It's a beautiful day today. In fact, the entire weekend has been lovely. So, my excuse for not writing up this past Friday's three opinions that I've been using the last couple days is getting a little hoary (to use a recent word-of-the-day entry). If these summaries are even more abbreviated than usual? Well, blame it on the weather.
Whenever I think of Costco, I think of this scene and this scene from the 2006 classic, Idiocracy. One of the many things you can get at Vermont's Costco is gasoline (I almost wrote "gas" which has some humorous ambiguity, but I—once again—digress) at its proprietary gas station. The gas station has been there a long time with limited hours. It's now open full time.
This opinion basically says "Costco has checked the boxes." Initially, the station was open limited hours to mitigate traffic congestion. After a decade and change of fighting over the permitting, neighbors (nearby gas stations) did their best to stop Costco from getting to that full-time-open threshold. Neighbors have a myriad of complaints—failure to join AOT as co-applicant, "material change" arguments, jurisdictional claims—ye olde bag o' tricks. SCOV is not persuaded: the permit conditions were met when construction started and the signal timing got sorted. So, that's that. Everything else is moot. In re Costco, 2025 VT 44
Next up, we have a little family law, insurance, and a tangled web of "who gets the money" after a husband dies and doesn't keep ex-wife on the life insurance like he promised in the divorce. Ex-wife sued for the promised policy (which no longer existed). Lender (business loan) intervened arguing it was entitled to some of the proceeds. Eventually, in a summary-judgment decision, the lower court reasoned ex-wife gets zero since Vermont law presumably frowns on postmortem alimony. SCOV dusts off some old stuff, dumps that logic, and basically says: "if you negotiate it and the court signs off, yes, the ex can have an equitable interest in those death benefits." Case goes back to figure out who gets what (hint: not just the new wife and the lender). SCOV affirms lender's ability to intervene affirmed, rest reversed. diMonda v. Lincoln National Corp., 2025 VT 45.
Next up we have an esoteric tax-grievance-notice question. Does due process require listers to send notice of a tax grievance decision to both the taxpayer and the taxpayer’s attorney? The civil division said yes, but SCOV says not so fast—while notice-to-lawyer-too principles apply to unemployment claims, they don't necessarily apply to property tax. The statute only requires notice to the taxpayer, not the lawyer. I note that this one involves the mail, which in my opinion has been, let's just say, less than reliable lately. Nonetheless, SCOV reasons that taxpayer received actual notice, but didn't get it to lawyer in time. So, the listers win this one and the assessment stands. SCOV reverses with an instruction to enter summary judgment for the town. Salisbury AD 1, LLC v. Salisbury, 2025 VT 43.
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