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Opinions > Published Opinions

2012 Published Opinions

2012 Published Opinions 2011 Published Opinions 2010 Published Opinions 2009 Published Opinions 2008 Published Opinions 2007 Published Opinions


February 9, 2012

S. Ct. Civ. 2010-0011
George R. Simpson v. Myrna Golden

	In an appeal from a judgment awarding the defendant attorney's fees following dismissal of plaintiff's breach of contract suit based on what the Superior Court characterized as plaintiff’s bad faith prosecution and the defendant’s status as a prevailing party, the only grounds for appeal argued before this Court, namely, whether the initial dismissal of plaintiff's suit was valid, is time-barred. While plaintiff’s motion to reconsider that dismissal tolled the 30-day period for filing a notice of appeal under Rule 5 of the Virgin Islands Supreme Court Rules, that motion was denied in 2005, and his right to appeal the dismissal lapsed 30 days later by operation of the Rule. Although the time limits in Rule 5 are claims processing provisions and not jurisdictional, because the timeliness issue was raised by the defendant in her brief before this Court, it has not been waived; thus, the notice of appeal from the 2005 ruling, filed in February of 2010, is time-barred and this Court will not exercise review of that ruling. In addition, because plaintiff has failed to present sufficient argument in his brief directly addressing the propriety or accuracy of the attorney's fees awarded, independent from his argument that the award is improper because the 2005 dismissal and all subsequent rulings of the Superior Court were purportedly invalid, he has waived and abandoned the attorney's fee award issue on appeal despite the fact that it was identified as an issue in his appellate brief. Accordingly, since plaintiff has waived the only issue on appeal that is not time-barred, the Superior Court’s award of attorney’s fees is affirmed.

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February 2, 2012

S. Ct. Crim. No. 2010-0069
Jeffrey Browne v. People of the Virgin Islands

	In a prosecution on two counts of first degree murder and charges of attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment, unauthorized possession of a firearm, and interference with an officer discharging his duties, there was no reversible error in the trial court's admission of evidence seized pursuant to a valid search warrant obtained after defendant's vehicle was allegedly impounded illegally, or in the court's admission of statements by a co-defendant (his wife) which was redacted to remove any mention of him, and did not bear testimony against him. The trial court's receipt into evidence of death certificates of two of the victims, without testimony from the medical examiner who authored them, was in violation of the Confrontation Clause under Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) and Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968), but this error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in the context of this case. The trial court also violated defendant’s constitutional right to present a complete defense by excluding the proffered testimony of an attorney in an effort to impeach a government witness, but this error was also harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in light of other evidence. There was no reversible error in the trial court's handling of claims of juror misconduct, a motion for a change of venue, or its rulings relating to other rebuttal witnesses. The convictions and the judgment of the Superior Court are affirmed.

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February 2, 2012

S. Ct. Crim. No. 2010-0071
Luis Melendez v. People of the Virgin Islands

	In a prosecution on two counts of first degree murder, along with charges of attempted murder, assault, reckless endangerment, unauthorized possession of a firearm, and interference with an officer discharging his duty, there was no reversible error in the trial court's admission of evidence seized pursuant to a search warrant after another individual's vehicle was allegedly seized illegally, or in the court's admission of statements by a co-defendant (his sister) which did not bear testimony against the defendant. The trial court's receipt into evidence of death certificates of two of the victims, without testimony from the medical examiner who authored them, was in violation of the Confrontation Clause but amounted to harmless error in the context of this case. Nor did the trial court's handling of claims of juror misconduct, its failure to transfer defendant's case to another venue sua sponte based on evidence presented by another co-defendant, or its rulings relating to rebuttal witnesses deny defendant a fair trial. The convictions and the judgment of the Superior Court are affirmed.

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January 18, 2012

S.Ct. Civ. No. 2009-0084
Raphael Mendez v. Government of the Virgin Islands

	A pro se appeal from denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus is dismissed. After assault and firearms charges under the Virgin Islands Code were brought against the petitioner in the United States District Court for the District of the Virgin Islands in 1990 arising from a shooting incident, he was transferred to a federal correctional institution in North Carolina for psychological examination. Six months later the warden of that facility initiated civil commitment proceedings against petitioner in the North Carolina federal district court, and two decades later he remains civilly committed by order of the North Carolina federal court pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 4246. However, the charges against petitioner in the Virgin Islands were dismissed by the District Court of the Virgin Islands in 1992. Consequently, while statutory changes in 1991 and 1994 have vested jurisdiction over criminal and civil matters – including applications for the writ of habeas corpus – in the territorial courts of the Virgin Islands, they are without jurisdiction over this petitioner. Any due process defect inhering in the Superior Court's reliance on ex parte submission of court records in making its decision below was harmless because such records are properly subject to judicial notice and petitioner admits that all territorial criminal charges against him have been dismissed. The Superior Court’s order dismissing the pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is affirmed.

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January 9, 2012

S. Ct. Civ. No. 2009-0102
Gary Molloy, et al. v. Independence Blue Cross, et al.

	In a suit on several tort and contract theories brought by parents of a newborn against insurers for failure to provide timely air evacuation services to obtain medical treatment after his premature birth, the Superior Court did not abuse its discretion in denying a motion to compel answers to certain interrogatories because they were not relevant to the issue of personal jurisdiction over a party, and therefore plaintiffs failed to show actual and substantial prejudice from the ruling. The Superior Court erred by dismissing one of the defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction as to one count. While jurisdiction over that party pursuant to the Virgin Islands Long Arm Statute was not proper under 5 V.I.C. § 4903(a)(1) for transacting business in this territory, it was error to find that plaintiffs failed to satisfy the requirements of the Long Arm Statute on their false advertising claim under 5 V.I.C. § 4903(a)(2), contracting to supply services or things in this territory, and under § 4903(a)(4), for causing injury inside the territory by an act outside the territory. The Superior Court also erred by finding that constitutional due process considerations did not permit exercise of specific personal jurisdiction over that party on that count. Where, as here, the plaintiffs establish that a defendant has the requisite minimum contacts and that the claim arises out of those contacts, the burden of proof shifts to the defendant to present a compelling case that other considerations would render jurisdiction unreasonable, and here the moving defendant failed to carry its burden to show that exercising jurisdiction over it based on the claim in this count does not to comport with fair play and substantial justice. The Superior Court also abused its discretion by dismissing plaintiffs' claims for failure to prosecute without first addressing all six factors set forth in Halliday v. Footlocker Specialty, Inc., 53 V.I. 505 (V.I. 2010), and the present case is remanded for full consideration of those factors. The judgment of the Superior Court is reversed in part and the case is remanded for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.

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January 5, 2012

S.Ct.Crim.No. 2009-0107
James C. Tindell v People of the Virgin Islands

	In considering defendant's appeal following the acceptance of his plea of nolo contendere for failing to comply with Virgin Islands broker-dealer registration requirements, since he pled nolo contendere, he waived his challenge to the sufficiency of the information, and cannot raise the issue for the first time at this stage of the proceedings because the error, if any, is not jurisdictional, and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(3)(B)—the only other possible authority to support raising the issue for the first time on appeal—is inapplicable to Superior Court proceedings. Moreover, defendant's factual basis argument is not considered because Superior Court Rule 126 does not require courts in the Virgin Islands to assess the adequacy of the factual basis for a nolo contendere plea before accepting the plea. In addition, based on the record, there is no indication that the plea was involuntary. Finally, to the extent defendant's sentencing challenge is not simply a vehicle to assert his waived challenge to the sufficiency of the information, the Superior Court committed no error because his nolo contendere plea served as an admission that sufficient evidence existed to satisfy all elements of the offense to which he so pled, and the Superior Court imposed a sentence that was not only within the range set out in 9 V.I.C. § 658(a), but the same sentence that he had agreed to pursuant to his plea agreement. The Superior Court’s judgment is affirmed.

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January 5, 2012

S.Ct.Civ. No. 2009-0007
Timothy Defoe v. Lenroy Phillip,

	In considering plaintiff's civil suit alleging gross negligence against a co-employee arising out of a workplace accident, the Superior Court properly applied the holding of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Tavarez v. Klingensmith, 372 F.3d 188 (3d Cir. 2004), which held that a co-employee performing a non-delegable duty on behalf of an employer covered by the Virgin Islands Workers' Compensation Act, 24 V.I.C. § 250 et seq., is entitled to the same statutory immunity as the employer. However, as that Court has acknowledged in Pichardo v. V.I. Comm’r of Labor, 53 V.I. 936, 939, 613 F.3d 87, 89 (3d Cir. 2010) and Gov’t of the V.I. v. Lewis, 620 F.3d 359, 364 n.5 (3d Cir. 2010), the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands is not bound by prior federal interpretations of Virgin Islands local statutes, and an independent analysis of the Act’s statutory language and the Legislature’s intent indicates that the Legislature did not intend to include employees such as the defendant in its definition of “employer.” Because the plain language of the Act does not support extending an employer’s immunity from suit to a co-employee, the Legislature did not intend to prohibit lawsuits against co-employees when it enacted the Act, and thus the defendant is not entitled to claim the same immunity from suit that the Act affords to his employer. The Superior Court’s January 13, 2009, January 16, 2009, and February 12, 2009 Opinions and Orders granting summary judgment in the defendant's favor and dismissing plaintiff's complaint are reversed, and the matter is remanded to the Superior Court for further proceedings.

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January 3, 2012

S.Ct.Crim.No. 2007-0041
Stacey Ambrose v. People of the Virgin Islands

	In considering defendant's convictions for third degree assault in violation of title 14, section 297(2) and unlawful possession of a firearm in violation of title 14, section 2253(a) of the Virgin Islands Code, which were reversed in a December 18, 2008 Opinion ordering a new trial, it is held that since the defendant possessed advance notice of the fact that the People intended to obtain a conviction for third degree assault by proving that he had threatened the victim with a gun, the amendment to Count One of the information did not have the effect of charging the defendant with a new offense which he was not prepared to defend against at trial. Likewise, to the extent the Superior Court committed any constitutional error in its final jury instructions with respect to Count Two regarding unlawful possession of a firearm, the defendant would, at best, only be entitled to a sentence reduction as a remedy, rather than a judgment of acquittal, because the additional language only represented a sentence enhancement rather than an element of the underlying offense. In addition, defendant's admission that he did not possess a license to carry a firearm provided sufficient evidence for the jury to convict the defendant of that charge. Accordingly, the defendant is not entitled to an acquittal on either charge. The matter is remanded to the Superior Court for the new trial ordered in this Court’s December 18, 2008 Opinion.

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