By Andy DelaneyTwo opinions on Friday. Let’s get to it. First up we have a tiff between Travelers and the Department of Financial Regulation (DFR). Travelers wanted records from DFR about Middlesex Assurance Company, a Vermont captive insurer. If you
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Students or Employees? Or Both?
By Andy DelaneyOne opinion on Friday. This one does not answer the question of “whether predoctoral fellows and trainees are employees for purposes of the State Employees Labor Relations Act (SELRA).” SCOV punts this one back to the Labor…
Valentine’s Day 2025
By Andy DelaneyTwo cases on Valentine’s Day. I haven’t thought of a “clever” link between the first case and Valentine’s Day and it’s probably better that I don’t.Our first case is an appeal from a substantiation. M.R., while a…
Unlawful Mischief
By Andy DelaneyI’ve always enjoyed the phrase “unlawful mischief.” To me, it sounds endearing—like an impish lawbreaker getting up to shenanigans. “Unlawful mischief” as used in Vermont jurisprudence is essentially vandalism. Fun fact: the Vandals are a punk rock…
Land Use Lit or "A Bridge too Far?"
Definitely not the bridge in this caseBy Andy DelaneyOne opinion this past week, concerning what a de minimus—a lawyers’-job-security word for unimportant or insignificant—use is in the context of recreational trails, bridges, and triggering application of zoning regs. I want…
January 10, 2025: Two Admin Opinions
AdminBy Andy DelaneyThis week’s post is going to be short because, as Polonious quipped in Hamlet, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” I’m lazy. SCOV issued two opinions on Friday, January 10. Opinion one boils down to whether redacted records…
New Year, New . . . Something
By Andy DelaneyVermont follows what we sometimes call the “public domain” citation format. What this means is that following the case name, you’ll have the year the case was decided, the two-letter state abbreviation, and the number of…
Friday December 20, 2024: Defamation, Mootness, and Employment Law
The trouble with defamationBy Andy DelaneyThree opinions issued on Friday. In the first one, we look at the interplay between tort and criminal law, with a twist based on what I like to call “the reverse-Uno card of defamation law”:…
Burdens and Discretion: December 10 and 13, 2024
I am totally being framed.This is BS. By Andy DelaneyEarlier this week, I found a chewed-up wooden doggy figurine on our bed in the morning. I accused “my wife’s dog,” Lucy of being the culprit, though in fairness, it might…
Five Fables from Friday
Aesop I Ain’tBy Andy DelaneyI can’t remember if I already used a title like this, but I probably did and probably already led with some quip about fables being a little bit of artistic license. It feels familiar. I…