Haupt v. Langlois

312 A.3d 569

2024 VT 3

Gail HAUPT

v.John LANGLOIS

No. 23-AP-221

Supreme Court of Vermont.

November Term, 2023

January 12, 2024

On Appeal from Superior Court, Chittenden Unit, Civil Division, Helen M. Toor, J.

William H. Sorrell, Burlington, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Craig Weatherly, Burlington, for Defendant-Appellant.

PRESENT: Reiber, C.J., Eaton, Carroll, Cohen and Waples, JJ.

REIBER, C.J.

¶ 1. Defendant John Langlois appeals the superior court’s no-stalking order, which requires him to stay at least fifty feet away from plaintiff Gail Haupt and prohibits him from communicating with plaintiff, directing physical gestures at her, or entering her property. The trial court found that defendant engaged in two threatening acts as defined in 12 V.S.A. § 5131(1)(A), necessitating a no-stalking order under 12 V.S.A. § 5133(d). Defendant argues that the court erred in finding that the two altercations qualified as threats and in failing to consider whether his actions were justified in defense of personal property. We conclude that defendant’s actions qualify as threats under the statute and that his common law defense is inapplicable in this context. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s nostalking order.

I. Facts

¶ 2. Plaintiff and defendant are neighbors, residing across from one another on a private road in Milton, Vermont. Defendant owns a 10.2-acre parcel of land located along the eastern side of the road, while plaintiff and her family own several parcels of land to the west and north of defendant’s property. The private road is located entirely on plaintiff’s property, but defendant holds an easement for ingress and egress. Defendant asserts that the access road formed the western boundary of his property at the time he purchased it, but the road was later moved slightly west, leaving a small strip of land between the edge of the access road and the property. The record shows that an earlier legal dispute between plaintiff and defendant arose when defendant made a claim of adverse possession over the narrow strip of land next to the access road. Defendant claimed that he had maintained the land as his own property, but plaintiff contested his ownership. The parties eventually resolved the dispute in November 2020 with a mediation agreement, under which plaintiff agreed to maintain the grass on both sides of the access road up to the boundary line, and each party agreed not to trespass on or interfere with the other’s property.

¶ 3. The mediation agreement was not the end of the acrimony between the par- ties. Plaintiff testified that defendant has threatened her on various occasions, including one time when he slapped her in the face, knocking her cellphone out of her hand. Defendant testified that plaintiff regularly drives a small ATV directly along their property line, at times honking the horn and shouting, which the trial court concluded she does "apparently just to annoy" defendant. Each party has accused the other of repeatedly engaging in antagonistic acts like shouting, making obscene gestures, and taking surreptitious photographs.

¶ 4. The record and the parties’ briefs show that the current incident arose as follows. Defendant owns several arborvitae trees, one of which is planted on his property but encroaches somewhat onto plaintiff’s property. Plaintiff has allegedly damaged the tree on several occasions by driving her ATV into it, cutting branches, and cutting a mesh fence that defendant installed to protect the tree. In response, defendant added several metal stakes across the body of the tree, which support the mesh fence but stick out a few inches further onto plaintiff’s property.

¶ 5. On April 16, 2023, plaintiff drove past the tree and observed the stakes sticking out onto her property. She took out the stakes and tossed them across the property line. The following day, plaintiff again approached the tree and, observing that the stakes had been placed back in the tree, again removed them. Seeing plaintiff take out the stakes, defendant approached. The subsequent altercation was captured on a security camera placed by plaintiff’s son-in-law. From the parties’ testimony and the footage, the trial court concluded that defendant shook and grabbed plaintiff while "screaming at her in an enraged manner with profanity-laced language."

¶ 6. On April 19, 2023, plaintiff filed a complaint for an order against stalking with the superior court. First, she alleged that defendant had placed the stakes in the tree sticking out onto her property with the intent to hurt her or her family. And second, she alleged that defendant grabbed and shook her after she attempted to remove the stakes. She requested an emergency order, alleging that these incidents had left her physically hurt, unable to sleep, and afraid to leave her home. The trial court granted the temporary order and set the case for hearing.

¶ 7. After two hearings, held on May 18 and 24, the trial court issued an order finding that defendant had committed two threatening acts, constituting stalking under 12 V.S.A. § 5131. The court first rejected plaintiff’s claim that the placement of the stakes amounted to a threat. The court found that the stakes stuck out only a couple of inches and were not placed in a location that would injure anyone walking or driving nearby. Second, the court found that the April 17 altercation constituted a threat, concluding that "regardless of why" defendant attacked plaintiff, "[a]n actual physical assault certainly constitutes a threat under the statute." The court also concluded that plaintiff’s testimony about defendant previously slapping her and knocking her cellphone out of her hand also demonstrated a threat under the statute. While the slapping incident was not included in plaintiff’s complaint, the court found that the testimony at trial was credible and unrebutted. Finally, the court found that defendant had to know that a reasonable person would fear for their safety as a result of the two incidents. Therefore, it concluded that plaintiff was entitled to a no-stalking order. Defendant appealed the order to this Court.

II. Discussion

[1] ¶ 8. Under Vermont’s civil stalking statute, a court must impose a no-stalking order if it "finds by a preponderance of evidence that the defendant has stalked" the plaintiff. 12 V.S.A. § 5133(d). The chapter defines "stalk" as "to engage purposefully in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that the person engaging in the conduct knows or should know would cause a reasonable person" to either fear for their safety or suffer substantial emotional distress. Id. § 5131(6). The chapter, in turn, defines "course of conduct" as "two or more acts over a period of time, however short, in which a person follows, monitors, surveils, threatens, or makes threats about another person, or interferes with another person’s property." Id. § 5131(1)(A). This definition applies to acts performed either "directly or indirectly, and by any action, method, device, or means," but does not include constitutionally protected activity. Id.

[2–4] ¶ 9. In reviewing the trial court’s no-stalking order, we will "uphold its findings if supported by the evidence and its conclusions if supported by the findings." Beatty v. Keough, 2022 VT 41, ¶ 6, 217 Vt. 134, 287 A.3d 54 (quotation omitted). We leave it to the trial court to "assess the credibility of witnesses and weigh the evidence." Id. However, we review the trial court’s legal conclusions de novo. Morton v. Young, 2023 VT 29, ¶ 10, — Vt.—, 298 A.3d 230.

¶ 10. In challenging the no-stalking order, defendant makes two main arguments. First, he argues that the trial court erred in concluding that his two acts of physical violence constituted threats under the statute. Second, he argues that the trial court failed to consider his contention that his actions were privileged as being in defense of personal property. We consider each of these arguments in turn.

A.

¶ 11. Defendant first argues that the court erred in concluding that actual physical violence constitutes an act of stalking under the statute. He points out that the civil stalking statute "says nothing about physical injury," and asserts that since our precedents require us to "construe the civil stalking statute narrowly," Hinkson v. Stevens, 2020 VT 69, ¶ 25, 213 Vt. 32, 239 A.3d 212, we cannot interpret the statute to apply to acts it does not explicitly mention. Defendant further notes that we have previously defined "threat" as "a communicated intent to inflict physical harm on another person," id. ¶ 46, and argues that the altercations here were not threats because there "is no evidence that he ever expressed an intent to harm [plaintiff] physically."

[5] ¶ 12. While defendant is correct that our precedents require us to construe the language of § 5131 narrowly, even a narrow reading of the statute permits an interpretation that an act of physical violence can constitute a threat. The statute states that the term "threaten shall not be construed to require an express or overt threat." 12 V.S.A. § 5131(1)(B). Instead, threats may be "conducted by the person directly or indirectly, and by any action, method, device, or means." Id. § 5131(1)(A).

[6] ¶ 13. A threat need not be communicated in words. We have previously stated in the context of our criminal disorderly conduct statute that "behavior is threatening when it communicates a threat." State v. Schenk, 2018 VT 45, ¶ 11, 207 Vt. 423, 190 A.3d 820; see also Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019) (defining "communication" as "[t]he interchange of messages or ideas by speech, writing, gestures, or conduct" (emphasis added)). We have also previously held that a physical act by itself can communicate a threat; in State v. Cole, we held that a jury could find that the defendant had grabbed a flashlight from a police officer in order to use it as a weapon, and therefore that "the act of grabbing the flashlight could be found to...