Paige v. Copeland-Hanzas

7ermont Superior Court
Filed 07/09/25
Orange Unit

VERMONT SUPERIOR COURT CIVIL DIVISION
Orange Unit Case No. 24-CV-04754
5 Court Street
Chelsea VT 05038
802-685-4610
www.vermontjudiciary.org

H. Paige v. Sarah Copeland-Hanzas et al

ENTRY REGARDING MOTION
Title: Motion to Reconsider (Motion: 4)
Filer: H. Brooke Paige
Filed Date: June 09, 2025

The motion is DENIED.

Plaintiff Paige seeks reconsideration of the Court's May 20, 2025 dismissal of his complaint.
Plaintiff's motion to reconsider filed a motion to reconsider on June 9, 2025, but he did not file a
brief in support of this motion until June 30, 2025. A motion to reconsider "is addressed to the
sound discretion of the trial court..." Chelsea Lid. P'ship v. Town of Chelsea, 142 Vt. 538, 540 (1983).

Plaintiffs motion fails for three reasons.

First, Plaintiffs brief is untimely. The Court's decision dismissing his complaint issued on
May 20, 2025. This decision constituted a final judgment under Rule 54(a). Under Rule 59(b), a
motion to alter or amend a judgment must be filed within 28 days of the final judgment. In this

case, that date was June 17, 2025. On June 9, 2025, Plaintiff filed a two-page document entitled

Plaintiff's Motion for Reconsideration of the Decision of Judge Richardson Dated 05/20/25. This Motion was

incomplete as it did not contain any argument or reasoning to support the motion. Instead, Plaintiff

unilaterally notified the Court that he would not file his brief in support of his motion until June 30,
2025.

The Court did not approve this delay, and as the State notes, Rule 6(b)(2) does not permit
the Court to extend the time to file such a motion. V.R.C.P. 6(b)(2); see also 11 C. WRIGHT &

A.MILLER, FED. PRAC. & PROCED. CIVIL § 2817, n.9 (3d ed. 2025 update) ("The court is not
permitted to extend the time in which to make the [Rule 59] motion."'). This is because the purpose
of Rule 59 is narrow and limited to allowing the Court to correct its errors or mistakes. Northern See.

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Ins. Co. v. Mitec Electronics, Ltd., 2008 VT 96, ¶¶ 41–42. It is not an extended process, and it is not an
opportunity to re-litigate what has already been decided. Latouche v. N. Country Union High Sch. Dist.,
131 F. Supp. 2d 568, 569 (D. Vt. 2001) (“‘[A] motion to reconsider should not be granted where the
moving party seeks solely to relitigate an issue already decided.”’) (citing Schroder v. CSX Transp. Inc.,
70 F.3d 255, 257 (2d Cir. 1995) (alteration in original)).

A motion to reconsider must specify the grounds on which it is based, and the moving party
is obligated to put forward specific facts or legal analysis of “a strongly convincing nature.” 11 C.
WRIGHT & A.MILLER, FED. PRAC. & PROCED. CIVIL, at § 2817, n.1. While Plaintiff’s June 9th filing
was more than what the State characterizes as an intent to file a motion to reconsider, it is, without
the June 30th brief, a facially insufficient motion, and it represents, at best, the first half of a motion
to reconsider. Plaintiff’s June 30th brief was effectively the second half of his motion, but it was filed
in an untimely manner. By extension, the Court finds that Plaintiff’s entire motion to reconsider
was filed in an untimely manner. Plaintiff’s tardy motion is not allowed as a matter of law under
Rule 59. For this reason, Plaintiff’s motion is Denied.

Even if the Court had the authority to allow the June 30th filing, review of this filing leads to
the second basis for denying Plaintiff’s motion. The motion, like Plaintiff’s underlying complaint,
does not establish the grounds for the relief that he seeks because of the lack of standing and
mootness. In his June 30th brief, Plaintiff contends that his complaint seeks to have the Court rule
that the Secretary of State actions concerning the Town of Washington’s Justice of the Peace
Election exceeded her authority. To this end, Plaintiff lists five separate categories of wrongdoing
that he contends the Secretary committed in the 2024 Justice of the Peace Election.

As the Court explained in its May 20th decision, standing requires more than alleged bad
behavior and a desire to have the other side admonished. The constitutional minimum for standing
requires:

(1) the plaintiff must have suffered an injury in fact, i.e., an invasion of a legally
protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or
imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) there must be a causal connection
between the injury and the conduct complained of; and (3) it must be likely, as
opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable
decision.

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Nat'l Org. for Marriage, Inc. v. Walsh, 714 F.3d 682, 688 (2d Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks
omitted); see also Martel v. Condos, 487 F.Supp.3d 247, 251–52 (D. Vt. 2020) (quoting Liberian Cmty.
Ass’n of Conn. v. Lamont, 970 F.3d 174, 184 (2d Cir. 2020) and Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S.
555, 560 (1992)).

In this case, Plaintiff might have had standing after the Secretary of State announced the
decision not to place the candidates for the Town of Washington on the ballot that her office was
preparing, but before the election was conducted. See Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Degraffenreid,
141 S.Ct. 732, 736–37 (2021) (Thomas, J. dissenting) (noting that post-election review by a court is
ill-suited to reviewing issues involving the conduct of an election because “It generally cannot
restore the state of affairs before an election.”). If Plaintiff had sought a pre-election injunction or
ruling concerning the rejection of his and other’s nominations, then the Court would have had both
an injury in fact (refusal to include an otherwise qualified candidate from the ballot) and a remedy
(restoration of their names) that it could have considered. 17 V.S.A. § 2617; see Anderson v.
Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 783 (1980) (noting that a candidate received an injunction to add his name
to a general election ballot from which he claimed to have been wrongfully excluded).

Instead, Plaintiff chose a different route. He chose to allow the election to go forward and
focused on his write-in campaign. Plaintiff and the entire slate of candidates were successful, and
they were re-elected. This puts the case in a different posture. Section 2603 governs the review and
certification of elections and provides the Court with authority to remedy discrepancies in election
procedures with remedies that involves either altering, de-certifying, or otherwise undoing all or part
of an election. 17 V.S.A. § 26034; but see Kennedy v. Chittenden, 142 Vt. 397, 399–400 (1983) (limiting
the Court’s authority to apply Section 2603 to races involving candidates for the Vermont General
Assembly). In this case, Plaintiff does not seek to alter or set aside the results from the election.

Instead, he seeks judicial review of the Secretary’s actions and a determination of whether
such actions were authorized, and if not, then an order that would admonish the Secretary for taking
such actions and directing her not to take such actions in the future. This is not a remedy
envisioned by Section 2603. Rather it is closer to an action or investigation that the Attorney
General might take. 3 V.S.A. § 152; see also State v. Wheel, 155 Vt. 587, 593 (1991) (noting that
Section 152 gives the Attorney General inquest powers to review and investigate actions by
government officials outside of their authority).

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Yet, because no statute authorizes such an action by a private actor, the issue of standing is
not resolved by simply pointing to actions that are alleged to exceed the Secretary’s authority. Now
that the election has been completed, and Plaintiff has been re-elected, the actual harm that was
pending in the time after the Secretary’s office determined not to include his name on the ballot and
before the election was conducted, has been resolved. Plaintiff’s actual injury has not only been
cured by the write-in process, but any remedy available at this juncture would not address his actual
injury. In effect, Plaintiff lost his standing, and his complaint became moot with the conduct of the
election and his successful re-election. State v. Paige, 2017 VT 54, ¶ 7. Plaintiff no longer has
standing to bring his claims as there is no current actual injury or remedy that would address the
injury specific to Plaintiff.1 For this separate reason, Plaintiff’s motion to reconsider is Denied.

Third, as noted in the underlying dismissal, the facts of the case do not lend themselves to
any of the exceptions to the mootness doctrine. Paige 2017 VT 54, at ¶¶ 10, 11. As noted in the
original decision, the facts giving rise to this claim were unique, and there is no evidence that they
are capable of repetition. In particular, this case arose because of transitional issues with the
software used by the Town Clerk to enter the candidates and their political affiliation; how the
nominees were selected and the political affiliation was designated; and even whether Plaintiff
intends to run again or chair the next nominating slate. All of these variables contributed to the
specific series of decisions underlying Plaintiff’s complaint that if altered would result in a different
outcome. Plaintiff cannot demonstrate that this claim fits within the mootness exception. Id. at ¶
11 (citing Price v. Town of Fairlee, 2011 VT 48, ¶ 6). For these reasons, Plaintiff’s motion to reconsider
is Denied.

Finally, Plaintiff suggests in his filing that the Court is authorized to issue advisory opinions.
To that argument, he offers no legal support, but he seeks to distinguish the present case from a
1949 Vermont Supreme Court decision involving advisory opinions. In re Constitutionality of House Bill
88, 115 Vt. 524, 529 (1949). Plaintiff’s efforts are unavailing. The Vermont Supreme Court has
made clear in multiple cases that the Court may not issue advisory opinions. See, e.g., Doe v.
Department for Children and Families, 2020 VT 79, ¶ 10 (distinguishing between prohibited advisory
opinions and declaratory judgment actions); In re Investigation into Programmatic Adjustments to Standard-

1 The Court has blended its standing and mootness analysis as they are effectively two sides to the same

coin. Mootness arises when events overtake any initial basis for standing that either existed before or at
the start of the case but is now lost. Houston v. Town of Waitsfield, 2007 VT 135, ¶ 5 (mem.).
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Offer Program, 2018 VT 52, ¶ 13 (collecting cases). In each instance, the Court has reaffirmed that
parties have an obligation to establish and maintain standing to bring an action before the Court.
See Anderson v. State, 168 Vt. 641, 644 (1998) (mem.) (noting that in assessing standing the Court
must distinguish the probable from what is merely possible).

ORDER

Based on the foregoing, Plaintiff’s Motion to Reconsider is Denied as untimely and on the
merits of his argument. The present action remains Dismissed.

Electronically signed on 7/9/2025 1:24 PM pursuant to V.R.E.F. 9(d)

__________________________________
Daniel Richardson
Superior Court Judge

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