In re SP Land Co., LLC, 2011Vt 104 (Johnson, J.) (Reiber, C.J., dissenting.)

Mountainside Properties, LLC, an adjoining property owner, appeals the Environmental Court’s denial of its motion to alter and amend a grant of summary judgment in favor of co-applicants. We reverse.

The goal of Rule 59(e) is to “make clear that the [trial] court possesses the power to rectify its own mistakes in the period immediately following the entry of judgment.”

Rule 59(e) “gives the court broad power to alter or amend a judgment.” Reporter’s Notes, V.R.C.P. 59. We have stated that Rule 59(e), is “invoked ‘to support reconsideration of matters properly encompassed in a decision on the merits.’ ” Under this rule, “the court may reconsider issues previously before it, and generally may examine the correctness of the judgment itself.” That is, Rule 59(e) “codified the trial court’s inherent power to open and correct, modify, or vacate its judgments.” See 11 C. Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 2810.1, at 124-25 (2d ed. 1995) (describing correction of manifest error of law upon which judgment is based as one of four basic grounds upon which Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) motion may be granted). The trial court enjoys considerable discretion in deciding whether to grant such a motion to amend or alter. 11 Wright, supra, §2810.1, at 124. Indeed, we have held that the court’s power on a Rule 59(e) motion even extends to issues not raised in the motion. Once a Rule 59(e) motion is filed, the trial court has the power to make an appropriate modification or amendment, including issues not raised in the Rule 59(e) motion.

Whether or not the Rule 34 issue was expressed for the first time in Mountainside’s Rule 59(e) motion, it was a question of law intrinsic to the Environmental Court’s summary judgment ruling and therefore well within the court’s discretion to reconsider this question of law on the merits upon on Mountainside’s Rule 59(e) motion.

Reiber, C.J., dissents because the issue the majority decides was not raised below in a timely and proper manner and therefore should not be reviewable on appeal. The question it addresses—whether an administrative amendment under Rule 34 requires an underlying Act 250 permit—was not raised with the trial court before the entry of judgment but only later in a Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend.