Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Live.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Welcome back to the Health Judiciary Committee this Thursday afternoon, February nineteenth, and we're going to continue our testimony on H-three 85, and we will welcome the network to Thank the you, Thomas, for being here.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Thank you for having me. If you will bear with me, I

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: have a slide deck today. Oh, a little

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: bit more.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: I know. I know.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: I mean business. You're always group because you're on the screen also. So I'll bring that up.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Think that was the quickest going to a slide deck that I've seen in this session so far. So I'm very impressed already.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Thank you very much.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: It's always this long thing. Wait, Nate, can you share back with me? So

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: just in the commentary, I've wasted as much time as it would take for you to have trouble getting to practice.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Harley Glisserman, Policy Director at the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Always a pleasure to be in the House Judiciary Committee and to testify in support of H-three 85. So I feel like y'all know a lot about the work that we do in our member programs. But one thing that I want to make sure you all know is that economic instability is one of the most significant barriers that our member programs see between a survivor of domestic violence and seeking safety. And we often talk about economic instability and protections in other committees, but we are here to talk about core set today. Staff in our member programs support survivors in accessing housing, benefits, financial literacy programs, and more. But there really is a gap where there is very little relief that a survivor can access. And that is when a survivor is forced into taking out debt by an abusive partner. This can be a profound economic impact that shapes a survivor's entire life. So I wanna zoom out a little bit, talk about the purpose of this bill, some of the thinking behind those definitions, and then I would be more than happy to zoom in and talk about some of the items in civil legal remedies, if that would be helpful. So the bottom line here is that we need comprehensive, clear and accessible protections for victims of protections will promote the safety of victims and the integrity of our financial system. We're very grateful to the Commerce Committee, Vice Chair Cranning, and this committee for your careful consideration of the bill. So coerced debt occurs in the context of an abusive relationship with a partner, a family member, household member, or caregiver, where a perpetrator uses power, control, and access within that personal relationship to facilitate coerced debt. Financial protections that consider that context are absolutely essential, because even with existing laws around identity theft or fraud, they're designed to address that kind of economic offense when it's committed by a stranger and not by a close family member or partner as a pattern of coercive control. So one example of that might be that abuse related identity theft is disproportionately affecting at risk youth, including foster youth, whose personally identifying information may be misused by a caregiver or a trusted adult without their knowledge. That harm may not be known until DCF conducts their credit check or the young person reaches adulthood and attempts to access credit for the first time. So all of these kind of instances are covered within the definitions of the bill. We discussed a bit the definition of economic, or excuse me, abuse that is referenced in the current definitions. And we feel comfortable with that statutory reference to the civil definition of abuse because it includes that coercive control language that will address a lot of the co occurring economic abuse that we see in domestic violence relationships, as well as the behaviors that result in a survivor taking on coerced death. So most survivors experience some form of economic abuse within their relationship that restricts their savings or restricts their ability to earn money. Many are very low income. So adding debt that is not theirs and that they cannot afford, survivors are really unable to leave an abusive partner and seek safety to meet their basic needs or the needs of their children and gain economic independence. When forced debts aren't paid because a survivor doesn't know the debt exists or the perpetrator doesn't pay on a post signed loan or a survivor cannot afford the debt, they face lifelong impacts to their credit that restricts their housing, their ability to further their education. It may restrict their employment in cases where a credit check is part of a job application. It also restricts their access to credit. They may be denied a loan or face higher interest rates. So working on this bill, I often think of two survivors that I have worked with and spoken with who have left abusive partners four and eleven years ago, and they are still saddled with significant forced debt that shapes their lives. So just quick contextualized examples of these stories.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Did you say court debt

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: or forced debt? Coerced. Coerced I know, it's a tricky one. So this first victim had been in a long term relationship with an abusive partner. Her partner physically threatened her unless she cosigned an auto loan. She was unable to use the vehicle because he restricted access to the keys. Her partner did not pay on the auto loan. Years after she left, she couldn't secure a loan to buy a home or make needed repairs to her home because her credit was so damaged. The survivor lives in unsafe housing conditions. She's had issues maintaining heat, repairing leaks in her roof because of her damaged credit.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Was she looking to buy a new home? Because she said she couldn't make repairs to her home but was restricted.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: She was trying to seek a living situation that would be safe and healthy for her, whether that was alone to repair her current home or to move, and she wasn't able to do either. Another victim of poor debt was in a relationship with an abusive partner where even after she left, he was intimidated into paying his living expenses on her credit card. In total, she estimates she was forced to take out over $15,000 in credit card debt. Among many sacrifices, she had to take out a high interest loan herself just to cover expenses for her and her children while paying off that course debt. These are really heartbreaking stories and speak to the need for relief. So I wanna walk through a little bit of But the process of this before that, I want to note two data points that reflect really important realities in survivors' lives and shaped how the process in this bill was outlined. So despite speaking to the Judiciary Committee here, one of the most important parts of this bill is that by default, it doesn't require a survivor or a creditor to go to court. A 2025 survey found that ninety nine percent of survivors found a barrier to disputing forced debt because they could not access or afford legal assistance. This aligns with testimony that we heard in House of Commerce from Vermont Legal Aid, where 94% of debtors do not have legal representation in debt collection processes. Statewide, you know, I'm sure, there is a significant need for more attorneys to support domestic violence survivors, and it is really critical that unless a claim of course debt is being challenged, that you don't have

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: to go to court.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Also found that ninety six percent of survivors found a risk of abuse or harassment as a barrier to disputing course that. And there was a recent case in Vermont where course that did proceed to domestic violence homicide. So measures to ensure survivor safety that are built in to this bill, including not being forced to name a perpetrator unless compelled by a court order, are critical. I will admit that I created this slide before I received the latest draft at noon. So please excuse any little disparities. But as the chair noted, I believe you aren't going to be digging into this process necessarily other than legal burdens. So I have comments on the revised process in this latest draft, but I will save them unless you're interested.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: So this is the process where the creditor the debtor, so it goes directly to the credit report? Yes. Yeah. Because that one is not that picks and does all sorts of stuff with the banks and not us. Agreed. So you can jump ahead of that.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: I'm happy to I do think that this process could potentially be important context for what happens before we get to legal action. So

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: long as we're not thinking deeply, then that's fine.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: I will be very high level.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Yeah, if you can help us understand how that moves into the civil penalty. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: So the first piece, step, is that victims of debt need to discover that there's a state law to help them. And it's an unfortunate reality that most survivors of forced debt will not get to step one. In the several states that have implemented forced debt protections, service providers are battling underutilization of the law. Still, for the few who can access it, it can change their lives. Next, a survivor needs to collect information for that core set statement, which is the first piece of their evidence. This could mean getting access to financial records that were restricted from them in an abusive relationship. It could mean getting a record of their credit history. And then they use the information to produce a written statement of forced debt, which is that narrative describing the circumstances that led to their forced debt and what that debt looks like. The victim at this point will disclose the name of the perpetrator unless they make a sworn statement saying that doing so, they believe doing so would risk their safety. The couple pieces of language in this bill, including that four step prohibited section, early on establishes a private right of action for the creditor to pursue payment from the perpetrator of forced debt, if they are named. They then secure that supporting documentation. So this can look like a police report, it can look like a court order, or a signed and sworn certification from a qualified third party, pains and penalties of perjury. And then if the creditor has a good faith basis to challenge that claim, they can do so in court. Of course, the debtor faces legal action and penalties as a result of producing any kind of fraudulent documentation. And I will note that the process and details of this bill, as you can imagine, based on your questions, are very important. They determine whether this measure is really protected for survivors or whether it's a protection in name only. And the reason why the legal burden is structured in this way is because there are massive resource and power imbalances that keep survivors trapped right now. It is critical that survivors do not have to proactively bring lawsuits to access relief because that is the status quo, and it doesn't happen. Survivors are not able to be relieved of that forced death. And it is also very likely that survivors may not have access to legal representation, whether they are proactively bringing a suit or whether they're defending themselves in court. And so I think those things are really important to keep in mind, along with the fact that many survivors of economic abuse have their financial information restricted from them during an abusive relationship. And even just accessing the documentation or credit history or their own accounts can be a real hurdle for survivors. So seven states have four step laws, and we have the benefit from learning from them in how they structure relief and what to expect. As I noted, some states report underutilization of their laws. Some states more recently enacted don't have sufficient data to recognize the long term impact. But notably, conversations with advocates in multiple states and national experts surface no reports of overuse, of fraud, or negative impacts on financial institutions because of poor debt relief. I have one illustrative example up on the slide here from Texas, which has a pretty strong court's debt law. There was a pilot program where a direct services program in Texas received a grant in the Dallas Fort Worth region. It serves approximately 8,000,000 people, so it's roughly 12 times the population of Vermont. And that program trained domestic violence advocates and attorneys to screen for forced debt and support survivors who were eligible in accessing relief. Over that year and a half pilot, so we even got to the point where we had resources to train people and screen people. They got 111 referrals. Thirty eight percent of those referrals were identified as four step possible, and they ultimately provided services to 19 survivors to move them through the four step relief process. The majority of those four steps were relatively modest, under $3,000 to $4,000 So I think the takeaway here is that these laws are not going to be used frequently. Even the most accessible core debt relief process is realistically not going to be accessible for many survivors. For the survivors who can access it, it can be transformative. And it's important to keep that in mind when thinking through the legal burden and process for how this bill will unfold in survivors. The foundation of Vermont's bill is a National Consumer Law Center model bill that was produced in 2024 because they had an interest in supporting a uniform process across the states that were moving forward with core stat relief. And there are other states like Kansas who right now are looking at core stat laws and discussing very similar language. If you're interested, I would certainly encourage you to hear from some consumer law experts, either at the National Consumer Law Center or Vermont Legal Aid. The last thing I wanna note before I answer any questions is a letter that I submitted as written testimony that was sent to House Commerce earlier this session, signed by 33 Vermont organizations in support of passing this stuff. The signers include advocates for older adults, community action agencies, victim services organizations. And it really recognizes the way in which forced debt impacts survivors of abuse in so many areas of their lives, and that we need a strong support and mechanism to address that harm. So thank you again for the opportunity to provide testimony today, and I would be happy to answer any questions.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Questions?

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Okay to proceed? Charlie, I'm wondering if you I'm looking at page 17, lines five through eight. Mhmm. I'm just wondering if you see any Do you have any concerns, if the network has any concerns about this potential for predators to pursue action against a perpetrator if they are able to learn the perpetrator's identity? I'm just thinking about how that ticks off. Could very well tip-off the perpetrator and lead to a deprivation.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Absolutely. When you noted that question, I thought it was a really great question. My understanding as this language was drafted is that this would only be applicable when a victim discloses the name of the perpetrator, either because they offer it and it feels like a safe option for them, or they're compelled to by a court order. And that I share the same concern that you do and would be interested. I think Maria said that she was going to look into that and follow-up. If there are ways to clarify that, I would certainly appreciate it. There are a lot of safeguards within this law to protect survivors. It would be really unfortunate if that loophole exposed them to risk.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: So something like, I don't know, even just what action by a plaintiff against a perpetrator, of course, but something about if the identity of the perpetrator was either disclosed. It says discovered, and I don't know if that's linked to the discovery process or just discovery, the general definition. So even the use of that word makes me think that this is permission for the creditors to look for it, to try to discover who the perpetrator was. So yeah, I'm really interested in adding some clarifying language there.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: So what kind of clarifying language are

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: you Well, like Charlie was saying, if this only applies in cases where the identity of the perpetrator has either been voluntarily revealed or was compelled through court order, then okay. But if the identity of the perpetrator was withheld throughout the proceeding, and then you get to the end, everything is resolved between the creditor and the survivor, and then the creditor takes it upon themselves to go find the perpetrator and reach out to them to get their money. That seems really So

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: the word discovered suggests actions, and maybe we can hear from the judge if that's a term of art or if we should say learned of instead or something. Yeah. It's okay. No. I just don't

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: know if the intent here was to say, once it's all resolved, then all bets are off and a creditor can go and try to figure out who owes the money and try to get it from them. So I wanna make sure I hear you give

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: me the right action. I get it. There's plenty of stuff to say about. Yeah, but I also think yeah, I don't think there's any prohibition on the independent action of the federal court.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: And I would say, given the sensitive nature of the case, presumably if it is a documented case of abuse, then all the work up to this point to be so careful feels like it could be for naught if there's retaliation.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Right, so I guess the one thing I'd say is that if the court, if they don't provide the perpetrator's name and therefore have to go to court to get it released and the court denies that order, would there be some penalty or something against an entity that despite the order saying, I am not believing this property saying, that they've gone ahead and discovered that a constraint of that order or something. So that's a question for Judge Olay, if you So are we making it illegal for somebody to to force debt onto somebody with this bill? Not illegal as far as a criminal offense, you know, civil or anything. To me, it doesn't make sense because at some point, the court has determined somebody have done something wrong. I mean, that's kind of what we're saying in the bill. But don't worry. We can't tell you who. But but if you want your money, you gotta find out who it is somehow. And it it just seems like I don't know. To me, seems like there needs to be a penalty on this person so the name can be disclosed and and and that there needs to be an order that you need to pay this money back to the creditor. I think it's set up I mean, think it is set up that way. Yeah. But who's gonna pay it? We don't know who they are. Well Unless unless the the bankers do their investigative work to find out. Right? Well, unless the court orders that name of the book trade has turned over. But they don't have to, necessarily, on all occasions. If the court deems that something has been done, they don't have to say who the who the person was. To me, if if it's deemed that somebody has done something, they they need to be held accountable because there's a chance they might not be held accountable if they can't be found. Could you explain again why? What's the sensitivity of not turning over the pivot thing?

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: So I do want to note at the top of page seven, there is this language around how a court stat is prohibited. And that's what results in that private right of action so that there are these safeguards built into the bill so that if a victim comes forward, they can maintain their physical safety. And beyond that, a creditor has all legal remedies available to them to go after the perpetrator.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: If they don't know who it is.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: If the survivor makes a sworn statement that doing so would risk their safety, yes. And of course, a court can compel them to release the name of the perpetrator. But those kinds of procedural safeguards, in some form or another, are built into every force debt relief law is the books that I know of. The Department of Financial Regulation did a really great off session report on force debt, which I'm not sure if you have it, but I'm happy to submit it to Nate. It goes through some of these safeguards that are just really important for a survivor's safety. There are also some laws in other states that in addition to liability for the course debt, the perpetrator is also liable to the former debtor for the payments that they've made on the debt. So that's another layer of accountability. And then if there's interest in adding language like a perpetrator who is identified as responsible for, say, like a creditor's legal fees or fees related to repossession of collateral.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: You know,

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: I'm certainly not opposed to that.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: No. This is a good education for me. So, if everything lines up then, and nobody knows who the perpetrator is, and it's been deemed something, you know, of course that has been done, then the whole burden is put on the financial institution to to get their money back when they basically did nothing wrong except put legal papers in front of somebody to sign?

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: So the burden is first on the survivor of violence who is saddled with this debt in the first place. First. So they do. They have to collect all their records. They have to submit documentation.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Once the case is all done, not not building the case. And once the case is all done and it's deemed that the yes. The survivor has the debt. Yes. It was coerced. Mhmm. And, you know, I mean, the court the trial is all done, and and everything is you know, all the findings are that, yes, there is somebody who coerced debt Mhmm. But we don't know who it is. So then I'm assuming all the burden is put on the financial institution to do whatever they have to do to get their money back when they did nothing wrong except give somebody a loan that came in and qualified for one? So the

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: burden shifting, I think, is really most relevant to the relationship between the creditor and the victim, not the creditor and the taxpayer.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: To me, and I don't mean to be brashy at all. To me, it's a yes or no question at the end, does the burden go on to the financial institution?

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: The financial institution has options about how they want to respond here. And so there are many cases, I'm assuming, and I'm sure Chris can speak to that, where it might make sense to write off the debt, which is something that financial institutions But that's

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: putting the burden on that.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: And there are also options to pursue the perpetrator of forced debt. I think

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: that financial institution has to do.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: That, yes, they will bring a lawsuit. And I will note that when we're thinking about what is possible as far as resources and access to legal representation, a creditor bringing a proactive lawsuit versus a victim of domestic violence being a proactive lawsuit. These are really different situations. And right now, without this relief, the option for a victim that is to get their resources back to access relief, their most fair option.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Understand all that. I did get my answer. Thank you. Blame Angela because when she was speaking, she she kinda made that come up. But but, anyway, that wasn't even my original question.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Answer that then also? I think she has that. I think they have that burden now too, though.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Yeah. If

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: they Even without course even without this bill Yeah. Any any lending institution has the assumes the risk of what you know, whatever. That's why we go through so many hoops to, like, get a loan and everything. They're assuming the risk to re to collect their money.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: From the person who signed the loan. Yeah. Yeah. And they would have Right. So this is this isn't the person that signed the loan. This is somebody that's found guilty of coercion.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: And they might be a party to the loan.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Well, yeah. Yeah.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: There's But, yeah. Fairies. Hear I hear what you're saying, Ian. I think they have that burden now.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Anyway, my original question is, seven or eight years ago, we and and Chris may remember, we passed a law around social security numbers that people could have their social security numbers sealed. So, they couldn't be used on for getting loans, cell phones, apartments, that type of thing. But if I remember right, you have to request to have your social security number sealed. And and the reasoning behind it was I had a constituent whose foster daughter went to get a loan and found out she was, like, $200,000 in debt because her parents used her Social Security number and put her in debt. So, potentially and probably that that parent did it because they were in dire straits, you know, and and and didn't have the money to start and, you know, and and needed to do it just to just to get by. That case wasn't it because they bought a house too. So anyway, I I guess what would what would the network's job be? Because potentially, you'd have a a child who's a victim to a perpetrator, who is the parent, who's a victim with a perpetrator on a coarse loan. Mhmm. So would would that make it a a a kind of a sticky situation working with with potentially with a child and a parent against each other? And with a parent with a person who coerced a loan from them? And I don't think that's too far fetched of a scenario.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: If I'm following you, this circumstance, it would be abuse related. So that is economic abuse within a household relationship, so that would fall under the definition of abuse here even if the person is a youth. That would be unauthorized use of a debtor's personal information, that debtor being the child. And so that's how they would get access to relief here. And I think that process would move forward through this course debt claim as any other one would, and they could access if they needed support through an advocate or through an attorney. That child could access it with us, or they could access it with another source.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Right. So, potentially, could you be working with the child against the parent and the parent against a person who cored so long?

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: I I don't know if if I'm understanding 100%, but would just note that our legal clinic, so for example, it would be inappropriate for them to have that kind of conflict within their practice. And one other piece on your first question that I wanted to note is that I think these kinds of questions are exactly why this committee should hear from people who practice in consumer law, which is not me, who can talk about really how these burdens play out, what these cases look like, and compare it to the status quo.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: And even what's in my mind is this question for

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: always happy to give it a

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: shot. Thank you.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Oh yeah, so thank you very much, Charlie. Very quickly, the qualified third party professionals, so page three. So, are you hoping or anticipate that in your member organizations, somebody in those groups will be one of those qualified third party professionals?

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Yes. So we would fall under the definition of a crisis worker.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Okay. And so you feel good about the definition here that you're captured fully and that doesn't

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: need to be changed at all?

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Yes. I think that there were definitely some policy decisions that were made by House Commerce that resulted in this exact language. But ultimately, we feel pretty comfortable with what we have here.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Okay. Great. And then my only question was the so the the part that we're

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: really looking at this civil proceeding, is this language kind of borrowed from one of those other states' bills?

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: I think if Maria's still here, she might be the better person to speak to that. I do know the source of just about every other piece of language beyond the civil legal remedy section. With the exception of the prima facie case language, that was from the NCLC model initially and has been preserved throughout this process.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Did you want to respond to that, Maria?

[Maria Royle (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, I have to go back and look more specifically because there were pieces taken from different plots, and there was some initial language put forward and then it was worked on and find a little bit. But I don't other than the statute of limitations, I think that's pretty distinct to Vermont and not aware of any others that were quite so explicit wrong. Usually it's written as not crime efficient case, but it's an affirmative defense, which a debtor would carry burden for. So there are some differences like that.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Yeah, great. Any other questions for Charlie? All right, not seeing any, we'll go to Judge Dolan. You very much. Thank you, you. We have a time limit, am I correct? Five minutes. We'll see you on the left. Maybe we'll be a few minutes. That just helps me get my focus.

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: Thomas, I'm the Chief Superior Judge. Good afternoon. Took a look at it. My understanding is your committee is really focused on more of the definitions and the civil action. I focused on that. On page two, where it discusses what a coerced debt is, lines 14 through 16 says, was not subject to either a default judgment or to a final judgment in an action in which the court adjudicated the issue of coerced debt. I just want you to understand that what that means is if there is a pending lawsuit and there is a pending motion for default judgment, it would seem to fall under the definition of course debt because it's not subject to a default judgment, none has been issued. So, lack of clarity really is what's happening for cases that are pending. Under this, something's pending, it means it's a coerced debt. Still, it's not excluded. I'm not understanding that. Of course, that means all or a portion of secured or unsecured debts earlier, it talks about down below line 14 was not subject to either default judgment or to a final judgment in an action in which the court adjudicated the issue of course debt on the merits. So what it says is, if you have a course debt, however, there's a default judgment that's been entered, or there's been a decision on the merits, that's not a course debt. Okay? What I'm saying is, there's a category that is of cases that are pending where someone's trying to collect that are not yet a final judgment and are not yet a default judgment. And under this definition, they still would be subject to, they still would be a coerced debt. So just so you understand, that's the policy decision you're making. Again, the trial could be the next day. And if the court's dead, if that's alleged, then there you go. So are you saying that should An option is that it was not subject to a pending If that's a policy decision. But a pending action that considers the issue of court's debt. Mean, we don't have to say default judgment or final judgment. We just say a pending action. That could make it clearer that if there's something pending, you don't want to interfere with it. But you may also want to.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: I feel like alternatively, maybe the whole point here is suddenly a bank is trying to default on you, and you're like, oh my god, I didn't even know about this debt,

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: or this debt was not It's like the wake up moment. Now, oh my gosh, this is coarse. I need to exercise these protections. That's correct. That's a policy decision. On page three, where it talks about qualified third party professional on line 16 and defines that individual. Is page one. Page three. What I tried to do is I tried to look at these bills and say, okay, what do I anticipate will be litigation issues that you might be able to clear up? Just so you know, as a policy, this would allow brother, sister, current partner of these debtor to write it. There's no restriction on someone having a close personal relationship, indeed being married to the individual to write it. That's a policy decision. But that's pretty clearly the kind of thing. There's nothing here that provides that mechanism for a conflict to be the judge to say, Well, that's a conflict. For the parties to understand that upfront. So would the solution be that they're not allowed to use personal ties or or having writing engineer some sort of provision that allows the court to weigh in on? I think it's clear for the individuals who are asserting that the debt is coerced to understand what the limits are to someone who would be filing that on their behalf so that when they go into the process, they go in with their eyes open and that the judge doesn't just suddenly say, Oh, you know what? I wanna look at this aspect. And the person says, I didn't know. So, like the idea of putting some language that tries to identify without a conflict of interest, however you want to put something together. The issues that you were talking about before, I'll try to hit them quickly. On page 16, it talks about, quite a bit of discussion about this, with the identity of the debtor, I'm sorry, the perpetrator. That is correct. What would happen is, if they're not identified by the debtor, and the debtor establishes that there is a threat of harm, the safety issue, the debtor is not responsible for identifying the perpetrator. If the court finds it's a coerced debt, the creditor can come to court and say, Judge, we have no idea who it is. Can you direct the individual to tell us the debtor? And so the court would then be faced with deciding, if you will, okay, the safety issues here and have to, I think, delve into the safety issues to understand because you have a contractual relationship and the creditor has a right generally to try to collect. But if they don't know who the person is, the right that is established for them to collect is really an illusory right. And so the court has to be balancing that. But I wanna be very clear that when the court looks at this, there's no guidelines. It looks like it's essentially safety, maybe against money. In other words, if a $50 debt, is the judge going to disclose? The judge said, No. If it's a million dollar debt, maybe the judge would So there's a lot of gray there. What we count on judges for. And I have no problem with that.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Just make sure, Judge, are you referring You said page 16, is this that subsection D?

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: It's on subsection C, the top part.

[Harley Glisserman (Policy Director, Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence)]: Okay.

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: Oh yeah. Then we get to, you jumped ahead. I did. Subsection D. It said the presiding court shall take reasonable and appropriate measures to protect the debtor. That's an undefined term. There is no guidance to the courts at all. We address the cases before us and we don't take the active role to decide what steps need to be taken for that. So that would need, I think, have some standards for judges to apply. Further down on line 10, it talks about including sealing records. There are constitutional interests to seeing public records. We have public access to court records rule nine that talks about sealing. This seems to create a new ceiling that's almost absolute without reference to the balancing of interests that the judge and the court would generally utilize under public access rule nine. And so perhaps you could look at it and make a request after hearing. If you wanna set standards for ceiling, then again, we already have them in rule nine. I point that out because right now it doesn't give us any guidance. On page 17. So let me just back up here one second on that. So when you say standards for judges to apply as far as a reasonable appropriate measures to protect the debtor, I mean, are there standards or is that just something the courts have been getting into? We have to decide what someone is asking. Someone has to have a request for relief that is justified or prohibited under a statute for us to grant relief. Then we have to take the facts and determine whether or not we're going to grant that relief. Don't, judges generally don't say, well, don't worry about it, I'll decide. This is more of a don't worry about it, I'll decide what the protections are and it puts a burden on the courts to take affirmative action. That shifts the balance because the court's role is to be neutral and detached and determined based upon the information it receives. The debtor should be presumably making a request of the court for some sort of relief there. And there should be some standard for what does the legislature in enacting this provision want the court to consider when it's going to have this request? If the debtor says we need protection, we have, for instance, how much effort has the legislature put in even over the past few years to really specifically define under Title 15, Section eleven oh three, eleven oh four, what authority judges have for temporary orders, what authority judges have for final orders of the legal and abuse. This essentially is asking a judge to take measures, but we don't know if it falls under stalking, under Title 12 for our authority, Title 15. So the court has no guidance as to what our umbrella of authority is for implementing measures. So I guess this would be a question back to the network problem is, aren't these the kind of protections one would seek an RFA? It's like a separate process. I mean, you're looking for a stay away order or do we kind of tie this into that? I mean, with that RFA, If a little you want to create a separate standard and a separate statutory framework that identifies what the authority of the court is to issue an order under these cases, you can do that. Otherwise, you have an existing framework under relief from abuse and stalking cases that tells us what our authority is between these two parties. And so, if someone says, I have a poorest debt, and they prove it, and they feel there's a risk of harm because they just did this, and they advanced this position, they can also seek a relief from abuse. I don't know if it will be granted or not, but they can seek that protection if there's an immediate threat. And we have coercion as part of our abuse. It's like, okay. As you indicated earlier, eleven oh one(one). It is already there. Then there's a question on page 17, lines five through eight talk about the statute of limitations for going after the creditor against a perpetrator. And generally under the law, the word discover is a term of art for purposes of statute of limitations. And so, the word discovered is okay here. Because that's what we understand. It's not learned of it when we have type, it's discovered, knew or should have known. The one thing that's interesting here is, I think, Representative Goodnow mentioned it, and that was, would it be helpful to have a more specific date and avoid the argument of when did they learn or when should they learn? For instance, if it's an action by a creditor against a perpetrator of recourse debt, one way you could handle it is that the deadline or the date that the statute of limitations begins is the date that the creditor under Section 2495C D1 acknowledges that it's a coerced debt. That's an affirmative date that they would have records of when they send it out. Or the date that the court establishes that it's the court's day. Those are two definitive timelines that don't give rise, if you will, to argument necessarily about what you should have learned earlier. It's, we're giving you six years from one of those two dates. What was the first date? The first date I thought you might look at is under 2495 CD1, which is on page eight lines 20 through 21, I believe. When the creditor sends out the letter, the communication notification indicating, yes, we agree, it's a forced debt.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: And the other is the court order from the year,

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: which is- Yeah, or a judge finding it as based on the hearing. And my final point is under confidentiality, under F, what I understand, the page lines 16 through 21 on page 17, what I understand is that that is intended to be the personal identifying information of the debtor. The only question I have is if the creditor was going to use that to try to locate the perpetrator, and they use a third party entity, they would not be able to do that because they cannot disclose it to anyone.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Rachel. And so that would include a Google search, right?

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: No, Google search, they can go online because if they're sitting at the computer, they're not disclosing it to anyone. They're disclosing it to Google. I agree, but I don't know that Google has is related to a claim, it's shared. Shall not be disclosed without. That is a great legal question.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Is I can solve it right here now. I I kid you not.

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: Yeah. So the the the question presented

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: you know about data collection? They are absolutely disclosing that information.

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: The question presented on the appeal would be, is a search, is a creditor's uploading of information into a chat GPT search to locate a potential debtor a disclosure of the information. It is. 2026, are in a time where those types of questions are going to have to be answered by course at some point.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: I answered it. I

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: have one other question.

[Angela Arsenault (Member)]: Well, yeah, that was one of my questions. But also, I read that the same way as though Okay. But I'm still As you read page 17, lines five through eight, am I correct in Are you reading it to say whether the perpetrator's name was disclosed or not, whether the court compelled the debtor, the ES debtor to disclose the perpetrator's name at some point or not, the creditor is allowed to seek it out. I'm trying to get Yes.

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: Yes. See nothing here that seems to prohibit the creditor from performing their own search. So that was gonna be kind of my question is if they've asked for the perpetrator's name and the court orders were declined, does not grant the order to require the release of perpetrator's name. That's on page 16, subsection see, would there be any ramifications if the creditor went ahead and on its own trying to figure out who the perpetrator was? It doesn't appear. This does not appear to divest the creditor. You're just not ordering the debtor. Right. If there's a safety issue and the court concludes that that safety issue is such that it does not believe on the balance that it should order that individual to provide that name. They would not have to provide that name under the statute. And that does not say that the creditor cannot go out and do their own investigation to find the individual and bring such actions under the statute as it wishes.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: And on that, can the court grant a creditor a right of action against a perpetrator and then tell them that they can't look for it?

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: Well, it's not the court granting the right of action. It's the legislature. Well,

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: I just meant in this court finding. If the court finds that that was coursed, then the creditor shall have a cause of action against the perpetrator. Correct. At that time, so what I'm asking is just like, so yeah, so there's a court order. It's forced debt. You've got this right of action now, creditor. But because the victim doesn't want this disclosed, I'm now saying, actually, you can't look for this.

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: So the only thing I differ a little bit on, the legislature, you establish here what the The cause of action court's critical finding is whether or not it's a coerced debt. If we find it's a coerced debt, the legislature has established that the person can go to try to collect it. What you point out is that when they could try to collect it, they then say, well, we don't know the name. And the judge says, That's the statute. Well, said, Then we wanna have the debtor tell us what the name is. And then the court has to look and see, has the debtor established the safety concerns? If they don't file the affidavit that Charlie talked about and that information, then it would be able to be disclosed. That the court could say, Yes, you haven't filed a proper You haven't met the threshold to prevent disclosures. But if the threshold was met and the court doesn't order it, the end result, as you've said, is the legislature has granted a right to somebody, yes, you can collect the debt. But within that right is a finding by the court that essentially takes it down a different road and would prevent them from finding out who the person is.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: From better. But could the legislature ask the court or allow the court to prevent the creditor from seeking that information anywhere?

[Hon. Thomas Zonay (Chief Superior Judge of Vermont)]: That would be a policy decision. Okay, so we could though. Well, policy decision, bills like this obviously are gonna find their way into court. So I am reticent to say you can do it because I don't want anyone to construe that as saying that I'm prejudging it or making a legal determination. If the legislature did that, certainly like many bills, there may be challenges on what rights are their vested contractual rights constitutionally? Can you take away a vested right retroactively, things like that? They're gonna be the challenges that you're gonna be most likely seeing arise in this case. And so my final point is there will be an impact on the courts depending on how many cases. If there's a lot of cases, it could be a large impact. If there's not a lot of cases, it wouldn't be that great an impact. Hard to know. We sat here a couple of years ago talking about coercive control. Doesn't seem to be overwhelming, you guys. You have not heard me come in and say that we have been overwhelmed with cases. It seems to have been something that is where the courts are able to address the claims when they're brought in. And so we just can't, we don't know. Appreciate that. Thank you very much. We'll go to Chris Neillia next. Chris, you could join us online there.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: Good to see you. Thank you for your patience and thank you for the excuse to not rush to the floor that you're here.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Well, so are you gonna come back to this issue? Because I see fewer of your committee members sitting at the table and you are fifteen minutes late for the floor.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: That's true. So I'm going to ask them to take a look at the YouTube of you and if we need to have you back if their questions aren't answered, then we'll have Unless you you're available tomorrow morning.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Sure. I can be available tomorrow morning, but I feel like I'm being a bit shortchanged.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: No, what I'm Well, we can do it tomorrow morning. That'd be fine. Let's schedule you for It won't be immediately after the floor because we have a couple other things going on. But I think from what I can tell, the floor is going to be pretty short unless people have forty minutes worth of announcements. We should be done by ten. So we're talking around 10:30, something like that. Sure. Let's do that instead then. But you've heard all the other testimonials. So thanks for having come in with us. Very good. All right. Thanks a lot. We'll see you tomorrow morning.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Thank you.

[Ian Goodnow (Member; acting as chair)]: All right. Bye. All right. We are adjourned until tomorrow morning.