State v. Baker
Although this opinion is 16 pages long, the meat of it is pretty straightforward. The issue is in a criminal case, who is entitled to restitution, and what needs to be shown in order to get restitution? The answer, as it turns out, is that there may be 2 different answers.
This is a really unfortunate situation. Back on September 4, 2015, Ty Baker was driving in Swanton. His car crossed the center line and struck another car. The second car was totaled. It’s not clear to me if the people in Car 2 were injured – the opinion doesn’t say so, and I hope they were not.
Car 2 was driven by a woman who had her children in the car. The woman – Wife – is married to Husband, who was not in the car, as he was back in their home state of Massachusetts. Wife and the kids were in Vermont on a vacation; Husband had stayed home because he had to work that weekend.
Upon hearing of the accident, Husband did exactly what you’d think he would do. He went Vermont to go help his family. There was a lot to be sorted out, with the totaled car, insurance paperwork, and collecting belongings. Husband had been at work when he got the call and left in the middle of his shift. Because it was a weekend, and because he worked weekends, he ended up missing several more shifts. He didn’t get paid for those shifts he didn’t work, and the car insurance company didn’t reimburse him for his lost time. From the looks of things, he lost the better part of a week’s pay.
Mr. Baker pled nolo contendre to the charge and a restitution hearing was held. The State made an argument that Husband should be reimbursed for his lost wages. The court agreed, and ordered Mr. Baker to pay Husband the full amount of his lost wages. Mr. Baker appealed, and SCOV reversed on this point.
We write a lot of summaries about criminal restitution (or, at least, I feel like we do). It’s really narrow – more narrow than if someone filed a civil case for damages. It’s meant to restore the victim (which is defined) for their out of pocket expenses that are a direct result of the crime.
Using my prior analogy of a damaged mailbox – if Donna Defendant smashes my mailbox with a bat, I’m entitled to out of pocket expenses I spend to repair my mailbox. If my expenses are covered by my homeowner’s insurance policy, I’m entitled only to my deductible. Suppose now Donna Defendant smashes my mailbox and as a result I feel unsafe so I install new locks on my front door. That’s not going to be reimbursable because the locks have nothing to do with the mailbox smashing. My actions might make some logical sense, but they’re not a direct result of Donna’s criminal act.
Here, Husband was properly identified as a victim. The car driven by Wife was jointly owned between she and Husband. There was some dispute by Mr. Baker about the joint ownership of the car; the Court concluded they were joint owners from the testimony of Wife. The car was totaled, and both Husband and Wife were without the car. That makes them both victims.
The second question is the trickier one. Even though Husband was properly considered a victim, at least for car ownership purposes, SCOV concludes that he wasn’t entitled to a restitution payment for his lost work. Thus, SCOV reverses on this point.
Remember how I said restitution is narrow? A loss has to be a material loss that is a direct result of the crime.
The State argued that Husband’s actions in driving to Vermont to help his family were reasonable, and were a natural and probable consequence of the car crash. Essentially, the State argues that but for the crash, Husband would have stayed at work and would not have lost wages.
SCOV is clear that a “direct result” of a crime needs more than “but-for” causation. What’s but-for causation? The South Park fan in me really wants to make a joke best suited for the junior high-aged readers I’m sure we don’t have. The lawyer in me says it’s exactly what it sounds like; but for a, b would not have occurred. But for the accident, Husband would not have driven to Vermont.
To get to a direct result, we also need proximate cause, which has an element of reasonable foreseeability. Sure, it’s reasonably foreseeable there would be car repair bills associated with a car crash. It’s less foreseeable that the joint owner, who wasn’t present, and who lives out of state, would then lose wages in dealing with the aftermath of a car crash.
To bring this around into the criminal restitution arena, restitution happens at sentencing. That means a defendant has to be adjudicated guilty of a crime before restitution comes in to play. If a defendant is going to be held responsible for restitution to someone, it has to have been reasonably foreseeable to him at the time he committed the criminal act that he would be on the hook for that particular bit of restitution. As a part of this foreseeability, restitution has to be for liquidated, or known sums.
And since it’s a judge, not a jury, who determines the restitution amount, and since the rules of evidence are relaxed in restitution hearings, it’s really necessary that criminal restitution be narrow and not an arena to be free to make any possible claims.
So here, allowing Husband to be reimbursed for lost wages because of Wife’s car accident – through the criminal restitution process – opens up a can of worms for the court to make a judgment call about whether Husband really should have missed work, or if he could have helped his family in another way. Once it starts to go down this road, it starts to look like a civil trial, which is not what the restitution hearing is supposed to be.
Now, lost wages certainly can be a direct result of a crime. Suppose the facts were different and somehow the accident prevented Husband from working. Maybe he missed a day because he was in Vermont and was also in the accident, and couldn’t get back in time. Or maybe he got hurt and had to miss a day. But Husband’s choice to leave work to drive to Vermont was purely elective, so it could not have been reasonably foreseeable at the time of the crash that this cost would have occurred. Even though Husband acted toward his family in a way that is understandable, it doesn’t make it necessarily appropriate for criminal restitution.
Therefore, SCOV reversed, and vacated the restitution order.
A sidenote: a restitution order does not preclude the filing of a civil lawsuit. A crime victim who then becomes a plaintiff in a civil suit can’t recover the same money twice. But a civil suit may have a broader reach and may be able to get damages to a person they couldn’t otherwise get through a restitution hearing.
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