Published March 26, 2008

SOUTH ROYALTON — The Vermont Supreme Court got a chance to decide whether Charles Meyer can be assessed punitive damages for a car crash that killed two youths in 2004.  Justice John Dooley suggested that he was not entirely grateful for the opportunity.

“We agreed to take this case, but then I started getting buyer’s remorse,” he told Eric Poelhmann who represented Mr. Meyer before the court.  “Why is it so important to get this to us now?”

The state’s highest court was considering whether or not punitive damages are permitted under two state laws, the Wrongful Death Act and the Survival Statute.  They had been asked to do so by U.S. District Judge William Sessions III.

In 2006 Mr. Meyer’s mother, Julie Jensen, filed suit in U.S. District Court in Burlington asking that she and her son be absolved of liability for the deaths of Norman Woolard and Philip Leno.

Ms. Jensen and Mr. Meyer were able to file in federal court because they live in Irving, Texas, and interstate disputes can be referred to the federal system.  Ms. Jensen is a wealthy attorney and philanthropist who formerly owned a summer house in Brownington.  The Chasdrew Foundation, which she headed, made numerous grants to local libraries and other nonprofit organizations focused on youth, including a driver safety program.

Mr. Woolard, who was 16, and Mr. Leno, who was 17, died when Mr. Meyer, who was 14 at the time, drove a sports car into the ledges near Willoughby Lake.  Mr. Meyer did not have a driver’s license.

Judge Sessions decided that a jury could not be asked to impose punitive damages against Ms. Jensen, in January 2007, but in July he declared that the question of whether such punitive damages are permitted under Vermont law has never been settled by the Vermont Supreme Court.  Judge Sessions invited the Vermont Supreme Court to rule on the issues.  The court accepted the invitation, an acceptance that Justice Dooley claimed to regret when hearing the case before a large audience of Vermont Law School students at the school’s South Royalton home Monday.

The question before the five justices was whether the Wrongful Death Act allows only actual damages, including those for the loss of love and companionship, or if it also permits a plaintiff to seek damages as punishment for the conduct that caused the actual damages.  A similar question was raised with regard to the Survivor Statute.

While actual damages, also called compensatory damages, are granted based on an estimate of the real value of a person’s loss, punitive damages are intended to punish wrongful conduct and deter the repetition of the wrong.

Punitive damages can be much higher than actual damages.

Mr. Poehlmann, in his brief, argues that the Wrongful Death Act takes away from common law.  Under common law a lawsuit cannot survive the injured party, he says.  Therefore no damages can be sought for another’s death.  The Wrongful Death Act was passed to correct that potential injustice, but it ought to be interpreted narrowly, Mr. Poehlmann says.

Justice Dooley seemed skeptical of Mr. Poehlmann’s argument.  He quoted the act, “The court or jury before whom the issue is tried may give such damages as are just,…” and asked why it might not be just to award punitive damages.

Mr. Poehlmann read further in the act, “with reference to the pecuniary injuries resulting from such death…” and argued that the phrase restricted the just damages to actual damages.

Justice Dooley countered the phrase “with reference” could just indicate that punitive damages must bear some relationship to actual damages.

Mr. Poehlmann tried to dismiss the comment, laughingly calling it a “very creative argument,” adding that the Supreme Court has never found it to be a correct reading of the law.

“We’ve never ruled on it,” Justice Dooley shot back.

Chief Justice Paul Reiber noted that in another case the court favored a broad interpretation of the law.

Mr. Poehlmann argued that regardless of how broadly the law is interpreted, a punitive damage could not be considered to be the same as an actual damage.  He said the victims’ lawyers were asking the justices to make a public policy decision as to whether punitive damages are just.  Such decisions, Mr. Poehlmann said, are best left to the Legislature.

Justice Dooley replied that the question of what is just is a public policy question, yet courts are asked to make that determination every day.

At the end of Mr. Poehlmann’s 15 minutes of oral argument, Duncan Kilmartin, representing Mr. Leno’s family, rose to address the court.  Justice Marilyn Skoglund looked at him and at Vincent Illuzzi, who as the Woolard family’s lawyer was also preparing to argue the case.  “I am struck that this case calls for statutory interpretation, and look who’s sitting at counsel table,” she remarked.

Mr. Kilmartin, who like Mr. Illuzzi is a member of the Legislature, assured the court that both men were present only as lawyers.

His oral argument focused on the question of whether the Survior Statute prohibits punitive damages if there is no pain and suffering involved, for instance if death is instantaneous.

Mr. Kilmartin argued that relatives of the two victims should not be barred from seeking punitive damages just because of the happenstance that they died quickly.  Rather they should have the same right to punitive damages as they would “if they were seated here in wheelchairs, because the accident rendered them quadriplegics.”

Both Mr. Poehlmann and Mr. Kilmartin sought to bolster their arguments with legal precedents not included in their written briefs, a fact that did not escape Justice Dooley.

“Both of you stepped to the lectern with your own smoking guns,” he quipped.

“Mine is bullets, his is blanks,” Mr. Kilmartin shot back before allowing Mr. Illuzzi to take over the argument.

Mr. Illuzzi told the justices that “the facts as we see them are egregious in our favor.”

He urged the judges to take care with their decision, pointing out that the decision in the case will be applied to cases “as many as the law students here times 100.”

Mr. Illuzzi countered the question of whether the Legislature should be the ones to determine public policy, saying that “the Legislature seldom weighs in in terms of judgments in tort actions.”

After a half-hour of oral arguments the court adjourned.  The parties to the case and Judge Sessions must now wait for the justices’ decision.