SCOVT reverses E-Court ruling denying reimbursement from the Petroleum Cleanup Fund, holding the court’s findings were inadequate to show how the decision was reached.

 

In re Cote/Maquam Shore Market, 2025 VT 42 [Filed 7/25/2025]

EATON, J.   This appeal concerns a dispute over reimbursements from the Petroleum Cleanup Fund (PCF).  Appellant Janet Cote owns a property which was once the site of a gas station.  After the discovery of significant petroleum contamination in the soil on her property, she applied for and received reimbursement from the PCF.  The issues on appeal stem from the Agency of Natural Resources’ decision to deny further reimbursement for costs associated with a licensed engineer and with a “punch list” of additional items on Cote’s property.  The Environmental Division affirmed the Agency’s decision in part and reversed in part.  Cote now appeals the reimbursements she claimed which were denied by both the Agency and then the Environmental Division.  We reverse and remand. 

“The purpose of findings is to make a clear statement to the parties, and to this Court, if appeal is taken, of what was decided and how the decision was reached.”  New England Power Co.,. New England Power Co. v. Town of Barnet, 134 Vt. 498, 503,  (1976)  A trial court’s findings are “insufficient when [this Court is] left to speculate as to the basis of the trial court’s decision.”  Bonanno v. Bonanno, 148 Vt. 248, 251, 531 A.2d 602, 604 (1987). 

Here the court failed to provide an adequate basis for its conclusion that the Agency correctly denied reimbursement for the engineer Specifically, the court did not adequately explain why it considered the Agency’s denial of this expense to be reasonable.  The decision merely restates the Agency’s conclusory arguments that the cost was ineligible because all eligible work was complete and that the costs 8 were in excess of what was reasonable.  

In its findings of fact, the court listed the twenty items on the punch list that the Agency identified as ineligible for reimbursement. As above, the court did not explain why the Agency’s denial for each specific item was reasonable.  The court’s use of the terms “many” and “in general” when describing the punch list items forces us to speculate about whether and how each item is ineligible .The decision provides no analysis of the Agency’s reasoning for denying each vastly dissimilar punch list item request—merely restating the Agency’s generalized and conclusory arguments.

Without more findings or analysis of the Agency’s reasoning, “we are left to speculate as to the basis of the trial court’s decision” which we decline to do.  Bonanno, 148 Vt. at 251. We reverse and remand to allow the Environmental Division to make adequate factual findings and any additional conclusions as may be necessary on the disputed restitution claims.

 

 Reversed and remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Accident reconstruction. Findings that reject both sides’ experts. Court can take judicial notice of Pythagorean Theorem, but findings based on the theorem are clearly erroneous where underlying diagram was not to scale and there was no evidence of a right angle.

  State v. Wisowaty, 2015 VT 97 [filed 7/24/2015]

SKOGLUND, J. Defendant appeals the decision denying his motions for judgment of acquittal and new trial and the judgment finding him guilty of excessive speed and negligent operation of a vehicle. Both the State and defendant presented their own accident reconstructionist, each of whom used different formulas and inputs for determining defendant’s maximum speed. The judge found defendant guilty but did not rely entirely on either of the experts’ formulas or their inputs. After the judge explained his methodologies from the bench, defendant filed motions for judgment of acquittal and, alternatively, a new trial. The court denied both motions, and this appeal followed.

Defendant argues that the judge relied upon evidence not introduced at trial and that the evidence presented was insufficient to sustain a conviction. We agree that the evidence was insufficient and therefore reverse the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion for acquittal.

The unusual record before us lays out three distinct configurations of the evidence: that of the prosecution, that of defendant, and that of the trial judge. The judge took pieces of each expert’s data and formulas, and supplemented them with his own estimates and calculations based on the Pythagorean Theorem, ultimately determining that defendant’s top speed was between seventy-five and eighty-four miles per hour.

We first agree with the judge that both experts failed in their proffered attempts at calculating defendant’s speed; thus, defendant’s convictions could not be supported by substantial evidence on the basis of either of those theories.

Findings by a judge-as-factfinder on issues other than the ultimate question of guilt are subject to the “clearly erroneous” standard of review. The trial judge’s calculation of defendant’s speed is a factual conclusion. A factfinder “may draw rational inferences to determine whether disputed ultimate facts occurred,” but those inferences “must add up to more than mere suspicion,” and “the [factfinder] cannot bridge evidentiary gaps with speculation.”

Other courts have condoned a factfinder’s use of the Pythagorean Theorem, but only where there existed reliable evidence of a right angle and the measurements of the two shorter sides of the triangle were sufficiently reliable and precise, based on admitted evidence. We conclude that the judge impermissibly “bridge[d] evidentiary gaps with speculation,” rendering his calculation of defendant’s speed unsound.  

PROOF:

 
The judge attempted to determine the time defendant took to travel 316. 8 feet by first calculating the distance Mr. Yee traveled at 12 miles per hour during that same time.  The judge calculated this distance by applying the Pythagorean Theorem to nearby points labeled on the State’s diagram of the intersection.  But the diagram was not to scale. There was no evidence of a right angle.  The judge’s measurement of at least one of the shorter sides of the triangle was thus conjecture.

Even though he used an accepted mathematical formula, the judge relied upon unfounded assumptions about the lengths and orientations of the two shorter sides of his purported right triangle, and therefore arrived at a clearly erroneous conclusion as to the length of the third side, the judge’s conclusions as to speed were therefore clearly erroneous.

Reversed and remanded for entry of a judgment of acquittal on the charges of excessive speed and negligent operation.