appeal. Moreover, had defendants properly raised this issue below, the town represents that it would have introduced evidence showing that the local building official was in fact under a disability when it appointed Brown to his office. In its brief, the town posits that it originally created the positions of Deputy Zoning Enforcement Officer and Alternate Building Official because the local building official had a conflict of interest with two of the defendants in this action. Given defendants' failure to preserve this issue for appeal, we will not decide whether Brown's appointment violated the provisions of § 23-27.3-107.2. Avoiding such first-impression evidentiary disputes, which lack the vetting they should receive during a trial, is precisely one of the reasons why we will not permit parties to raise issues such as this for the first time on appeal. Because defendants did not object at trial to Brown's testimony or move to strike it because of his alleged unauthorized appointment, the town never had the opportunity to present evidence to counter this assertion. Therefore, we will not now entertain this argument for the first time on appeal. In any event, even assuming, arguendo, that the town impermissibly appointed Brown to the position of Alternate Building Official, we would still decide that the Superior Court properly allowed Brown to testify. Under the Rhode Island Rules of Evidence, trial justices have broad discretion to admit the testimony of witnesses. See R.I. R. Evid. 601. Nothing in Brown's testimony suggested that he was incompetent to testify about his first-hand observations of defendants' property. And defendants do not cite any statute, rule, or other authority that would limit such testimony to duly appointed zoning and building officials. Therefore, for these reasons, we hold that the Superior Court did not commit reversible error when it admitted Brown's testimony in both the zoning and building enforcement cases.