Vasseur v. State, 2020-183

• Citation: 2021 VT 53
• Case Date: July 16, 2021
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Vermont

2021 VT 53

Kaleb Vasseur
v.
State of Vermont

No. 2020-183

Supreme Court of Vermont

January Term, 2021
July 16, 2021

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions by email at: JUD.Reporter@vermont.gov or by mail at: Vermont Supreme Court, 109 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05609-0801, of any errors in order that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.

On Appeal from Superior Court, Washington Unit, Civil Division

Timothy B. Tomasi, J.

Neil L. Nussbaum, Law Offices of Neil L. Nussbaum, Moretown, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Thomas J. Donovan, Jr., Attorney General, and David Boyd and Rachel Smith, Assistant Attorneys General, Montpelier, for Defendant-Appellee.

PRESENT: Reiber, C.J., Robinson, Eaton, Carroll and Cohen, JJ.

¶ 1. COHEN, J. Plaintiff Kaleb Vasseur, an elementary school student in Fayston, Vermont, filed an action in the superior court arguing that the way his school district elects its school board members violates the Vermont Constitution. The court dismissed the complaint for lack of constitutional standing. Plaintiff now appeals the court's order that denied his motion to amend the complaint because the proposed amended complaint also failed to satisfy the standing requirement. We affirm.

¶ 2. In Brigham v. State, this Court held that under the Education and Common Benefits Clauses of the Vermont Constitution, Vt. Const. ch. I, art. 7, ch. II, § 68, Vermont children have a fundamental right to education and a right to equal educational opportunities regardless of where

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they reside in the state. 166 Vt. 246, 263, 268, 692 A.2d 384, 394, 397 (1997). Based on Brigham, plaintiff filed a complaint in the superior court alleging that the way in which Act 46 of 2015 allows eighteen school districts in the state to vote for members of the school board deprives children living in rural areas within those districts of equal educational opportunities under the Vermont Constitution. More specifically, plaintiff claimed that Act 46 allows his school district to adopt an electoral system in which each town within the district elects a certain number of school board members and those members' votes are weighted according to the town's population. Thus, his rural town of Fayston, with 10.5 percent of his school district's population, was allotted 10.5 percent of the votes in the school board, in contrast to Waterbury, which was four times more populous and accordingly had greater voting power in the school board. Meanwhile, plaintiff observed that other school districts in the state have adopted "at-large" voting systems, in which all the voting residents of the district vote for, and are represented by, a given number of school board members. Plaintiff thus asked the court to invalidate Act 46 and dissolve the eighteen unconstitutional school boards he identified.

¶ 3. The superior court granted the State's motion to dismiss under Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), concluding that plaintiff lacked constitutional standing because, assuming there was an injury, he had not shown that the State caused the injury. The court observed that while Act 46 sought to achieve consolidation of school districts, it did not compel a district to choose any particular electoral system to elect its school board.

¶ 4. Plaintiff then filed motions to reconsider and amend the complaint, attaching a second amended complaint. In this amended complaint, plaintiff made the same substantive claim but added that "[s]ome Vermont towns with comparatively low populations have been rendered too weak to provide an adequate education to Vermont's schoolchildren that reside in their towns" and that "[c]omparatively low school board representation causes comparatively diminished

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educational opportunities for the students living in the affected towns." He further maintained that school districts cannot consolidate without approval from the Vermont State Board of Education and that the State caused the alleged injury when the Board approved the formation of his school district with the challenged electoral system.

¶ 5. The court denied the motions, holding that the new complaint also failed to allege that the State caused plaintiff's injury. It concluded that because the new complaint did not satisfy the standing requirement, allowing plaintiff to amend the complaint would be futile.

¶ 6. Plaintiff appeals from that ruling, arguing that the superior court abused its discretion in denying his motion to amend the complaint. He argues that he cured the standing defect in his first complaint by alleging in his second that the Board of Education caused the alleged injury by approving the formation of his school district. Plaintiff further maintains that the amended complaint alleges an injury because it is unfair to allow the residents of more populous towns to have more voting power in a school board. As an example of injury, he alleges for the first time in his reply brief that his school board adopted a motion to "continue exploration and development of a . . . plan . . . that includes closing Fayston Elementary School," which he attends. From this, we are asked to infer that the school board is exploring this action because Fayston voters have less voting power in the school board than other towns in the district and that if this action is taken, he will be subject to unequal educational opportunities.¹

¶ 7. "Under the rules of civil procedure, leave to amend the complaint 'shall be freely given when justice so requires,' " and we adhere to a tradition of liberally allowing amendments to pleadings when opposing parties will not be prejudiced. Colby v. Umbrella, Inc., 2008 VT 20, ¶ 4, 184 Vt. 1, 955 A.2d 1082...