In Burrows v. City of Keene, the plaintiffs purchased 124 acres of land intending to develop it for residential subdivision, but the city denied their plans and later amended its zoning ordinance to place most of the property in a conservation district that severely restricted its uses. The plaintiffs amended their lawsuit to claim this zoning change constituted inverse condemnation, entitling them to compensation under the New Hampshire Constitution. The trial court agreed that the conservation zoning deprived the owners of all reasonable economic use of the land and ordered damages to be determined, and the New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed. The court reasoned that the regulation's purpose was to preserve the land as open space for public benefit rather than to prevent an injurious use, thereby placing the entire burden on the plaintiffs without just compensation. The matter was remanded for calculation of damages, attorney fees, and costs.

propertybusiness & regulatoryenvironment

This case involved the Town of Croydon's challenge to the Current Use Advisory Board's valuation range of twenty to thirty-five dollars per acre for forest land under New Hampshire's current use taxation statute, RSA ch. 79-A, which aims to preserve open space by taxing qualifying land at its current use value rather than its highest and best use. The town sought a declaratory judgment that the board's values were inconsistent with the statute and unreasonable, proposing instead a higher range of fifty to seventy dollars per acre based on local characteristics. After reviewing the board's methodology, which started with a ten-dollar base value for all land and added averaged productive capacity values from university data while accounting for inflation, the master found the values reasonable and consistent with the law. The New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the use of average-based ranges was administratively practical, permitted assessors to adjust within the range for parcel specifics, and aligned with the statute's goal of a uniform statewide system; the board's values were therefore mandatory and binding on towns.

taxespropertyenvironment

This case involved a lumber company suing to set aside a transfer of a husband's interest in jointly owned real estate to his wife, claiming it was a fraudulent conveyance to avoid business creditors under New Hampshire's Uniform Fraudulent Conveyances Act. The trial court ruled in favor of the defendants, finding fair consideration for the transfer and applying collateral estoppel from a prior case. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the wife's promise to obtain a second mortgage and use the proceeds to pay the husband's debts constituted fair consideration, as she performed on the promise, and there was no clear evidence of actual intent to defraud creditors.

propertybusiness & regulatory

The case involved a dispute over uninsured motorist coverage in an auto insurance policy that insured multiple vehicles and charged separate premiums for each. After an arbitration panel awarded the defendant $60,000 by stacking the per-vehicle limits, the insurer sought court review, and the superior court confirmed the award. While the appeal was pending, the New Hampshire Supreme Court decided Grimes v. Concord General Mutual Insurance Co., which held that intra-policy stacking of uninsured motorist benefits is not permitted under identical policy language. The court held that the arbitration award was subject to modification under RSA 542:8 for plain mistake of law because the arbitrators would not have reached the same result had they known the law as declared in Grimes, and therefore reduced the award to the $20,000 per-person limit.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involved an appeal from a probate court order appointing Mildred DeLucca as permanent guardian of her husband Louis under New Hampshire's guardianship statute, RSA ch. 464-A. The proposed ward's counsel argued that the petition failed to meet the requirements of RSA 464-A:4 II(e), which mandates specific factual allegations about the ward's financial transactions, personal actions, or occurrences demonstrating incapacity. The court held that the petition was defective, as its general assertions of mental incompetence and inability to care for himself did not provide the particularity needed for the ward to prepare a defense, and therefore vacated the guardianship appointment. The ruling emphasized that while petitions need not be exhaustive, they must include enough specifics to align with the statute's protective purpose, and a new petition could be filed since the proceedings are civil in nature.

procedurefamily lawcivil rights

This case involved a second trial for aggravated felonious sexual assault after the first trial ended in a mistrial due to the prosecutor's improper display of a blood-stained bedspread. The defendant appealed his conviction, arguing that the retrial violated double jeopardy protections, that certain child witnesses were incompetent to testify, that the evidence was insufficient for conviction, and that hearsay evidence was improperly admitted. The court affirmed the conviction, holding that the prosecutor's actions did not constitute the type of overreaching that bars retrial under double jeopardy principles, that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding the juvenile witnesses competent, that the evidence was sufficient when viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, and that any erroneous admission of hearsay testimony was harmless error.

criminal lawprocedure