Allen v. Rae
| Decision Date | 11 April 2019 |
| Docket Number | Docket: Wal-18-267 |
| Citation | 206 A.3d 902 |
| Parties | Laurie ALLEN v. Mark RAE |
| Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Joseph W. Baiungo, Esq., Belfast, for appellant Mark Rae
Laurie Allen did not file a brief
Panel: ALEXANDER, MEAD, GORMAN, JABAR, HJELM, and HUMPHREY, JJ.
[¶1] Mark Rae appeals from a protection from harassment order entered against him in the District Court (Belfast, Sparaco, D.C.J. ) on the complaint of Laurie Allen. See 5 M.R.S. §§ 4652, 4655(1) (2018). Rae contends that the court erred in finding that he had committed "[t]hree or more acts" of harassment pursuant to 5 M.R.S. § 4651(2)(A) (2018). Although we agree that there were not three or more acts of harassment, we affirm the judgment because the facts as found by the court are sufficient to prove that Rae's actions constituted criminal mischief, which can stand alone as a "single act" of harassment. See 5 M.R.S. § 4651(2)(C) (2018) ;1 17-A M.R.S. § 806(1)(A) (2018).
[¶2] A trust controlled by Rae's family purchased property abutting Allen's home in Belfast. Thereafter, a boundary dispute arose between Rae and Allen. Both parties claim to own a strip of land approximately twenty-feet wide situated between Allen's yard and what is now a garage on the trust's property. Despite attempts to resolve the dispute, including numerous visits from local law enforcement, the strip of land remained, at the time of the hearing, a source of considerable tension between the parties.
[¶3] On April 24, 2018, Allen filed for a protection from harassment order pursuant to 5 M.R.S. § 4652, alleging that Rae had harassed her. On May 14, 2018, the court held a contested hearing and heard testimony from both parties. The court found that Allen's testimony was credible and that Rae's testimony was "not particularly credible."
[¶4] Allen testified that she parked her boat trailer on the disputed strip of land to guard against what she believed was Rae's unlawful claim to the property. Rae testified that he asked Allen to remove the boat multiple times so he could more conveniently move construction equipment onto his property; when Allen refused, Rae responded by saying, "if [the boat is] not gone by Sunday, I will move it for you." When Rae attempted to move the boat, he discovered that Allen had placed a boot lock on one of the tires of the boat trailer, rendering it immobile. Allen testified that she personally observed Rae "cut" and "slice" the valve stem off the boat trailer's tire. Rae denied cutting the valve stem but admitted he attempted to move the boat trailer.
[¶5] The court found, based on Allen's testimony, that Rae committed an act of "fear and intimidation" by cutting off a tire valve stem on Allen's boat trailer, which Allen parked in the disputed area, and that Rae did it "to be ... mean and harass [Allen] because of this dispute."2
[¶6] After the hearing, the District Court entered an order of protection from harassment in favor of Allen and against Rae for one year. See 5 M.R.S. § 4655(1), (2). The court made clear that it was not resolving the ownership of the disputed property or determining the boundary lines of the properties. Rae filed a motion for additional findings of fact and conclusions of law and a motion to amend the judgment; both motions were summarily denied. Rae timely appealed.
[¶7] "We review the trial court's findings of fact for clear error and will affirm those findings if there is competent evidence in the record to support them, even if the evidence might support alternative findings of fact." Preston v. Tracy , 2008 ME 34, ¶ 10, 942 A.2d 718 (quotation marks omitted). This deferential standard is "particularly appropriate" in actions for protection orders, "where the trial court's ability to observe the witnesses invariably plays a part in its assessment of the impact a particular person's words and actions had upon another person." Smith v. Hawthorne , 2002 ME 149, ¶ 16, 804 A.2d 1133. Although on appeal we cannot infer findings from the evidence in cases where, as here, a motion for further findings is denied, Douglas v. Douglas , 2012 ME 67, ¶ 27, 43 A.3d 965, the fact-finder may nevertheless have drawn reasonable inferences from circumstantial evidence presented at trial, such as whether the accused intended to harass, intimidate, or cause fear. See Cates v. Donahue, 2007 ME 38, ¶ 15, 916 A.2d 941.
[¶8] A court is authorized to grant a protection from harassment order based upon "a single act ... constituting a violation" of certain enumerated criminal offenses, including criminal mischief. 5 M.R.S. § 4651(2)(C) ; 17-A M.R.S. § 806. A person commits criminal mischief when he intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly damages, destroys, or tampers with the property of another "having no reasonable grounds to believe [he] has a right to do so." 17-A M.R.S. § 806(1)(A). In a protection from harassment proceeding, a court need only find that a person committed one of the enumerated statutory offenses by a preponderance of the evidence to make a finding of harassment under section 4651(2)(C). See Patane v. Brown, 2002 ME 47, ¶¶ 11, 14, 792 A.2d 1086.
[¶9] The court's findings, based on competent evidence in the record, are sufficient to establish the elements of criminal mischief. 17-A M.R.S. § 806(1)(A). Allen testified that she personally observed Rae "slice[ ] the valve off" and "cut it off to try and get the tire to go down so he could get the boot lock off." Although Rae denied damaging Allen's boat or attempting to cut the valve stem, he admitted that he attempted to move the boat but was unable to do so because of the boot lock. The court specifically found Allen's testimony credible and Rae's testimony not credible. Because a trial court is not bound to accept testimony and evidence as fact, and because determinations of the weight and credibility of testimony and evidence are "squarely in the province of the fact-finder," we will not second-guess the trial court's credibility assessment of conflicting testimony. Sloan v. Christianson , 2012 ME 72, ¶ 33, 43 A.3d 978. The court's finding is sufficient to establish that Rae damaged, destroyed, or tampered with Allen's property. 17-A M.R.S. § 806(1)(A).
[¶10] The court also found, again based on the record evidence, that Rae cut the valve stem to "try to resolve" the property dispute "through fear and intimidation" and to be "mean and harass [Allen] because of [the] dispute" over the property, establishing that Rae committed this act intentionally or knowingly. Id.
[¶11] Finally, Rae contends that, even if he damaged the boat while trying to remove it, he had "reasonable grounds to believe that [he] ha[d] the right to do so" because his actions in trying to stop what he believed was an ongoing criminal trespass by Allen against his property were "protected by law."3 17-A M.R.S. § 806(1)(A) ; 5 M.R.S. § 4651(2). Whether Rae harassed Allen does not turn on whether Rae had the right to remove Allen's boat from the property that he claims the trust owns, but rather on the manner in which he attempted to remove it. "[E]ven when an individual may have a legal right to do something, the manner in which a legal act is performed can constitute harassment." Cates, 2007 ME 38, ¶ 11, 916 A.2d 941 ; see also Patane, 2002 ME 47, ¶ 10, 792 A.2d 1086.
[¶12] Regardless of whether Rae had a valid property interest in the disputed strip of land,4 either personally or through the trust, his act of cutting the valve stem in an effort to remove the boat from the property qualifies as a single act of criminal mischief that constitutes an act of harassment. 17-A M.R.S. § 806(1)(A) ; 5 M.R.S. § 4651(2)(C). This dispute should have been resolved by a reasonable and rational conversation between Rae and Allen or by Rae seeking a declaratory judgment or other court-ordered remedy to establish title and ownership to the disputed strip of land.
The entry is:
Judgment affirmed.
[¶13] I agree with the Court's conclusion that the evidence presented at trial is sufficient to support a finding that Mark Rae had engaged in an act against Laurie Allen that rises to the level of "harassment," as the Legislature has defined that term, see 5 M.R.S. § 4651(2)(C) (2018). I also agree with the Court's conclusion that the evidence does not support the trial court's finding that Rae engaged in two additional acts of harassment. See 5 M.R.S. § 4651(2)(A) (2018). Although the trial court could have granted judgment for Allen and issued an order of protection from harassment against Rae on the basis of the single act of harassment, that is not why the court issued the order. For that reason, I respectfully dissent and would remand for the court to reconsider whether the order should issue based on the one act of harassment—namely, damaging a tire valve—that Allen proved at trial.
[¶14] Maine's statutes governing actions for protection from harassment vest the trial court with discretion in determining whether to issue a harassment order once harassment is proven. Pursuant to those statutes, if, after holding a hearing on the complaint for protection from harassment, the court finds that the plaintiff has proved that the defendant committed the harassment alleged, the court "may" issue a protection order. 5 M.R.S. §§ 4654(1), 4655(1) (2018). This plain language calls for the court to exercise its sound discretion in determining whether to issue a harassment order in those actions where the party seeking such an order has proved her case. See Fitzpatrick v. McCrary , 2018 ME 48, ¶ 16, 182 A.3d 737 ().
[¶15] Particularly in the context of harassment proceedings, such a grant of discretionary authority to the court is eminently sensible, and...
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