63 results for 'court:"New Hampshire Supreme Court"'.
J. Donovan answers a certified legal question concerning common law and contracts. The court concludes “that the common law contract defenses of impossibility, impracticability, and frustration of commercial purpose are so fundamentally related to contract formation and purpose that they remain viable unless expressly waived. Accordingly, a force majeure clause that protects only one party to a contract should not be deemed, in and of itself, a relinquishment of the other party’s right to interpose those common law defenses.” Remanded.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Donovan, Filed On: April 23, 2024, Case #: 2023-0018, Categories: Commerce, Contract
J. Donovan reverses summary judgment in a condominium association’s favor against a company. “The Condominium Act required the declarant to file ‘appropriate instruments’ within [a] five- to ten-year statutory deadline but did not require the declarant to physically construct Building C.” Reversed.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Donovan, Filed On: April 4, 2024, Case #: 2023-0170, Categories: Real Estate, Contract
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J. Donovan reverses the defendant’s convictions for a pattern of aggravated felonious sexual assault and aggravated felonious sexual assault alleging a single act of penetration. It was an error to admit evidence of the defendant’s behavioral changes and characteristics. Reversed.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Donovan, Filed On: April 3, 2024, Case #: 2022-0643, Categories: Sex Offender, Assault
J. MacDonald opposes the defendant’s challenge of one of his convictions of a pattern of aggravated felonious sexual assault, which alleged that he repeatedly touched the breasts of the victim, who was under 13 years old. While chest isn't always a synonym for breasts, and the victim said the defendant touched her “chest” rather than “breasts,” she said that his touching of her became inappropriate when he touched her chest.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: MacDonald, Filed On: April 3, 2024, Case #: 2022-0563, Categories: Sex Offender, Assault, Child Victims
J. MacDonald agrees with defendant, who appeals his convictions of aggravated felonious sexual assault and attempted aggravated felonious sexual assault, that the lower court erred in denying his motion for a mistrial. A statement was allowed that suggested there was a second victim, and this was highly prejudicial. Reversed.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: MacDonald, Filed On: March 26, 2024, Case #: 2022-0728, Categories: Sex Offender, Assault, Child Victims
J. Donovan affirms the defendant’s conviction of selling a controlled substance resulting in death. The Strafford County Attorney’s office properly used its discretion to avoid a conflict of interest, and the defendant fails to support his belief that the evidence against him is insufficient to prove his guilt. Affirmed.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Donovan, Filed On: February 2, 2024, Case #: 2022-0306, Categories: Drug Offender, Evidence
J. Bassett affirms summary judgment in favor of a firearms dealer and the government agency responsible for performing background checks prior to firearms sales, against the two police officers suing them after a man the dealer sold a firearm to shot the officers. Even though the man who shot the officers has a background of misdemeanor domestic violence charges against him, as well as schizophrenia with many occasions of delusional behavior, the dealer and agency have immunity because, even if the man who shot the officers committed a felony and was able to do so at least in part because of the dealer and the agency’s actions, they did not commit a felony themselves.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Bassett, Filed On: January 30, 2024, Case #: 2022-0348, Categories: Licensing, Firearms
J. MacDonald reverses the denial of a deceased man’s former cohabitator’s motion for summary judgment against a representative of the decedent’s estate who filed a motion for summary judgment against her which was granted and is now also reversed. The agreements between the decedent and the former cohabitator are enforceable contracts. Reversed.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: MacDonald, Filed On: January 30, 2024, Case #: 2023-0022, Categories: Trusts, Contract
J. Marconi reverses in part an order preventing a child’s maternal grandmother, who is the child’s guardian, from testifying, at the father’s parole or any similar hearing, against releasing the child’s father from prison. The circuit court exceeded its authority in prohibiting the child’s guardian from speaking at his father’s parole hearing. Reversed.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Marconi, Filed On: January 24, 2024, Case #: 2022-0664, Categories: Family Law, Guardianship
J. Marconi agrees with the defendant that, to determine whether a reasonable person would consider a threat as a likely cause of serious bodily injury or death to an extent that the person would use a firearm to warn off the person making the threat, does not hinge on whether or not the person being threatened is able to retreat. The jury should not have been instructed to use the defendant’s ability to leave the scene as a factor in determining the threat he faced in a road rage incident. Reversed.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Marconi, Filed On: January 19, 2024, Case #: 2022-0432, Categories: Firearms, Threats, Vehicle
[Consolidated.] J. Donovan reverses an order granting an environmental advocacy organization’s appeal of the New Hampshire environmental services department’s issuance of a permit to a waste management firm, which would allow the company to expand its landfill. While the advocacy organization had standing to appeal the permit, the officer hearing the appeal misinterpreted the relevant statute.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Donovan, Filed On: December 28, 2023, Case #: 2022-0690, Categories: Environment, Municipal Law
J. Donovan affirms the defendant’s convictions for aggravated felonious sexual assault, attempted aggravated felonious sexual assault and misdemeanor sexual assault. “The state did not open the door to cross-examination regarding the specific contents of the medical records by introducing testimony acknowledging the existence of such records.”
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Donovan, Filed On: December 28, 2023, Case #: 2022-0557, Categories: Evidence, Sex Offender, Assault
J. Donovan affirms the dismissal of the complaint raised by a group of registered New Hampshire voters suing their secretary of state for partisan gerrymandering. The voters fail to identify a mandatory constitutional provision that has been violated, which is necessary for the judicial system to intervene to prevent gerrymandering without overstepping and exerting authority where the legislative system is meant to have authority.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Donovan, Filed On: November 29, 2023, Case #: 2022-0629, Categories: Constitution, Elections, Government
J. Marconi affirms an order granting a petition for guardianship over a man who was involuntarily committed, but vacates the order granting the petition for his nonemergency involuntary admission. It is unclear whether the man lived in New Hampshire at the time the emergency admission expired and the non-emergency involuntary admission petition was filed. Reversed in part.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Marconi, Filed On: November 16, 2023, Case #: 2021-0408, Categories: Commitment, Due Process, Guardianship
J. MacDonald reverses and remands a town’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought against it by a police officer who resigned after the town’s Board of Selectmen cut him and other police sergeants out of the police department’s daily operations and subjected him to several internal investigations. The officer was not required to exhaust administrative remedies because he was constructively discharged, not terminated.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: MacDonald, Filed On: November 15, 2023, Case #: 2022-0500, Categories: Employment, Employment Retaliation, Police Misconduct
J. Marconi affirms the denial of a utility company’s motion for a rehearing to recover the development costs of an abandoned project by increasing rates for its customers. Because the development costs were costs associated with construction work that wasn’t completed, even though the costs also didn’t go towards construction work in progress, the utility company does not have a right to recover those costs through a rate increase.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Marconi, Filed On: November 15, 2023, Case #: 2022-0146, Categories: Commerce, Construction, Consumer Law
J. Bassett affirms the termination of parental rights of a mother who committed a felony sexual assault against her older child and injured her. While her younger child was not born yet at the time of the assault and therefore, the mother argues, couldn’t have been injured by it, that argument is irrelevant to the goal of the relevant statutes, which is to protect the children’s health and safety.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Bassett, Filed On: November 14, 2023, Case #: 2022-0257, Categories: Family Law, Guardianship, Assault
J. Bassett affirms a court order determining a mother neglected her son. Even while the mother was not her son’s legal guardian, but a guardianship does not absolve a parent of all parental responsibilities. When her son’s guardian failed to provide safe shelter for her son, the mother had a parental duty to do so.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Bassett, Filed On: November 14, 2023, Case #: 2022-0533, Categories: Family Law, Guardianship
J. Donovan affirms the defendant’s convictions for being a felon in possession of a deadly weapon and for attempted murder. The trial court did not err by admitting evidence of the defendant’s prior convictions or by not disclosing some of the victim’s mental health records, but the defendant’s prior convictions do not fall within the 10-year limitation his defense claims and none of the undisclosed mental health records could plausibly have changed the outcome of the trial.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Donovan, Filed On: November 14, 2023, Case #: 2022-0106, Categories: Evidence, Murder, Weapons