Justia New Hampshire Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Defendant Jonathan Woodbury appealed his convictions and sentences on one count of falsifying physical evidence, and two counts of assault by a prisoner. In December 2016, defendant was an inmate at the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility who got involved in a physical altercation with Matthew Moriarty, another inmate at the facility. At the time of the incident, Moriarty was fighting with his cellmate, Terrence Hartley, and had sustained severe injuries. While most of the dispute between Hartley and Moriarty occurred within their cell, at one point during the fight, Moriarty was outside of the cell when the cell door closed, locking him outside. After attempting to get back inside, Moriarty, while bleeding from his face, spit at Hartley through an opening in the cell door. Defendant, who was watching from the common area of the cellblock, came up behind Moriarty and struck him with his fist on the side of the face. Moriarty then swung at and struck defendant, who continued the altercation, twice more striking Moriarty with his fist. Following this exchange, defendant, with the help of another inmate, mopped up Moriarty’s blood from the floor and tables in the common area. Meanwhile, Moriarty went into the bathroom to clean blood from his face. Realizing that he was struggling to breathe, he exited the bathroom to press a button on a callbox located in the common area. This action alerted correctional officers that an incident had occurred and a response team was sent to the cellblock. On appeal, defendant challenged: (1) the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction of falsifying physical evidence; (2) the trial court’s denial of his jury instruction interpreting language in RSA 641:6, I; (3) the trial court’s imposition of multiple sentences on the assault convictions; and (4) the trial court’s failure to sua sponte instruct the jury on the defense of mutual combat. Finding no reversible error, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed. View "New Hampshire v. Woodbury" on Justia Law

Defendant David Vincelette appealed a the Superior Court decision finding that he committed criminal contempt by violating a January 2016 trial court order that prohibited him from interfering with the Town of Hanover’s efforts to remove debris from a right of way and Town-owned nature preserve. The Town-owned nature preserve was accessed by a deeded right of way that crossed land where defendant resided. In May 2015, the trial court found that the defendant had “placed numerous objects,” including wood pallets, abandoned vehicles, boats, and appliances on the nature preserve and on the right of way such that the right of way was “narrow[ed] . . . to such a width that it is difficult for a vehicle to access the [T]own’s property.” Defendant argued “[t]he court erred by finding that the State presented sufficient evidence that [he] intentionally violated the court’s order.” Finding no reversible error, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed. View "New Hampshire v. Vincelette" on Justia Law

Petitioners M.F. and C.N., unmarried, cohabitating adults, jointly petitioned to adopt M.F.’s minor biological son, J.W. The Circuit Court ruled that RSA 170-B:4 (2014) did not authorize such an adoption and dismissed the petition. On appeal, petitioners argued the trial court erred because they were eligible to jointly adopt J.W. pursuant to RSA 170-B:4, II and III. Finding no error, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed. View "In re J.W." on Justia Law

Defendant Richard Goode appealed a Superior Court order granting a petition to partition real property in Manchester, New Hampshire brought by plaintiff Evelyn Tarnawa. The parties were siblings; the received joint title to the property at issue under the will of their mother (the decedent), who died in 2009. Defendant had been living on the property with the decedent prior to her death, and, after her death, chose to continue living there. In 2010, plaintiff sent defendant a proposed agreement purporting to set forth defendant’s rights and responsibilities with respect to the property while he continued to reside there. Although some back-and-forth discussions took place between the parties, the agreement was never executed, and no evidence of any other agreement regarding the property was presented to the trial court. Defendant claimed to have made improvements to the property. Beginning in 2012, defendant failed to pay the property taxes in full. Plaintiff did not learn of this failure until she was notified by the City of Manchester in 2016. By December 2017, the amount owed for outstanding taxes, costs and interest was $33,803.13, with interest accruing at $11.17 per day. In 2016, plaintiff filed a petition for partition, requesting that the court order a sale of the property “and a division of the proceeds of the sale on an equitable basis, i.e. a deduction of all outstanding deficiencies from the Defendant’s share of the proceeds.” Defendant moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for summary judgment on the basis of res judicata and the decedent’s intent to devise the property to the parties as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. The trial court denied those motions and granted the petition to partition. Finding no reversible error in the superior court's judgment, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed partition. View "Tarnawa v. Goode" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Fred Teeboom appealed a superior court order dismissing his claims for declaratory, injunctive, and mandamus relief based upon the court’s determination that the budget spending cap in the Nashua city charter was unenforceable because it violated state law. In April 2017, by a vote of nine to six, the Nashua Board of Aldermen (board) passed an ordinance exempting the entire wastewater treatment fund from the combined annual municipal budget. Later that month, Nashua’s mayor proposed a budget for fiscal year 2018 that, consistent with the ordinance, removed the wastewater treatment fund from the spending cap calculation. In so doing, the mayor did not adjust for the fact that the 2017 combined annual municipal budget included $8.1 million of wastewater treatment funds that were not included in the proposed 2018 combined annual municipal budget. This process had the effect of allowing the mayor to allocate a significant amount of additional funds to other areas without running afoul of the spending cap. On the surface, the proposed 2018 combined annual municipal budget appeared to comply with the spending cap. The maximum allowable budget pursuant to the cap was $267,517,084, and the 2018 combined annual municipal budget was $265,598,979. Faced with a proposed 2018 combined annual municipal budget purporting to be $1,918,105 below the spending cap, the board voted, ten to five, to adopt that budget. Teeboom filed this lawsuit against the City of Nashua (City), asking the trial court to enforce the spending cap provision on the ground that the ordinance exempting the wastewater treatment fund from the combined annual municipal budget violated that provision. The New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's determination that the City’s spending cap was unenforceable because it did not contain an override provision. View "Teeboom v. City of Nashua" on Justia Law

This case centered on a property lease in Gilford, New Hampshire that included certain preemptive purchase rights (the Agreement). Plaintiffs Evan and Kelly Greenwald sought a declaration on the interpretation of the Agreement, whether it had been breached, and who was liable. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the Superior Court ruled in favor of defendants Barbara Keating, Jill Keating, Ellen Mulligan, and Barry and Chrysoula Uicker. The New Hampshire Supreme Court determined that central to the trial court’s decision was the interpretation of the Agreement - specifically paragraphs 18B and 18C. In the trial court’s view, the Agreement unambiguously required that Richard and Jill Keating intend to list the Mink Island property for sale, not merely intend to sell it, before plaintiffs’ rights under paragraph 18B were triggered. The court also concluded that paragraph 18B was unenforceable because it did not include an essential term: the purchase price. As for the right of first refusal under paragraph 18C, the trial court concluded that this provision was triggered only if the Keatings accepted an offer to purchase made by a third party after the Keatings had listed the property for sale. Thus, the trial court ruled that no breach occurred because the triggering condition - listing the property for sale - was never met. The Supreme Court concluded that because the meaning of the Agreement was ambiguous concerning whether listing the property was intended to be ministerial or substantive, the trial court erred in resolving this issue on summary judgment. The Court agreed with plaintiffs that the trial court erred in summarily concluding that Barbara could not be held liable under the Agreement because she held no ownership interest in the Mink Island property and could not otherwise be chargeable as an agent of Jill. The matter was reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Greenwald et al. v. Keating et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff Ron L. Beaulieu & Company appealed a superior court order affirming the New Hampshire Board of Accountancy. The Board suspended plaintiff’s license to do business in New Hampshire for three years and imposed a $5,000 fine after concluding plaintiff committed professional misconduct by failing to retain work papers and records for five years and by failing to properly conduct auditing services for Tri-County Community Action Program (TCCAP) from 2008-2011. Finding no reversible error in the superior court’s judgment, the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed. View "Ron L. Beaulieu & Company v. New Hampshire Board of Accountancy" on Justia Law

The State appealed a superior court order that set aside a jury’s guilty verdict against defendant Jonathan Marden for one count of aggravated felonious sexual assault. The trial court concluded defendant’s trial counsel, who was not his appellate counsel, rendered ineffective assistance of counsel when he failed to object to the testimony of the State’s expert witness, Dr. Gwendolyn Gladstone, a physician specializing in the care of abused or neglected children. The trial court found that, even though Gladstone did not explicitly opine that the complainant had been sexually assaulted, her testimony ran afoul of New Hampshire's general prohibition against offering expert testimony "to prove that a particular child has been sexually abused." The State argued that, even if trial counsel’s conduct fell “below the range of reasonable professional assistance” when he failed to object to Gladstone’s testimony, there was no prejudice. The State argued Gladstone’s testimony was merely cumulative of the testimony by the complainant’s co-workers about the complainant’s emotional state immediately following the alleged assault. The State contended “Gladstone’s testimony simply established that the [complainant] was still having an emotional reaction to the event.” To this, the New Hampshire Supreme Court disagreed, concluding Gladstone’s testimony and the inferences that could have been drawn from it — that she believed that the complainant had been sexually assaulted — were not cumulative of the other demeanor evidence because Gladstone, unlike the other trial witnesses, was recognized as an expert. Defense counsel’s failure to object to Gladstone’s testimony on New Hampshire v. Cressey grounds (137 N.H. 402 (1993)) cannot reasonably have been said to have been part of a trial strategy. Therefore, the Court concluded trial counsel’s performance was constitutionally deficient, and affirmed the superior court's order. View "New Hampshire v. Marden" on Justia Law

The Second Church of Christ, Scientist, Melbourne (Australia) appealed a circuit court order denying it standing to request affirmative relief and enforce certain charitable trusts created by the will of Mary Baker Eddy. Mary Baker Eddy founded the Church of Christian Science and, upon her death in 1910, her will established two testamentary trusts, known as the Clause VI Trust and Clause VIII Trust. In previous litigation concerning these trusts, we upheld the validity of the trusts and established that the bequest in Clause VIII was to be held in trust for two purposes, church building repair and “promoting and extending the religion of Christian Science as taught by [Mrs. Eddy].” The underlying litigation commenced in 2015, when Second Church, an alleged qualified beneficiary of the Clause VIII Trust, sought to review, and potentially object to, the annual accounting filed by the trustees. In March 2018, the trial court issued an order finding that Second Church failed to satisfy its burden to demonstrate that it had standing. The trial court acknowledged the general rule that when a trust is determined to be charitable, it becomes the duty of the attorney general to ensure that the rights of the public in the trust are protected and that the trust is properly executed. The court further noted that New Hampshire law was unclear as to whether a possible beneficiary of a charitable trust, like Second Church here, had standing. Looking to other jurisdictions for guidance, the trial court determined that most jurisdictions have ruled that a possible beneficiary is generally not entitled to sue for enforcement of the trust. After considering how other courts have applied the doctrine of special interest standing, the trial court applied a five-factor test, often referred to as the Blasko test. The trial court found that none of the factors weighed in favor of granting Second Church standing. The New Hampshire Supreme Court found no reversible error in the trial court's judgment and affirmed Second Church lacked standing. View "In re Trust of Mary Baker Eddy" on Justia Law

The Town of Lincoln, New Hampshire, appealed a Water Court order upholding a decision by the Department of Environmental Services (DES) ordering the town to repair the Pemigewasset River Levee. The Water Counsel determined the Town owned the levee pursuant to RSA 482:11-a(2013), and therefore was obligated to maintain and repair the levee. In support of its position, DES contends that, in the Assurance, the Town “agreed to take responsibility for the [l]evee’s ongoing maintenance and repair.”1 However, the fact that the Town undertook certain maintenance obligations in the Assurance does not mean that the additional obligations of “ownership” under RSA 482:11-a can or should be imposed upon the Town. The New Hampshire Supreme Court determined that the Water Council’s conclusion the Town “owned” the levee under RSA 482:11-a was dependent on flawed reasoning that Appeal of Michele, 168 N.H. 98 (2015) controlled the outcome of this case. The Supreme Court concluded the Town met its burden to show the Water Council was unreasonable. The Court did not decide the precise degree of ownership that made a person or entity an “owner” for the purposes of RSA 482:11-a, it held that the limited access easement held by the Town in this case fell short of that threshold. Because the Court’s holding on this issue was dispositive of this case, it declined to address the parties’ other arguments. View "Appeal of Town of Lincoln" on Justia Law