Justia Montana Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Heather Weber filed suit under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA) to recover for personal injuries allegedly received during the course and scope of her employment with BNSF Railway Company, alleging BNSF breached its duty under FELA, violated the Locomotive Inspection Act (LIA), and violated the Safety Appliance Act (SAA), federal regulations, and other standards. The district court found BNSF not negligent. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed in part and affirmed in part, holding (1) the district court erred in granting BNSF's motion for judgment as a matter of law on Weber's LIA claim because Weber presented sufficient evidence that presented a factual issue whether the LIA had been violated and whether that violation played a part in causing Weber's injuries; and (2) the district court did not err in granting BNSF's motion to exclude testimony from Weber's treating physician about the results of a positron emission tomography (PET) scan performed on Weber. Remanded.

Plaintiff Carter Boehm, Trustee, sued Defendants Cokedale, L.L.C. and Allen Carter for property damages when, during construction of a road to reach Defendants' land, rocks of various sizes rolled downhill onto Plaintiff's property. Plaintiff subsequently added claims for assault and battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants, concluding that Boehm was not the trustee of any trust validly established under Montana law, and therefore Boehm was perpetuating the lawsuit on behalf of a non-existent trust. The district court also awarded Defendants attorneys' fees and costs. The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding (1) the district court properly granted summary judgment to Defendants pursuant to Mont. R. Civ. P. 17(a), which requires that every action shall be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest; and (2) the district court abused its discretion in awarding attorneys' fees to Defendants. The award of fees was reversed.

Pursuant to a plea agreement, Joshua McCaslin pled guilty to one count of failure to register as a sexual or violent offender. In accordance with the agreement, the district court committed McCaslin to the Department of Corrections (DOC) for five years, all suspended. Applicable to this appeal, the court applied credit for pretrial incarceration time served to any future revocation of McCaslin's suspended sentence rather than to his current fully suspended sentence. McCaslin appealed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that McCaslin's suspended sentence constituted a statutory judgment of imprisonment, and therefore, must be credited with the days of pretrial incarceration he served. Remanded.

Defendant John Finley's wife pleaded guilty to felony theft, and later, her probation officer conducted a valid search of her home. During a search of a safe in the couple's bedroom, the officer discovered drugs and drug paraphernalia. Defendant later entered conditional plea agreements to felony criminal possession of dangerous drugs and misdemeanor criminal possession of drug paraphernalia while reserving his right to appeal the district court's denial of his suppression motion. On appeal, Defendant challenged the district court's denial of his motion to suppress the evidence found in the safe, arguing that the probation officer exceeded the scope of the probationary search. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the probation officer legally searched the unlocked and open safe pursuant to the valid probationary search.

Mother consented to the adoption of her two biological children, after which the children were placed in the legal care of Guardians. Guardians later arranged for the adoption of the children by Adoptive Parents and relinquished the children. After six months of living with Adoptive Parents, Guardians moved to have their relinquishment and consent to adoption set aside, claiming their consent was fraudulently obtained by their reliance on a deficient pre-placement evaluation provided to them by Adoptive Parents. The district court denied the motion. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that because Guardians failed to establish the existence of actual or constructive fraud by clear and convincing evidence, there was no statutory basis to set aside the relinquishments and consents given by Guardians.

Plaintiffs, ranches and their owners, owned an irrigation ditch on which they relied to irrigate hay fields for their cattle operation. The ditch ran through Nataliya Joukova's property. The dispute between the parties arose when Joukova placed a culvert in the ditch bottom and built a bridge of rock and gravel across a portion of the ditch for which Plaintiffs had secondary easement rights for ditch maintenance. The district court concluded that the culvert and bridge could remain in place as they did not unreasonably interfere with Plaintiffs' secondary easement rights. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the district court erred in allowing Joukova's culvert and rock bridge to remain in the irrigation ditch as (1) Joukova's construction of a structure permanently blocking use of a portion of Plaintiffs' secondary easement inarguably encroached on the easement, and (2) the law governing easements makes clear that construction of the culvert constituted an unreasonably interference with Plaintiffs' easement rights, for which the statute required Joukova to obtain written permission.