Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That would have been good. We are live. All right, welcome back to the House Judiciary Committee this Tuesday afternoon, March, I think I've been saying February this morning, wasn't it? March 10. And we're going to now look at H-six 29 and we have, it's a two page bill. It's not the ads introduced, it's one that has some slight changes to the language. We'll have

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: a walk through by Michelle.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you for being here, Michelle. Thank you. So for the record, Michelle Childs, Office of Legislative Counsel. And I'm just going to give you a quick little overview of this because you've got some great witnesses that are much more knowledgeable and practicing specifically in this area, and the proposal came from them. But just a little set the stage here. So we're talking about statute of limitations. And you guys have actually worked a lot on statute of limitations this year, on some earlier bills. So we know that judgments aren't forever. So if a judgment is not renewed before the statute of limitations expires, then the debtor no longer is legally obligated to pay back or make amends to the creditor. Statute of limitations are there to make sure that there's legal certainty for the litigants, to prevent the enforcement of stale claims and protect defendants from essentially not having these things like the specter of litigation going on forever. So Vermont has a statute of limitations which applies to judgment. So we're looking in Title 12 and court procedure. This is not usually I don't usually I've been working more in Title 12 this year than I ever have actually in all my years here. So usually Eric works on these, but we're doing a little bit of divvying up. Since I do typically do family law, I'm working on this one. So you'll see in the language that you have, it's amending Title 12, Section five zero six, and this has to do with statute of limitations actions on judgments and actions for the renewal or revival of a judgment have to be brought. And you'll see the new language just clarifying this, brought in the civil division of the Superior Court by filing a new and independent action on the judgment within eight years after the rendition of the judgment. So there's an eight year statute of limitations. Remember, the general default is six years in civil litigation, but this is eight years. So essentially, if you do not file for renewal of the judgment within eight years, then it's done. I want to note, and I think probably some of the witnesses might mention it, is that so this second, 12 BSA five zero six, was amended, I think, in 2010. For those of you who were here then, you might Not really.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: It's laughing for me. I

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: think it was 2010, to double check. But it was when Maxine was chair, and there was a bill on mediation and foreclosure proceedings. And so in that bill, there was kind of buried down a little bit there. There was a change to this section on Section five zero six that required, and I have a copy of that, and I can send it to Nate if anybody wants a link or whatever. But there was a provision in Section eight that amended it by requiring this new filing of a new independent action on the judgment. So that was somewhat new. And so there was a court decision in 2020, Blake v. Petrie, not quite sure how to Blake say v. Petrie. Petrie, Okay. They were considering this issue around how family court judgments work with five zero six. And I think the witnesses can talk to you about how family practitioners have been operating under the family rules for basically enforcement of a judgment, so thinking about some judgment for money or for property, things like that. And essentially, the court said that for these family court decisions that they also had, they call under this provision of subsection A, and there had to be a new independent action filed. So what that essentially does is it means that, let's say you're in family court, in divorce proceedings, you're figuring out child support and parental rights and responsibilities and all this other stuff. And then under this and the interpretation of the court is you have to go over here to civil division to deal with if you have to renew a judgment for money or for property, which you can understand. And I think the witnesses will talk to you about why that isn't necessarily in the best interest of litigants, especially because when you're in the family division, you're dealing with a lot of pro se litigants. And why not have everything in one division? Actually, because I always really like when the court speaks directly to you and says, hey, do you guys want to take a look at this? And so Justice Robinson wrote a concurrence in that case, and I did provide the link to Nate, so I think it's up on your website. And I'm just going to read that. Is that application of the requirement to divorce orders gives rise to unnecessary confusion and costs for divorce litigants who may be forced to simultaneously litigate some post judgment issues in the family division and others in the civil division, and it imposes additional burdens on the court system. Amending five zero six so that a motion to enforce a property judgment in the family division pursuant to the family rules can serve to renew the judgment for purposes of the statute and would not undermine the goals of the statute. For these reasons, I urge the legislature to revisit this statute. So I think that's why folks are here today asking for these changes. So looking at the language that you have, and the highlighted language just shows little tweaks that were recommended, again, by the folks who were working on this with the VBA that were not in the bill as introduced. But things are moving fast this week, so I wanted to get you this language now for your consideration rather than them proposing and me have to do a new draft come back another day. So if you see subsection A is just the existing language, just clarifying, adding in there that it's in the civil division of superior court, then B is a notwithstanding A. And so that says that the family division has exclusive jurisdiction over actions on judgments that are issued by the family division. And then you have a number of subdivisions there that provide some framework and detail for that. Subdivision one provides that for judgments for money or property, but that does not include any orders or awards that convey real estate because they would have no statute of limitations. But for judgments on money or property, renewal of a judgment has to be made by motion to renew in the county that issued the underlying judgment within eight years of rendition of the judgment, which means like the court issuing their decision, or when the last payment or action required was due, whichever is later. And then it provides also in there that the motion is to be served in the same manner as prescribed for the filing of a new divorce action or a parentage action that's provided already in the family court rules. And I can provide if folks are interested in that, I can provide a link for Nate. Subdivision two provides that once a motion to renew is filed, tolling of the statute of limitations is paused while the court is considering the motion. So pauses it while the while the court is thinking about it and and looking to issue a decision on that. Subdivision three, lists various actions that would automatically restart the statute of limitations. So you'll see there under subdivision three, things like a written signed acknowledgment of the debt action or obligation ordered in the judgment, any payment made by an obligor or a family division judgment, including weight by wage withholding any affirmation action taken by an obligor towards compliance with the provisions of that original judgment and any payment made by a third party on behalf of the obligor, the obligor being the person who was required by the judgment to be paying the other party. And in subdivision four, sometimes we'll see this and we'll have it in statute where you feel like it's really important that litigants are aware of certain consequences. And so this is just something that would be required on any property or money judgments that are issued by the family division is just a statement of what this section is doing, which is that a renewal of a family division judgment for money or property has to be renewed within eight years or when the last payment or action required is due, whichever occurs last.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. Questions? I think you said earlier where this language came from.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: The Vermont Bar Association. Some folks, maybe, I don't know, maybe Bob remembers the mediation folks, whether they talked about that. I asked Eric because Eric staffed

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: that field, but he's like, I did.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Judiciary)]: So is this an unusual provision? Like, do other states do this kind of thing?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know. I mean, I think, again, the witnesses who are practicing this could tell you. I mean, I would just say, I haven't heard and looking at this and reading about this any particular policy reason why you would have certain judgments happening in family division and others happening in the civil division? Seems like why wouldn't you, for the benefit of the court?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Judging from some body language over here, so we may Okay. But

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: it seems as though it's most expedient and efficient for everybody, perhaps, to have everything in one place. Exactly.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Judiciary)]: Right, it's like one of those, okay, is there an onion we're unpeeling that's gonna We'll make some weird

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: find out. All right, so thank you. You very much, Michelle. Jim, if you could join us again. So good to see

[James "Jim" Knapp (Attorney; Vermont Bar Association collaborator on real estate language)]: you're happy. Thank you. I'm still James Knapp.

[James "Jim" Knapp (Attorney)]: I still go by Jim. I

[James "Jim" Knapp (Attorney; Vermont Bar Association collaborator on real estate language)]: have never been in court. I most certainly have never been in court related to family matters. But I'm here because of one clause that was added at our request, which was to be sure it was absolutely clear to everyone without question that a judgment that effectively conveys real estate is not subject to any statute of limitations. Bear in mind that in many family court cases, there will be a provision in the order that says family residence is spouse one, spouse two to get $25,000 from the residence is sold. When this whole statute of limitations issue was brought to my attention, it occurred to me that someone might think if they don't do something every eight years, they're going to lose title to their house or more likely someone's going to think, hey, my spouse didn't do anything about this for ten years, so now I own the house again. We don't want any confusion. So you put in the one nine word clause that I'm here to say is a really good idea and I have nothing further to add to this belt. You did mention this morning that you wanted me to comment on section 27 of miscellaneous judiciary bill.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I got to hit you on that earlier. So

[James "Jim" Knapp (Attorney; Vermont Bar Association collaborator on real estate language)]: putting on the other hat, so to speak. That provision reflects a change that your predecessors fixed. I was trying to think back, the two words that are being removed are sealed and witnessed as they relate to the assignment of a lease by a deed. Nobody signs leases by deeds anymore. No one probably even knew this statute existed back when you did two things. I believe that you removed the requirement for a seal on a legal document in the 1960s. And the only reason I know that was because one of my other jobs besides hand copying title abstracts was to run to Shattuck Stationery Store and buy the little boxes of legal seals that were required in a law office. And then in 2004, your predecessors removed the requirement for witnesses on real estate documents. And so this is a mere technical correction to bring this statute, which no one has looked at in years, into compliance with all the other statutes, and with that I'm done.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Great, thank you. Thank you very much, Jim. And we'll go to Leslie Black in that case. Lord, you can pick who wants to go first.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Figure out, yeah. First.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay. All right. Excellent. Thank you for being here.

[Amber Barber (Family law attorney; former VBA President)]: Thank you, Chairman Wong. Mrs. LaLonde, my name is Amber Barber. I appreciate everybody here at the community for all your work and for taking some time to hear from us. I am a family law practitioner in Burlington, Vermont, and I've been practicing in Vermont for over twenty eight years now. It's all I do, is family law. I've also been the past chair of the family law section of Vermont Bar Association, as well as the past president of the Vermont Bar Association. And I'm here today because I want to try to explain a little bit about why family law practitioners and the VBA really believe that it's important to make some changes to 05/2006. First, I want to mention, and I want to go back to what Michelle Childs said about the benefits to the pro se self represented litigants in family court. It's very important to provide acts of good justice to those individuals who really struggle to get through the judicial process. And for them to come into family court is already a very significant challenge for them. But then to have them have to try to understand that they have to go to yet another court every eight years to renew their judgment is just adding layer upon layer of confusion and difficulty for those individuals who we really need to help in this situation. I think the other thing I want to mention is it's confusing. It's been confusing to even us, practitioners who've been doing this for years. Before Lake V Petrie came down, there wasn't a practitioner that I know of in Vermont in family court who didn't march into family court and enforce these orders. That was the historical practice. And so this changed it. This completely changed the dynamic. It changed how we look at all of these particular orders that we're trying to ask to be put in place. But it also changes the dynamic of how do we enforce these things. Parties in a divorce are in a fiduciary relationship coming out of it. A lot of these people have been married for many, many, many years. And when we unwrap their lives, it's not an easy unwrap. Sometimes it's a house. Sometimes it's paying something for a retirement. Whatever it is, there's a lot of unwrapping that goes on. And those things can't be done in short intervals sometimes. So to make individuals who are actually paying and doing what they're supposed to do have to come in and file motions to renew or enforcements. It's just placing much more strain and stress on the judiciary. The cost of these extra motions motions to renew. It's placing burdens on civil court to all of a sudden take on family court actions. And then it's placing issues on the family court for having to renew things that really don't need to be renewed if someone's paying. If someone's actually doing what they're supposed to do, why do we need to place a difficult situation on someone? And I think that's the issue with Blake V. Petrie says is, yep, you have to go to Superior Court or you lose your opportunity to enforce this judgment. And the second case that has come down in 2022, which is Trad v. Trad, went on to say, Well, there's one little exception to it, and that's in the common law. If you acknowledge the debt in writing, then there's these exceptions. But the exception is so hard to fulfill. And there's still this complex, how should I say, discord between what does that mean? When is this renewed? It renewed going back to the initial order? Or is it renewed at the enforced judgment? When does it renew? So I think what we're trying to do is make this less confusing for everybody, more cost effective on the courts for the burdens, and also remove any simultaneous litigation that might have to go on. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about this bill, proposed bill.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, I was just hoping to see if you had submitted those two cases. And if you could do that, to Nate so we have that as part of the record, I'd appreciate that.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: You have to go on. They'll give you the second.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Oh, okay. Alright. So, yeah, that second. Want to just send that to me so you don't have to let me go ahead So and check questions for Amber? Seems straightforward enough. So I appreciate the example that you gave me, Martin. I was trying to get a context for this, when we gave an example of both with the Boris and such. That's helpful. No other questions? So we'll go to the question.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Thank you. Thank you very much.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: And I guess the question I should have asked for everybody is whether there's been opposition to this. Would such opposition come from? When I read through it, I don't understand why or where it would come from, except for Jim, if you didn't put the real estate over to him.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: We were happy to do that for him. I'm Leslie Black. And I've been a family court and other attorney, meaning I do other things as well, for I hate to admit this, but over forty five years. And I have seen, through my practice for a very long time, the way family court orders have always been done, and what Amber mentioned, is we have always gone back into court, to the family division, to enforce our court orders and without any cap in time. So you have court orders coming out of divorce court, for example, that say the plaintiff is awarded possession of the house and can stay there until the last child turns 18 so they can finish school in this this in this town. Okay? But one of the children's four. You can do the math. It's more than eight years. If we have an order required to renew a judgment, and they know nothing about it, which is where we're finding pro se litigants to be, unfortunately, What happens when a person stays in the house and the confusion of how you enforce it is is just awful, and it's ambiguous? So we need something fixing the ambiguity. That's the real crux. This thing tries to clarify that if you're in doubt, you go there. It's very clear. You go back to family court, and the language at the at the end of this bill is really similar to the language we now have already on our court orders. We already have language in our court orders. Trying to tell people, pay attention, it's in caps. Unfortunately, real people in the midst of emotional distress, which is what we do, they might read this, but don't think that they absorbed it. And who's going to remember where they put their court order in seven and three quarter years to run back to renew? If at least if it's in the family division, they can check-in and say, Something's happening. But there's another aspect to this that's very crucial, and that is we don't want a bill where we're required to go and renew a judgment in eight years. We want a bill that says, If you haven't done what you're supposed to do, that's when the time starts going. Why would we renew a judgment for the house move from one person to the other when the time hasn't lapsed yet? You see what I'm saying? So it's just not sensible. This makes everything easy to follow, more sensible. Family court attorneys won't have the ambiguity of the two cases that came down, which, quite frankly, if a court case says it's exempt from the statute if you've confirmed in writing that you owe the money, it's confusing to me as a family court attorney because any divorce I've done where he reached the stipulation has a contract between the people admitting that they owe the money. Is that becoming meaningless? And if you go and you enforce a court order within the eight years, Does that mean that we're enforcing that judgment another eight years? It's just too confusing. This thing really simplifies it. It basically says, from the time that it's owed to be done, that's when the eight years runs. And you go back to family court where you started, and you don't have to go here for custody and there for money. It's all in one place.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So can I ask a question on I'm looking at do you have the language in front of you?

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: I almost have it memorized, Ken. So

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: my question is, I'm looking at line 14 as far as this is one of eight years after rendition of the judgment, I understand that, or when the last payment or action required is due. Can you just explain that second part of when the last payment or action required is due? I want make sure I understood.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Yes. I would be very happy to explain that to you. If you have a court order, and one person keeps the house, and the other person is paying a buyout, but they don't have the money, which we find a lot. And we do a payment plan, and they're paying monthly for nine years. And they're paying. And then eight and a half years later, they stop paying. That's when the statute of limitations starts running so that you didn't have to run-in and renew when everything was copacetic and there was no need. And it just ensures that the person who's owed the money isn't foreclosed from going after getting that thing done when the person knows they're supposed to be paying.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: I guess is that then clear? Because it seems to me that it's, what you're saying is when the last payment or action required is due and actually not paid, the action isn't taken and the payment isn't made, isn't that?

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Well, if the payment is due in nine years, and they don't make that payment, that statute of limitations runs from when that last payment was due, not from when the judgment was issued by the family court.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: That's the difference. No, I understand. But at least the language doesn't say Well, basically They missed the payment, that last payment, is I guess what I would just

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Well, I think it's saying something broader, and it's done on It's not even saying if you don't do it. What it's saying is if we have to have a statute of limitations and it's going to be eight years, let's let it run either from the date that the court order is issued or in the event that the court order says he's supposed to do something, let it start from then. It's a safety feature. For me, it's a safety feature to protect my clients who are owed the money, really. Understood, Goodnow.

[Rep. Kenneth "Ken" Goslant (Clerk)]: Thank you for clarifying.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Sorry for the confusion.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Judiciary)]: Hi there. I have two questions. One is at the very end of the proposal. You think that the word I'm looking at the language for the all caps language. And I'm wondering if time bar is typically understood by your clients. Or should we look for a more plain language phrase there? I know it's not super complex, but it's it's not commonly used.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: It's really hard to do this, Bill, a little bit, having not done this before. And it's interesting because we just added in to that language, which the newer language that you're seeing is, or when the last payment or action required is due, which had been missing. You could say, or shout before close. But then they start using real

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Judiciary)]: What's closer sound like? Closer. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I'm just imagining a person, like you said, in

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: a very high- I mean, I could even say You you could say moot because people watch TV and they always mispronounce it, but I don't think it's a good idea to do that either. Time

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Judiciary)]: barred. You're saying that it's Or it shall be limited to the statute of limitations. Right? I mean, limited by the statute of limitations.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Or it cannot be enforced. Would be easier language, very easy. Easily understood, and I think I would recommend that.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Judiciary)]: So whichever occurs last, or it cannot be enforced.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Correct. I'm trying to make it so everybody can understand it, really. We all have been. We've been throwing this language around, and, you know, within the response to the Supreme Court judgments, which really upended how we did practice, and then how to do it, and how to make it so that people will understand. I I have to say to my client at the end of the case, I want you to look at this language, I want you to understand what we're talking about. This is extremely important. You know, don't lose the judgment. Don't forget. Don't know, people retire. People move away. It's a it's problematic.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Judiciary)]: Yeah. And then my second question, which has to do with the first part of the bill, and I may have missed this, was off right at the beginning of Michelle's walkthrough.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: The renewal isn't Okay. The renewal required every eight years? The Supreme Court judgment basically said, Your family court orders are not special. They're not in another bracket. You have to go and renew them just like every other civil judgment. That was what we didn't expect to happen. So if we said there's no statutory limitations on family court orders, that would be the end of it. But within the context of what happened through the Supreme Court and the evolution of this, this was the best case scenario, given that it wasn't how we wanted it in the original.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Judiciary)]: That seems really out of touch with the reality of family situations.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: I'm not supposed to say anything. I can say that. I'm trying not to. Can you read my face?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Ian, did you have a question?

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: I have a question, but it's probably for Michelle. I'm just wondering, far as draft when we're looking at drafting statutes and put exact language in like this, saying that any judgment has to have this exact language, someone misspells a word in it or something like when a court is ordering a judgment, if they don't put this language exactly, could that impact the validity of the judgment? And if so, is there anything that we can do to put something in here just to say it should, to the effect, say this or something like that?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know the answer to that question,

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: but I think that's gonna mean that's proper data recognition.

[Todd Davis (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: Okay.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: I think it's a swivel nerve error. Yeah? I don't think that if you have everything here and you misspell the word property, that it's going to void the order. I don't think so.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah. Fair enough. I just yeah.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: And, you know, not for nothing, but the the forms are on the judiciary website that we print out that are fillable, the prose's, use the forms. And I have found mistakes on occasion. I let people know, so they fix the I mean, seriously, you know, it's only humans.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: So you let them know and they they fix the form, and then Yeah. It's done. So I understand your question.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah. And I I think I'm it's even more, like I'm kinda curious because we've seen this in a couple other things that we've looked at where we're telling someone that this exact language needs to be in the order or in your motion or if that that kind of error

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: You have it in criminal orders. I mean, have certain things in criminal order that have to say certain things with notice. It's notice, basically.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. I don't know if it's as easy.

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I think that's the issue, is that you have a misspelled word or you miss a punctuation or something like that, but are you conveying the proper notice that's required by a snatch? And to just say that because you misspelled a word or something like that and therefore you miss your chance seems kind of an absurd interpretation of the statute and the legislative agenda.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah, no, I was because of yeah.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: That's a great question.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: No. I think it's I

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: think it's different in family court than the criminal divisions. It's gonna be. By the way. It's a criminal. It's a

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: What's that?

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: I know it'd be different because it's more specific.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: But then they We're gonna be Specific.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: This is a little bit more More.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I think that's probably good. I have a question for somebody, and maybe it's Bob. I don't know who. Is there opposition to this?

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Has this been put out there? It was put out. Upper opposition? It was put out to the listserv, and there isn't any doubt. We got no negative. In fact, I think we got somebody who made a comment, and we changed the language to incorporate it because it was a good idea. That's all we've had.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, I think I have two minutes till my next witness, so I'll ask you one more question. You have to answer in a few minutes. I'm just looking at the second page, B3. Maybe I won't ask the question, because I just well, I'll ask you anyway. Any of the following shall restart the statutory limitations subdivision one in the subsection. Can you just kind of give me a general sense of why those are the triggering factors for restarting the statute of patients?

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Yes, we basically wanted Okay, so A is specifically because of the Trout case. And that was the language from the Supreme Court, so we wanted to incorporate it, make it very clear that we knew about that, and we were doing it in full knowledge. B, C and D are all done based on the same philosophical situation we were talking about earlier, which was if something isn't due, there isn't a breach yet, so the statute of limitations could run from that outside time, for example. So if you make a payment, then the statute of limitations is gonna start after that because you're in compliance, for example. And if but they're all the same, in essence, but they're all from different directions. So if somebody makes a payment on your behalf, then you've been paying all along. There is no breach until you see what I'm saying? There's no No, breach

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I understand. No, but I needed that clarification, so thank you.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: And we're all from different directions. Tried to cover everything we could see people doing.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Everything's nice, and once it Yes,

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: and because people are in this situation now, and our situation is so ambiguous after the court cases, the sooner we get this fixed, we feel the better. Perfect.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: I appreciate it. Thank you very much for being here. So look at that, right on time, Will. This doesn't happen very often. If you can join us.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: So can I ask a quick question?

[Michelle Childs (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I made this small change to subdivision or it cannot be enforced. Do I submit to Eric?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We'll have I mean, where's the rest of the committee? Is it something that we're fine with putting on? It doesn't seem controversial to me. It seems fairly straightforward. Are we fine with putting it onto the miscellaneous bill? And we'll still have additional testimony because I still need Judge Zodie. Other than presenting the fact that I have to legitimize this

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Judiciary)]: eight year thing.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, is there anything else?

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Yeah, I Yeah. Am.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So no objection to putting it on? Yeah, you can send it to Eric.

[Unidentified Committee Member (House Judiciary)]: Send it to Eric and ask him

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: to do it.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, please do. And we'll just have Judge Zonay, and if he finds huge problems with it, we'll just take it out.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Can come back next year with an amended

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you very much. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. All right, over to you. Thank you for your flexibility, and I apologize for not having put you on the list somehow. I don't know how that happened.

[Willa Farrell (Court Diversion & Pretrial Services Director, Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Happy to be here. Willa Farrell, Court Diversion Pre Trust Services Director with the attorney general's office. Would you like me just to explain why I suggested these?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah, yeah, we'll go over each of them that you're involved in. I guess I do wanna just ask, I didn't have you down for the moving of the language that's in section one. I know that's not really part of diversion, but it is language related to the attorney general's office. Should I ask somebody else from the attorney general's office to weigh in on that one, Mike Todd?

[Willa Farrell (Court Diversion & Pretrial Services Director, Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Yeah. Okay. Think Todd is in the building. If you want, I could see if he's

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: That's fine. You can proceed with the parts that are yours.

[Willa Farrell (Court Diversion & Pretrial Services Director, Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: So the first suggestion that I sent to Eric was on page four. So this is stemming from last year's legislation where you added point o two violations, sometimes called juvenile DUI, to the statute that deals with possession consumption of alcohol by youth 21. And in the act, there so in current law, if an individual who is goes through the program where a point o two violation, after that, their license driver's license, which is suspended for a certain amount of time, is automatically reinstated by the Department of Motor Vehicles, meaning they don't have to pay the I think it's $82 reinstatement fee at this point. However, in current law, that is not true for individuals who go who fail YSAS for simply possession of alcohol or consumption. So the suggestion is to make that an equitable benefit regardless of the violation for which you go through. So that subs I'm not always accurate in how I term statutes. I agree. So subsection b subdivision b

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Oh, you're laughing at subsection. Go

[Willa Farrell (Court Diversion & Pretrial Services Director, Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Go ahead. Ahead. Vision or subsection b three has the impaired driver penalties, which aren't here, but are in statute. And that's where you'll see the current provision that provides for automatic reinstatement. And what is in the bill on page six adds the automatic reinstatement for individuals who are penalized or possession only.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So with this language, does that mean they're no longer paying the $2? Right. So this goes to ways and means. The whole bill does. Well, but we will find out why at heart. So, alright. Thank you.

[Willa Farrell (Court Diversion & Pretrial Services Director, Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: My understanding is Department of Motor Vehicles may already be doing this. And the second suggestion is on page 21, and this relates to record retention of pre child services records. So in current law, those records are to be retained for three years. All of our other programs that we support and administer have a two year record retention period, some of which are set by statute, the tort diversion. For ease of administration, like both the attorney general's office oversight as well as for programs, it would be much easier if everybody kept all the records. It's like, okay. This case closed two years later by district. So that's the rationale for that suggestion.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: You don't like having different timelines or different types of records.

[Willa Farrell (Court Diversion & Pretrial Services Director, Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Confusion is something to be avoided in Europe.

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: And in life. Right? People maybe. Life lessons, they like. That's it.

[Willa Farrell (Court Diversion & Pretrial Services Director, Vermont Attorney General’s Office)]: Page 23, I understand the judiciary also suggested this change. So last year, when the changes were made in act 45 to seven BSA six fifty six, there two other statutes where the violations are referred to the Youth Substance Awareness Safety Program did not refer to statute 18 BSA four thousand two thirty B, which was, forgetting the term he was eliminated with Repealed. Repealed. Thank you. Was repealed in act 45. So the suggestion here is just to have the correct reference to seven b s o six fifty six. And that is also true for the possession of buprenorphine by persons 21 years of age. Okay,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: seems straightforward enough. Any questions for you? I don't see any. Thank you very much, and we'll try to get Todd into, molesse, section one, and the change on that. Says he's down the hall. See if I can get into here. So what I have for like next steps at this point, I don't have any other additional witnesses except for Matt Valerio if he wants to weigh in. I've sent out, we invited him and I asked him specifically, I pointed out through sections that I thought he'd want to weigh in on, but he's welcome to weigh in on anything. And then have John Sode in on that part. But yeah, so I think that we need to send I need to have a drive by, actually, Section three from Human Services, I believe. It has an interest in that change even or have that age there.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah,

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: that's my understanding. So they may not have a drive by. Just have to double check. And then there's the part that need to to look at it. So join us, Scott, if you want.

[Todd Davis (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: So I haven't actually looked at the language.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We can let you at

[Todd Davis (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: it on my phone as I walk down the hall. That's okay.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We just wanna we're not gonna hold you to this. Of course, we are. You're gonna be on the record and see how much you like the fact that we can't this, that we've under your statute. Does that ring a bell?

[Leslie Black (Family law attorney)]: Profits from crime? Profits. Let me make sure it does.

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: You guys Does profiting from crime ring a bell?

[Todd Davis (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: Like, there are a number of lawyers in the room. Yeah. So are we on?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yes, we are.

[Todd Davis (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: Okay. Todd Davis. If you haven't

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: seen this in any more time, that's fine. But I figured that maybe you just said that.

[Todd Davis (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: I apologize for being this informal. Is this the language that removes the reporting requirement to VCCVS?

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: It removes all of this from VCCS into essentially the attorney general's area.

[Todd Davis (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: Yeah. And which is essentially the existing language.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: It's exactly the existing language, but it's wrong place. And I will accept that as, yeah, it looks great. Can't hear otherwise. And if you have until Thursday to tell us otherwise.

[Todd Davis (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: I will accept yes to that. And I would say I will double check with folks in our office. It's our pretty strong concerns over it. I will share them with the committee. And I'm not aware of us getting the reports on our end either. So I don't think we've heard a lot about these instances occurring when I looked into this room. Thank you for the refresher. It seems fine. I will raise any Yes.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Just in case. Alright. Great. Thank you.

[Todd Davis (Assistant Attorney General, Vermont AG’s Office)]: Thank you. If I get into health now, what's the next?

[Rep. Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Energy outlook on every committee on this floor today.

[Rep. Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Nice work. Anybody else that we need to hear from? That we know of. We're looking at this additional language that Eric has regarding what you had. I know you're considering whether you're fine with the language in H. Six twenty eight, whether you can put that in here or if you want to keep that separate. Yeah, can start it. It's over here. We're not doing it today. And think that might be it. All right, we're adjourned until tomorrow at 09:00.