This is a case in which the parents of a developmentally disabled person were engaged in a long and bitter feud revolving around custody and control of the child.

The parents were co-guardians and conservators who were awarded shared custody and visitation.  At some point, the father prevented the mother from visiting, ostensibly because of danger to the child (it is unclear whether the “child” is still a child or is now an adult) even though he continued to withhold the child after the expiration of a temporary protection from abuse order entered against the mother.  In response, the mother filed a contempt motion.  At the hearing, the mother introduced into evidence testimony and reports of a former guardian ad litem who had been appointed by the District Court in a separate proceeding.  The Probate Court appointed the ex-wife and the father’s current wife as co-guardians and held the father in contempt.  That court also entered an order requiring that part of the child’s SSI benefits be deposited in a bank account requiring the signatures of both guardians and the child to draw out the money.

The Law Court affirmed the findings of contempt and the appointment of a second guardian based on evidence that the parents could not cooperate as co-guardians and evidence supporting the finding that the father’s actions were taken “in an attempt to control [the child’s] life, even to his detriment.”

The Court held that it was not reversible error to admit the testimony and reports of the previous guardian ad litem.  Even if that evidence was not admissible because the guardian had been appointed in a different court, there was substantial other evidence supporting the appointment of the second guardian.  Finally, the Court vacated the Order requiring the deposit of some of the child’s SSI benefits on the ground that Federal law pre-empted State law on this issue and therefore precluded such an order.

This case involves the imposition of use tax on another aircraft, but in this case the aircraft was in Maine for closer to 50% of the time during its first year, and the Law Court affirmed the imposition of use tax, although it also affirmed the Superior Court’s waiver of penalties based on the inaccuracy of information provided by the Tax Bureau.

Justices Levy and Mead concurred in the result but did not join in the Court’s opinion for the same reasons set forth in their dissent in the previous case.

The Law Court vacated a judgment imposing a use tax on an airplane that was used in Maine for approximately twenty-one days or roughly six or seven percent of the year.  The Court concluded that an exemption for use tax should be applied only where the use of the aircraft outside the State was sufficiently substantial to make it unjust to impose the use tax.  The Court declined to create a bright line rule for that exemption, and this decision probably will not have any future effect because the Legislature changed the law thereafter.

Justices Levy and Mead dissented.  They would have imposed a rule that any use within the State of Maine during the first twelve months of ownership would make the airplane subject to the use tax, rejecting the Court’s concern that it would be absurd to impose a use tax where an airplane had, for example, merely stopped for refueling in Maine.  The dissenters said that this was not the case that was before the Court and that the Court should not reject a construction of a statute that is consistent with the words enacted by the Legislature and avoids “the need for any judicial embellishment—like the Court’s substantiality requirement—based on nothing more than the prospect that the construction could produce an absurd or illogical result if we are ever called upon to apply it to an extreme and therefore unlikely scenario.”  ¶ 27

The Law Court held that the appeal by Anthem/Blue Cross from the Superintendent of Insurance’s rate setting decision providing Anthem with a 0% rate of return was moot because that rate year had expired and a new rate order had been entered providing for a 0.5% rate of return.  The Court held that neither the “great public concern” nor the “capable of repetition but evading review” exceptions to the mootness rule applied because of the changes in health law enacted by Congress and the accession of a new Governor and Legislature which created a potential for change in health care regulation which made it unlikely that the issue of whether a rate providing for no return was “not inadequate” for purposes of the insurance statute would recur and would be of “great public concern.”

Justices Levy and Mead dissented, arguing that the issue was likely to recur as long as the Superintendent did not abandon her current interpretation of the statute.

The defendant was interviewed by a police officer in a police cruiser by his house.  He was told that he was not in custody.  He told the police officer that “Between you and I [sic] –,” to which the officer said “Yeah,” to which defendant replied, “I smoked a little pot.”  Later in the interview, the officer made clear to the defendant that none of his statements were going to be kept confidential.  They were going to be used against him in an investigation.  Thereafter, the defendant made some more incriminating statements, to which the officer said, “It’s not between you and me anymore,” or words to that effect, and the defendant responded that he didn’t care.

The Superior Court suppressed the entire interview on the ground that the initial agreement that the statements were being made confidentially was misleading and that the taint of that statement could not be removed by the later explanation.

The Law Court affirmed as to the initial statement made before the explanation but vacated the determination as to statements made after the explanation.  The Court found that, although the statements made before the explanation were clearly involuntary in the sense that they were made based on a misrepresentation, the detective effectively remedied any constitutional infirmity by promptly correcting himself.  The purposes of suppression would not be served by excluding the later statements.  It would not vindicate the defendant’s mental freedom because the defendant explicitly stated that he knew and accepted that his statements to the detective were not confidential.  Suppression would not discourage objectionable police practices because the detective did a good job of rectifying the initial assurance of confidentiality.  Finally, the admission of the statements would not undermine “a quality of fundamental fairness in the criminal justice system.”

The plaintiffs in this case were severely injured in a house invasion.  When they sought medical attention at a hospital, a security guard reported what happened to a law enforcement officer.  The police then searched the plaintiffs’ house and found marijuana growing there, as a result of which the plaintiffs were convicted of trafficking.

They sued the hospital for unauthorized disclosure of confidential health care information in violation of State statutes and HIPAA.  The Superior Court entered summary judgment in favor of the hospital, determining that the statutory immunity established in 30-A M.R.S.A. § 287(3) applied to the hospital and that HIPAA did not create a private right of action.

The Law Court vacated on the State law issue on the ground that § 287 established immunity only for information resulting from a physical examination conducted for the purpose of obtaining evidence for the prosecution.  The statute does not make medical personnel immune for providing information regarding a victim who has sought medical treatment and is being examined solely for that purpose.  Therefore, the hospital was not immune under the statute.

The Court affirmed the summary judgment on HIPAA on the ground that there was no evidence that Congress intended to create a private right of action because, among other things, it had provided that HIPAA was to be enforced by the Secretary of Health and Human Services and State Attorneys General.

The issue in this case is whether the divorce court erred in increasing an ex-husband’s spousal support obligation by taking into account his VA disability payments as income for the purpose of determining his ability to pay.  While federal statutes provide that states cannot divide disability pay as marital property, the statute does not prevent a court from treating disability benefits as income in determining the spouse’s ability to pay, which is what the court did here.

The same analysis applied to the conditional withholding order.  The divorce court was not authorized to allocate any portion of the disability pay or to order conditional withholding or garnishment of disability benefits.  Entering the conditional withholding order, however, was harmless because there was no evidence that any of the ex-husband’s disability benefits had been withheld under the order.

The Law Court held that, except for a computational error in the modification order, the amount attributed to the husband in expenses was consistent with the figure that that Court used to determine his ability to pay spousal support.

Finally, because the ex-husband failed to provide a transcript of the contempt hearing, the Law Court assumed that the divorce court’s findings were supported by sufficient competent evidence in the record and found that the divorce court’s decision to leave the contempt finding in place after the ex-husband served a jail sentence was also supported by evidence.  Finally, the Law Court affirmed the order awarding the ex-wife attorney fees.

This case involves the issue of whether a landowner relocated or attempted to relocate an easement.  The plaintiff relied on the creation of a plan for a private way recorded in 2001 by a previous owner as a basis for arguing that the easement had been relocated.  The owners benefited by this plan were not notified of it.  The Law Court concluded that, in order for an easement’s relocation to have effect, it must actually be relocated on the face of the earth.  The recording of 2001 did not accomplish that because, although the easement owner did not need the consent of the dominant estate owner, the relocated easement had to be equally as convenient and beneficial as the previous one and that had not been shown by plaintiff.

Because the plaintiff had taken steps to improve the easement by cutting the grass and landscaping a 10-foot wide portion of it, as well as by building a fence alongside the easement and a stone wall alongside his driveway, there was a question as to whether these actions created an equally convenient easement.  The Court found that there were disputed material facts such as whether the modified easement could be accessed by vehicles and how wide the original easement was.  The existence of these issues precluded the entry of summary judgment against the plaintiff.

This is a protection from abuse case in which the District Court Judge, after allowing the ex-husband to cross-examine his ex-wife and her current husband as to allegations that he had found out where they lived and called his children there and asked them about where their rooms were, interrupted the ex-husband’s own testimony stating, “I’ve heard enough” and did not permit the ex-wife to cross-examine the ex-husband or to offer rebuttal testimony.  The District Court denied the protection request, finding that there was insufficient evidence that the defendant intended to place the children or their mother in fear of bodily injury.

The Law Court vacated the judgment on an obvious error standard. The Court concluded that it was not harmless error for the trial court to prevent the ex-wife from cross-examining and/or offering responsive testimony.

Noting that the trial court would have to interpret the statute on remand, the Law Court also pointed out that a petitioner was not required to prove intent to place a person in bodily fear as long as she could prove that there was an attempt to place another in fear, that he actually placed the other in fear of bodily injury, and that the fear was reasonable.  The Law Court suggested that the ex-husband’s conduct met these requirements and therefore that failing to prove that he intended to put his ex-wife in fear was not a sufficient basis for denying the petition.

The Law Court vacated the defendant’s OUI conviction made as a result of an OUI roadblock.  The Law Court concluded that the State had failed to carry its burden of establishing the reasonableness of the procedures.  The State presented evidence from which it could be found that the officers involved complied with the standard operating procedures for roadblocks established by the police department in question.  The only officer to testify was not a supervisor and, in fact, did not testify as to whether a supervisor was present, nor did he provide firsthand testimony as to the scope of discretion of the officer who was at the entrance to the roadblock in letting drivers through or stopping them.  In addition, there was no evidence as to whether the roadblock had been planned by officers with authority to do so or disclosed to the public before it occurred.  Moreover, the average length of each stop, three to five minutes, suggested more than a minimal intrusion of a motorist’s liberty interest.  The Court listed cases in which the safety checks were much briefer.