Court Opinion

ID: 9710892
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:19:46.458906+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:00.838746
License: Public Domain

Peck, J.,
dissenting. In this matter the zeal of the Environmental Board outran its authority. Such overreaching on the part of the Board is understandable even if it should not be condoned. It is, after all, one of the Board’s primary duties to protect our natural environment against the cupidity of the would-be spoilers who descend upon the land, generally in the name of what is, somewhat ironically, called “development,” and often coming from beyond our borders, like the invasion of the South by the post-Civil War carpetbaggers. It is a serious and a heavy responsibility that the Legislature has placed on this public body; it is clear that its members take their task seriously.
Nevertheless, the powers of the Board, like those of all state boards and commissions, particularly those having a quasi-judicial function, are limited strictly to those granted by the Legislature. In re Agency of Administration, 141 Vt. 68, 75, 444 A.2d 1349, 1352 (1982); Miner v. Chater, 137 Vt. 330, 333, 403 A.2d 274, 276 (1979); New Hampshire-Vermont Physician Service v. Commissioner, Dept. of Banking & Ins., 132 Vt. 592, 596, 326 *586A.2d 163, 166 (1974). Nothing is presumed in favor of their jurisdiction. Gloss v. Delaware & Hudson R.R., 135 Vt. 419, 422, 378 A.2d 507, 509 (1977). Whenever governmental officials and agencies undertake to define their own limits and, doing so, exercise powers they do not have, they become zealots as a practical matter in the most egregious sense of that term, regardless of their good intentions. Frustration based on a lack of jurisdiction in an anomalous situation does not justify an improper, unilateral extension of power beyond the limits of the legislative grant in order to justify a decision in such a case. But that is precisely what the Board has done here.
The Environmental Board is one which calls for close scrutiny by this Court. Its statutory powers constitute a dramatic impingement on property rights as they existed under the common law. See 1 V.S.A. § 271 (common law adopted as “laws in this state”); State v. Brown, 147 Vt. 324, 327, 515 A.2d 1059, 1061 (1986) (“A statute does not change common law by doubtful implication; it is only overturned by clear and unambiguous language.”). Moreover, on at least two occasions this Court struck down rules promulgated by the Board as overboard or exceeding the Board’s statutory authority. In re Agency of Administration, 141 Vt. at 92-93, 444 A.2d at 1361; Committee To Save the Bishop’s House, Inc. v. Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, Inc., 137 Vt. 142, 151, 400 A.2d 1015, 1020 (1979).
The Board’s “track record,” coupled with the fact that the relevant statutes are in derogation of the common law, suggests that this Court should be alert and exacting in abiding by and enforcing its own ruling set forth in Agency of Administration, 141 Vt. at 75, 444 A.2d at 1352 (emphasis added):
An agency [of government] must operate . . . within the bounds authorized by its enabling legislation, or this Court will intervene. Where it exercises its adjudicative function we will be especially vigilant, since proper utilization of the judicial process is unrelated to expertise in any particular subject matter.
It is one thing for the Board to test the limits of its authority and act as it did in this matter. It is quite another, however, for this Court — which has a duty to act with strict neutrality and in accordance with the laws enacted by the Legislature, to exercise judicial restraint, and to reject the alluring temptation to twist *587those laws out of shape — to abuse statutory construction in order to support a predetermined and desired result.
An administrative agency is often so close to the general subject matter of its concerns that, in its enthusiastic diligence, it fails to see the forest for the trees. The majority of this Court cannot, in conscience, plead any such excuse to mitigate its participation in the ultimate disposition of this controversy. We have an obligation to police quasi-judicial administrative bodies by keeping them from a usurpation of power and strictly within the limits of the powers granted to them. As noted above, nothing will be presumed in favor of their jurisdiction. Gloss, 135 Vt. at 422, 378 A.2d at 509. Instead the majority has become, in practical effect, a co-conspirator with the Board in an excess of power in order to deprive petitioner of his rights by literally making the law say what it does not.
The key word in the majority opinion is “control” (of the .58 acre parcel). The opinion points out that, under the special circumstances of a given case, some courts have expanded the plain commonly understood meaning of the word and stretched it beyond formal “legal” control to include “actual” control. In other words, apparently, “control” may be de facto although it may not be de jure.
Several cases from other jurisdictions are cited by the majority in support of the legal-actual distinction. These citations coat the opinion with a false patina of validity. When the surface gloss is scraped away, they are exposed as not in point. In each case the prospective transferee was permitted to exercise various degrees of active control of the subject prior to the subsequent legal transfer. No such active control of the .58 acre parcel by the petitioner occurred here.
Thus, for example, in Lorain Journal Co. v. Federal Communications Commission, 351 F.2d 824 (D.C. Cir. 1965), involving an application for transfer of control of a television station, the court noted that after the first six months of the attempted transfer:
[The would-be transferor] gave the station only half his time, for about five months, less [than that] thereafter, and no time whatever by May 1960. .. . [Transferor] acted like a man who had relinquished control . . . while [transferee’s] attitude was that of a proprietor steadfastly attending to business.
*588Id. at 828.
There was no evidence whatever of any similar active control by petitioner of the .58 acre parcel here until the legal title actually passed to him. There is no evidence or any claim that the grantor could not have sold the parcel with impunity to anyone other than petitioner between November 1, 1985, when title to the .99 acre parcel changed hands, and November 26 of the same year when the .58 acre parcel was also sold to petitioner.
The evidence disclosed that the entire property had been subdivided into the two parcels (.99 acre and .58 acre) prior to the sale of either; that separate deeds were tendered to petitioner on November 1st, but petitioner refused to accept the deed to the .58 acre parcel at that time. It is not questioned by anyone that neither legal title nor legal control to the smaller parcel rested in him between November 1 and November 26th.
The evidence does suggest, I willingly concede, that by November 1 there may have been an unwritten agreement between the grantor and petitioner to transfer the .58 acre parcel to petitioner at a later date. This is wholly irrelevant, however, since under the Statute of Frauds (12 V.S.A. § 181(5)) agreements relating to real property are not binding unless reduced to writing and signed by the party to be charged.
For purposes of this case, then, even under the authorities cited by the majority, the result should, in justice and fairness to the petitioner under the statutes (strictly construed, since they are in derogation of the common law and control the jurisdiction of the Board), be determined by the evidence relating to the activities of the petitioner between November 1, 1985 and November 26, 1985 in relation to the .58 acre parcel. The authorities are clear that if we are to accept the theory of actual control some degree at least of active control is a prerequisite. There is no evidence whatsoever of any such activity by the petitioner vis-a-vis the seller or the smaller parcel itself; he was as completely passive as any other adjoining property owner.
The majority recites a litany of circumstances which it offers as a validation of the Board’s action; or, in other words, a quod erat demonstrandum, and there it stops; the list does not point to a single instance of active control. In fact, the recitation constitutes a series of irrelevancies. When considered dispassionately they point up the primary weakness of the opinion: an inability, or at least a refusal, to undertake a complete and honest judicious *589analysis, free of preconceptions, and free of a preliminary bias in favor of a desired result.
Analyzed without prejudice, the facts and circumstances relied on by the majority support only one thing: there may have been an agreement between the seller and the petitioner-buyer to divide a larger parcel of land into two smaller parcels and effect the transfer of title in two separate transactions at different times.
This decision may ihdeed have been motivated by the petitioner’s desire to avoid Board jurisdiction under Act 250. Nevertheless, the implication that this conduct borders on pure subterfuge or chicanery is unworthy of this Court; it reflects unjustly on the integrity of the petitioner as well as the attorneys who advised him. There was nothing whatever illegal or dishonest; it resulted from a studied and correct analysis of the controlling statutes following a more careful analysis than that attempted by the majority.
It is a truism that it is entirely proper, legally as well as morally, to “avoid” a law but not to “evade” it. The practical — and legal — application of this truism allows all of us, as a matter of right, and in any field controlled generally by legislative enactments, to take advantage of a circumstance, however narrow and obscure it may be, that is not, in law and fact, covered by the enactments. This is true regardless of a close relationship between what is and what is not controlled by the legislation. These openings may be intended by the Legislature, or they may be inadvertent. However, if the opening does exist, it is an egregious abuse of judicial power for a court or quasi-judicial body, in its creative arrogance, to seal off a citizen’s right to take advantage of it. It is the exclusive prerogative of the Legislature under Chapter II, § 5 of our State Constitution (separation of powers), to address the issue, and to change or modify it through the amendatory process if it sees fit to do so.
Not one of the several items contained in the alarmist and condemnatory rhetoric of the majority can mask its violation of the separation of powers. It has engaged once more in judicial legislation, amending the statutes from the bench to say more than they do.
It is appropriate to examine the merits of some of the items found by the Board and accepted by the majority in support of an affirmance. I submit the majority has simply been overwhelmed and blinded by numbers. These so-called facts have no validity as *590support for the result. They do not demonstrate any actual control.
The Board and the majority opinion cite “the impossibility of direct access to the [.58 acre parcel]” as significant to the question of control. In fact, however, although access from the main road, without a right of way over other lands, would be difficult, it was not impossible. Moreover, it is absurd to conclude that a grantee “controls” a remainder by virtue of the mere fact that the grantor, in conveying away part of his land, has cut off access to the remainder. A later right of way from the grantee or other adjoining owners is always possible; a later sale to an adjoining owner, including the grantee, is equally possible. I have never heard it suggested, before today, that any adjoining owner “controlled” a remainder because of access problems whether access is literally impossible or merely difficult, without some evidence of active control during the interim.
Moreover, it is always possible that such a remainder parcel, because of its size or its terrain, has no practical use, standing alone. Continued ownership, with its tax liability and other responsibilities, may be more of a nuisance, if not a burden, to the owner than it is worth to him, so that he is willing to dispose of it to one of the adjoining owners for little or nothing.
The majority also accepts without question or analysis that the short period of time between the sales of the two lots was a further indication of control by petitioner. But time is a relative word in the context of this case. It might have been much longer, months or years, and still be part of a project planned by a developer. Nevertheless, as a part of petitioner’s “project” in this case, the separated .58 parcel is not only irrelevant, but admittedly it constituted no part of the project. Quoting the majority:
By November 17,1985, petitioner completed construction on the .99-acre parcel of all the improvements necessary for the operation of his business.
Therefore, the ultimate issue, as even the majority recognizes, is control of the smaller piece of land between November 1, 1985 and the 26th of the same month and year, when the second parcel was conveyed to petitioner.
Thus far there is nothing to demonstrate control, to say nothing of the active or actual control, required by the authorities relied on by the majority itself. I suggest, further, that the evi*591dence is to the contrary. Petitioner refused a deed to the second parcel in the first instance; the grantors did not want that parcel, apparently because of a probable marketability problem.
The remainder parcel was of no benefit to petitioner’s project. He took it to relieve the grantor of what both considered'a relatively useless piece of real estate. The common sense of the transaction is that the grantor insisted on disposing of all or none. But once more, these considerations have no relation to control (of any kind) during the crucial period. The fact that the smaller parcel was not involved in petitioner’s project is conclusive to any fair-minded analysis: the second transfer had no relation to the first, for purposes of Act 250 jurisdiction, when as it appears, there was no active or actual (call it what you will) control during the 26-day interim period. The second parcel was neither owned nor controlled by petitioner during that period. As I have noted earlier, the evidence, at its best, could be interpreted to support nothing more than a possible agreement that the second parcel would ultimately be transferred to petitioner. But that did not occur until after the fact of the completion of the project on the larger parcel.
Finally, the payment of the seller’s attorney’s fees by petitioner, and the failure to retain a right of way to land that had little value, are equally irrelevant to a showing of the slightest measure of any active control on petitioner’s part.
Notwithstanding the recitation of various rules of construction by the majority, most notably that “in construing land use regulations any uncertainty must be decided in favor of the property owner,” the opinion does an abrupt volte face and affirms the Board. The clear fact is that the latter’s usurpation of authority, and it is just that, is not supported by the record. At the very least, from petitioner’s point of view, which is manifestly correct, an uncertainty exists.
I am reminded by today’s affirmance of the fable involving a mother sparrow who built her nest under the eaves of a court of justice. One day, while she was away seeking food for her young, who could not yet fly, a serpent gliding onto the scene ate them up. Upon her return and discovery of her loss, the mother bird began a pathetic wailing. “It is not only my little ones that I mourn,” she cried, “but that I should be wronged in the very place where the injured fly for justice.”
*592Judged by the majority’s own adopted standards of requiring some active control, the rules relating to statutes in derogation of the common law, and the strict scrutiny of administrative quasi-judicial decisions, petitioner has been denied justice in the very place to which he came for justice; while a usurpation of authority by the Board has been affirmed. There is, I suspect, a lack of sympathy for the petitioner involved in this case, which has, I am convinced, influenced the majority against him.