State v. Crandall
Annotate this Case
STATE_V_CRANDALL.90-131; 162 Vt. 66; 644 A.2d 320
Filed 20-May-1994
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P.
40 as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
Court, 111 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602 of any errors in order
that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.
No. 90-131
State of Vermont Supreme Court
v. On Appeal from
District Court of Vermont,
Wayne D. Crandall Unit No. 1, Bennington Circuit
and Donna L. Crandall
Special December Term, 1990
Arthur J. O'Dea, J.
Theresa St. Helaire, Bennington County Deputy State's Attorney, Bennington,
for plaintiff-appellant
E. M. Allen, Defender General, and Anna E. Saxman, Appellate Defender,
Montpelier, for defendant-appellee Wayne Crandall
Robert Katims of Martin & Paolini, P.C. Barre, for defendant-appellee, Donna
Crandall
PRESENT: Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.
GIBSON, J. The State appeals from the trial court's suppression of
all evidence obtained from the stop and search of a vehicle occupied by
defendants Wayne and Donna Crandall. We remand for further fact-finding by
the trial court.
I.
On Wednesday, March 15, 1989, Officer Gary Briggs met with an informant
who volunteered information about persons he believed were dealing drugs in
the Bennington area. The informant named Wayne and Donna Crandall, told
Briggs where they lived, identified some of their customers, and made a
number of predictions about how and when the Crandalls would next purchase
drugs. The informant said the Crandalls usually collected from their
customers on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. He further indicated that
they would borrow Jack Crandall's black pickup truck the next weekend, that
they would head north on Route 7 to meet their supplier, and that Donna
Crandall would be driving.
Briggs verified that Jack Crandall owned a black pickup truck matching
the informant's description and then attempted surveillance of the
Crandalls on Saturday, March 18. That morning, Briggs watched Donna
Crandall drive away in the truck with Wayne Crandall as a passenger, but
lost them as they proceeded out of Bennington. He went back to the Crandall
residence, and saw them return about noontime.
Early the following week, Briggs again met the informant, who told him
the Crandalls had changed their route and had left Bennington on Route 9 to
go to the Mount Snow area, where they obtained about two pounds of mari-
juana. He predicted they would do the same thing on Saturday, March 25.
Relying on this information, Bennington police officers and the Vermont
State Police then organized a team surveillance effort. Early on Saturday
morning, a person identified by the informant as a Crandall customer arrived
at their residence. Shortly thereafter, defendants left, went to get the
pickup truck, and with Donna driving, proceeded out of Bennington on Route 9
to Wilmington, where they turned onto Route 100 toward Mount Snow. Defend-
ants took numerous side roads, were lost by the police at various times, but
were eventually spotted and followed to a residence in a remote location.
The trial court found this destination to be in the general area predicted
by the informant.
In mid morning, the supervisor of the field surveillance team
telephoned Officer Baker in Bennington, and instructed him to stop the
pickup truck when it reentered Bennington. At about noon, Baker spotted the
Crandall vehicle. He followed it into Bennington, stopped it, and asked
the driver, Donna, for registration, insurance identification, and a
driver's license. Officer Haverkoch soon joined him and took up a position
from which he could watch Wayne. After requesting Donna to get out of the
vehicle, Baker asked her, and then Wayne separately, where they had gone and
for what purpose. There were minor conflicts in their stories. Baker also
sought, without success, to obtain Donna's consent to search the vehicle.
Meanwhile, Haverkoch observed Wayne reach behind the seat, grab a brown
grocery bag, and place it on the floor in the front of the truck. When
Haverkoch asked Wayne what was in the bag, Wayne replied, "[N]othing."
Thereafter, Baker approached the passenger side door and asked Wayne to get
out so he could search the vehicle. When Wayne tried to take the bag with
him, Baker told him to leave it in the truck. Wayne threw the bag at
Haverkoch, hitting him in the chest. The bag, which contained approximately
two pounds of marijuana, opened and some of the contents spilled onto
Haverkoch's shirt. Defendants were arrested, read their Miranda rights, and
brought to the Bennington Police Station.
The State has charged both defendants with possession of marijuana.
Defendants filed a motion to suppress the marijuana, which the trial court
granted on grounds that the police did not have probable cause to believe
defendants were committing a crime at the time the police stopped their
vehicle.(FN1) The State requested permission to appeal, pursuant to 13 V.S.A. {
7403(c)(1) and V.R.A.P. 5(b)(1)(A). The court granted the motion,
certifying the following question:
Did the trial court err in determining that the State
did not establish sufficient probable cause to believe a
crime was being committed thus justifying the officer in
stopping the defendants in their vehicle?
As drafted, the certified question confuses the degree of justification
required for an investigatory stop with that required for an arrest, under
the assumption that the police needed probable cause to arrest when they
made the stop. We are not, however, limited by this inaccuracy inasmuch as
a certified question is a landmark, not a boundary, State v. Dreibelbis, 147
Vt. 98, 100, 511 A.2d 307, 308 (1986), and we can address issues that are
fairly raised even if they are not exactly described. State v. Curtis, 157
v. 275, 277, 597 A.2d 770, 771 (1991); In re Maple Tree Place, 156 Vt. 494,
498, 594 A.2d 404, 406 (1991). When a question certified to this Court is
overbroad or otherwise inapt, we have not hesitated to rephrase it in order
to set forth more appropriately the issues raised on appeal. See Shields v.
Gerhart, 155 Vt. 141, 149 & n.8, 582 A.2d 153, 158 & n.8 (1990); In re
W.H., 144 Vt. 595, 600, 481 A.2d 22, 26 (1984). Accordingly, we modify the
certified question as follows: Did the trial court err in determining that
the State did not establish sufficient justification for stopping and then
searching defendants' vehicle?
II.
The underlying issue is whether there was adequate justification for
each of the increasingly greater intrusions by the police. See United
States v. Chaidez, 919 F.2d 1193, 1197 (7th Cir. 1990) (continuum of
stricter requirements must be established to justify increasingly greater
intrusions); State v. Gray, 150 Vt. 184, 189, 552 A.2d 1190, 1193 (1988) (to
same effect). The stages contested by the parties are the initial stop, and
the ordering of Wayne Crandall to vacate the vehicle, which defendants claim
constituted a search. The State contends that (1) the police had probable
cause to believe a crime was being committed when the officer stopped the
car, or (2) the initial stop was supported by articulable reasonable sus-
picion and the stop escalated into probable cause for the search. Alterna-
tively, the State contends there was no search, because the bag containing
the marijuana was abandoned. Defendants argue that (1) the trial court
correctly held there was no probable cause for the stop and search, and in
any event, the State failed to establish either the informant's veracity or
the basis of his knowledge, as required by V.R.Cr.P. 41(c); (2) the ordering
of Wayne Crandall out of the vehicle violated Chapter I, Article 11 of the
Vermont Constitution; and (3) absent exigent circumstances, the warrantless
search of their motor vehicle violated Chapter I, Article 11 of the Vermont
Constitution.
A.
Initially, we address whether the stop was justified. The trial court
applied a probable-cause-for-arrest standard in analyzing this question.
But it is clear that "[p]olice officers may conduct a warrantless investi-
gatory stop when specific and articulable facts, taken together with
rational inferences from those facts, warrant a reasonable belief that a
suspect is engaging in criminal activity." State v. Caron, 155 Vt. 492,
499, 586 A.2d 1127, 1131 (1990) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22
(1968)). In evaluating reasonable and articulable suspicion, "'[t]he
totality of the circumstances -- the whole picture -- must be taken into
account.'" State v. Paquette, 151 Vt. 631, 635, 563 A.2d 632, 635 (1989)
(quoting State v. Lambert, 146 Vt. 142, 143-44, 499 A.2d 761, 763 (1985)).
In the instant case, the justification for the initial stop depends on
whether the informant's tip was sufficiently corroborated to furnish reason-
able suspicion that defendants were engaged in criminal activity.
The question is governed by Alabama v. White, 496 U.S. 325 (1990). In
White, an anonymous telephone caller tipped police that the defendant would
leave a certain apartment building at a particular time with a brown
attache case containing an ounce of cocaine, get into a Plymouth station
wagon, and go to a specified motel approximately four miles away. Although
not all of the details mentioned by the tipster were verified, such as the
defendant's name or the precise apartment from which she left, the police
did corroborate the predicted time frame, point of departure, vehicle, and
destination. The Court concluded that although the officers stopped the
defendant just short of the specified motel, the four-mile route driven by
the defendant "significantly corroborated" the destination. Id. at 331.
The Court reasoned that the tip contained a range of details relating to a
third-party's future actions that are not normally easy to predict and held
that, although it was a close case, the stop was justified. Id. at 332.
Similarly, in the instant case the anonymous tip, as corroborated,
furnished reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. The anonymous
informant predicted, and the police corroborated, the time frame, point of
departure, vehicle, route, use of side roads, and destination. In addition,
the informant identified one of the Crandalls' customers who appeared later
at their premises. The anonymous tip herein is, if anything, more detailed
and more fully corroborated than the tip in White. The initial stop was,
therefore, justified.
B.
The State contends that, irrespective of the trial court's ruling that
the stop was not supported by sufficient probable cause to believe that a
crime was being committed, the circumstances following the stop escalated
into probable cause that justified the ensuing search. Because the court
found the stop to be unjustified, it made no separate findings as to
whether sufficient justification for a search of the vehicle developed after
the stop. Inasmuch as this issue was never addressed by the trial court,
the matter must be remanded for further fact-finding.
The certified question, as rephrased, is answered as follows: The State
established sufficient justification for stopping defendant's vehicle;
however, because the trial court made no findings as to whether the search
was justified, the matter must be remanded for findings on this issue.
Remanded for further proceedings.
FOR THE COURT:
_________________________________
Associate Justice
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes
FN1. The trial court applied a single standard -- whether there was
probable cause to believe defendants had committed a crime -- to the entire
stop. Defendants contend that in doing so the trial court implicitly held
that the incident was from its inception a full-fledged arrest. The stop in
question was initially, however, no more than an investigatory stop and the
case must therefore be analyzed as an escalating investigatory stop.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Opinion date 9-Aug-1991
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to motions for reargument under V.R.A.P. 40
as well as formal revision before publication in the Vermont Reports.
Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Vermont Supreme
Court, 111 State Street, Montpelier, Vermont 05602 of any errors in order
that corrections may be made before this opinion goes to press.
No. 90-131
State of Vermont Supreme Court
v. On Appeal from
District Court of Vermont,
Wayne D. Crandall Unit No. 1, Bennington Circuit
and Donna L. Crandall
Special December Term, 1990
Arthur J. O'Dea, J.
Theresa St. Helaire, Bennington County Deputy State's Attorney, Bennington,
for plaintiff-appellant
E. M. Allen, Defender General, and Anna E. Saxman, Appellate Defender,
Montpelier, for defendant-appellee Wayne Crandall
Robert Katims of Martin & Paolini, P.C. Barre, for defendant-appellee, Donna
Crandall
PRESENT: Allen, C.J., Gibson, Dooley, Morse and Johnson, JJ.
GIBSON, J. The State appeals from the trial court's suppression of
all evidence obtained from the stop and search of a vehicle occupied by
defendants Wayne and Donna Crandall. We hold that the State had sufficient
justification to execute both the stop and the search.
I.
On Wednesday, March 15, 1989, Officer Gary Briggs met with an informant
who volunteered information about persons he believed were dealing drugs in
the Bennington area. The informant named Wayne and Donna Crandall, told
Briggs where they lived, identified some of their customers, and made a
number of predictions about how and when the Crandalls would next purchase
drugs. The informant said the Crandalls usually collected from their
customers on Friday nights and Saturday mornings. He further indicated that
on the next weekend they would borrow Jack Crandall's black pickup truck,
head north on Route 7 to meet their supplier, and that Donna Crandall would
be driving.
Briggs verified that Jack Crandall owned the a black pickup truck
matching the informant's description and then attempted surveillance of the
Crandalls on Saturday, March 18. That morning, Briggs watched Donna
Crandall drive away in the truck with Wayne Crandall as a passenger, but
lost them as they proceeded out of Bennington. He went back to the Crandall
residence, and saw them return about noontime.
Early the following week, Briggs again met the informant, who told him
the Crandalls had changed their route and had left Bennington on Route 9 to
go to the Mount Snow area, where they obtained about two pounds of mari-
juana. He predicted they would do the same thing on Saturday, March 25.
Relying on this information, Bennington police officers and the Vermont
State Police then organized a team surveillance effort. Early on Saturday
morning, a person identified by the informant as a Crandall customer arrived
at their residence. Shortly thereafter, defendants left, went to get the
pickup truck, and with Donna driving, proceeded out of Bennington on Route 9
to Wilmington, where they turned onto Route 100 toward Mount Snow. Defend-
ants took numerous side roads, at various times being lost by the police,
but were eventually spotted and followed to a residence in a remote loca-
tion. The trial court found this destination to be in the general area
predicted by the informant.
In mid morning, the supervisor of the field surveillance team
telephoned Officer Baker in Bennington, and instructed him to stop the
pickup truck when it reentered Bennington. At about noon, Baker spotted the
Crandall vehicle. He followed it into Bennington, stopped it, and asked
the driver, Donna, for registration, insurance identification, and a
driver's license. Officer Havercoch soon joined him and took up a position
from which he could watch Wayne. After requesting Donna to get out of the
vehicle, Baker asked her, and then Wayne separately, where they had gone and
for what purpose. There were minor conflicts in their stories. Baker also
sought, without success, to obtain Donna's consent to search the vehicle.
Meanwhile, Havercoch observed Wayne reach behind the seat, grab a brown
grocery bag, and place it on the floor in the front of the truck. When
Havercoch asked Wayne what was in the bag, Wayne replied, "[N]othing."
Thereafter, Baker approached the passenger side door and asked Wayne to get
out so he could search the vehicle. When Wayne tried to take the bag with
him, Baker told him to leave it in the truck. Wayne threw the bag at
Havercoch, hitting him in the chest. The bag, which contained approximately
two pounds of marijuana, opened and some of the contents spilled onto
Havercoch's shirt. Defendants were arrested, read their Miranda rights, and
brought to the Bennington Police Station.
The State has charged both defendants with possession of marijuana.
Defendants filed a motion to suppress the marijuana, which the trial court
granted on grounds that the police did not have probable cause to believe
defendants were committing a crime at the time the police stopped their
vehicle. (FN1) The State requested permission to appeal, pursuant to 13 V.S.A. {
7403(c)(1) and V.R.A.P. 5(b)(1)(A). The court granted the motion,
certifying the following question:
Did the trial court err in determining that the State
did not establish sufficient probable cause to believe a
crime was being committed thus justifying the officer in
stopping the defendants in their vehicle?
As drafted, the certified question confuses the degree of justification
required for an investigatory stop with that required for an arrest, under
the assumption that the police needed probable cause to arrest when they
made the stop. We are not, however, limited by this inaccuracy inasmuch as
a certified question is a landmark, not a boundary, State v. Dreibelbis, 147
Vt. 98, 100, 511 A.2d 307, 308 (1986), and we can address issues that are
fairly raised even if they are not exactly described. State v. Curtis, No.
87-278, slip op. at 3 (Vt. May 17, 1991); In re Maple Tree Place, No. 90-
354, slip op. at 5 (Vt. May 17, 1991). When a question certified to this
Court is overbroad or otherwise inapt, we have not hesitated to rephrase it
in order to set forth more appropriately the issues raised on appeal. See
Shields v. Gerhart, ___ Vt. ___, ___ & n.8, 582 A.2d 153, 158 & n.8 (1990);
In re W.H., 144 Vt. 595, 600, 481 A.2d 22, 26 (1984). Accordingly, we
modify the certified question as follows: Did the trial court err in
determining that the State did not establish sufficient justification for
stopping and then searching defendants' vehicle?
II.
The underlying issue is whether there was adequate justification for
each of the increasingly greater intrusions by the police. See United
States v. Chaidez, 919 F.2d 1193, 1197 (7th Cir. 1990) (a continuum of
stricter requirements must be established to justify increasingly greater
intrusions), cert. denied, Chavira v. United States, 111 S. Ct. 2861 (1990);
State v. Gray, 150 Vt. 184, 189, 552 A.2d 1190, 1193 (1988) (to same
effect). The stages contested by the parties are the initial stop, and the
ordering of Wayne Crandall to vacate the vehicle (which defendants claim
constituted a search). The State contends that (1) the police had probable
cause to believe a crime was being committed when the officer stopped the
car, or (2) the initial stop was supported by articulable reasonable sus-
picion and the stop escalated into probable cause for the search. Alterna-
tively, the State contends there was no search, because the bag containing
the marijuana was abandoned. Defendants argue that (1) the trial court
correctly held there was no probable cause for the stop and search, and, in
any event, the State failed to establish either the informant's veracity or
the basis of his knowledge, as required by V.R.Cr.P. 41(c), (2) the ordering
of Wayne Crandall out of the vehicle violated Chapter I, Article 11 of the
Vermont Constitution, and (3) absent exigent circumstances, the warrantless
search of their motor vehicle violated Chapter I, Article 11 of the Vermont
Constitution.
A.
Initially, we address whether the stop was justified. The trial court
applied a probable-cause-for-arrest standard in analyzing this question.
But it is clear that "[p]olice officers may conduct a warrantless investi-
gatory stop when specific and articulable facts, taken together with
rational inferences from those facts, warrant a reasonable belief that a
suspect is engaging in criminal activity." State v. Caron, ___ Vt. ___,
___, 586 A.2d 1127, 1131 (1990) (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 21-22
(1968)). In evaluating reasonable and articulable suspicion, "'[t]he
totality of the circumstances -- the whole picture -- must be taken into
account.'" State v. Paquette, 151 Vt. 631, 635, 563 A.2d 632, 635 (1989)
(quoting State v. Lambert, 146 Vt. 142, 143-44, 499 A.2d 761, 763 (1985)).
In the instant case, the justification for the initial stop depends on
whether the informant's tip was sufficiently corroborated to furnish reason-
able suspicion that defendants were engaged in criminal activity.
The question is governed by Alabama v. White, 110 S. Ct. 2412 (1990).
In White, an anonymous telephone caller tipped police that the defendant
would leave a certain apartment building at a particular time with a brown
attache case containing an ounce of cocaine, get into a Plymouth station
wagon, and go to a specified motel approximately four miles away. Although
not all of the details mentioned by the tipster were verified, such as the
defendant's name or the precise apartment from which she left, the police
did corroborate the predicted time frame, point of departure, vehicle, and
destination. Id. at 2414-17. The Court concluded that although the
officers stopped the defendant just short of the specified motel, the four-
mile route driven by the defendant "significantly corroborated" the
destination. Id. at 2417. The Court reasoned that the tip contained a
range of details relating to a third-party's future actions that are not
normally easy to predict and held that, although it was a close case, the
stop was justified. Id.
Similarly, in the instant case the anonymous tip, as corroborated,
furnished reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. The anonymous
informant predicted, and the police corroborated, the time frame, point of
departure, vehicle, route, use of side roads and destination. Additionally,
the informant identified one of the Crandalls' customers who appeared later
at their premises. The anonymous tip herein is, if anything, more detailed
and more fully corroborated than the tip in White. The initial stop was,
therefore, justified.
B.
Defendants next contend that the order for Wayne Crandall to get out
of the car transformed the events into a search, which was illegal because
there was no probable cause for a search. The trial court assumed there was
a search, but did not specify when it occurred (i.e., when Wayne was ordered
out of the vehicle, when the bag was thrown, or when the vehicle and bag
were physically searched). For purposes of argument, we assume that prob-
able cause to search the vehicle was necessary at the time the police
ordered Wayne to get out. (FN2)
Under the federal constitution, a warrantless search of a vehicle for
drugs is justified where there is, under the totality of the circumstances,
probable cause to believe that contraband will be found. (FN3) State v. Goyette,
No. 89-440, slip op. at 3 (Vt. May 31 1991). In Goyette, we held probable
cause to search the vehicle was "easily met" where the vehicle was stopped
based upon police corroboration of a confidential informant's tip and where
the police observed "defendant bend down in the car as if he were placing
something under the front passenger seat . . . ." Id., slip op. at 5.
Similarly, in the instant case the informant's tip was corroborated by
the police and, at the stop, Wayne was observed moving a brown paper bag
from behind his seat to the floor of the front seat. Further, when asked
what was in the bag, he said, "[N]othing." Subsequently, the police ordered
Wayne out of the vehicle so they could search it. We conclude that, under
the totality of the circumstances, there was probable cause to believe
contraband would be found at the time the police ordered Wayne Crandall out
of the vehicle. Given our disposition, we need not address the State's
contention that it had probable cause to arrest at the time of the stop.
C.
Defendants contend that the order to Wayne to get out of the vehicle
was an unconstitutional seizure under Chapter I, Article 11 of the Vermont
Constitution. They point out that the officers testified that they were not
fearful of weapons or injury from him.
"An order to get out of one's automobile is a further 'seizure' within
the meaning of Article Eleven." State v. Jewett, 148 Vt. 324, 330, 532 A.2d 958, 961 (1987). As there was probable cause to search the car at the
time of the order, however, there was a legitimate law enforcement purpose
served by ordering Wayne out of the vehicle so that he would not be in the
way of the search. Cf. id. (legitimate law enforcement purpose served by
ordering individual out of car at DWI stop in order to conduct dexterity
tests). Accordingly, ordering Wayne Crandall out of the vehicle did not
violate Chapter I, Article 11 of the Vermont Constitution.
III.
Defendants also contend that the trial court's judgment can be
sustained on grounds that the warrantless search of the vehicle, which they
claim lacked exigent circumstances, violated Chapter I, Article 11 of the
Vermont Constitution. It is doubtful that this issue is fairly within the
scope of the certified question -- whether there was adequate justification
for each of the increasingly greater intrusions. Even if raised by the
certified question, however, we will not address issues that go beyond the
facts or procedural posture of the case. In re W.H., 144 Vt. at 600-601,
481 A.2d at 26.
In the instant case, the trial court did not address the issue. As the
motion-to-suppress hearing focused on whether there was adequate
justification for the stop and request to vacate the vehicle, we lack an
adequate factual record. Further, the State did not seek interlocutory
review of the issue or brief it on appeal. While the issue will not go
away, the merits of the issue are not fully briefed and the relevant facts
are not fully developed. Cf. State v. Jenne, ___ Vt. ____, ___, 591 A.2d 85, 88 (1991) (doubting whether requirements for interlocutory review were
met, but addressing merits since the dispute would not go away, was fully
briefed and argued, and relevant facts were not subject to change at trial).
In contrast, the stop and the request to vacate the vehicle are fairly
raised by the certified question, have been fully briefed, and the relevant
facts are fully developed. Given these considerations, it would be
inappropriate to address this issue and we decline to do so. Defendants
are, of course, free to pursue the issue on remand.
The certified question, as rephrased, is answered in the affirmative.
FOR THE COURT:
_________________________________
Associate Justice
FN1. The trial court applied a single standard -- whether there was
probable cause to believe defendants had committed a crime -- to the entire
stop. Defendants contend that in doing so the trial court implicitly held
that the incident was from its inception a full-fledged arrest. The stop in
question was initially, however, no more than an investigatory stop and the
case must therefore be analyzed as an escalating investigatory stop.
FN2. On appeal, the State continues to contend that the bag was abandoned
when Wayne Crandall threw it at the officer. Given our disposition of the
case, we do not address this argument.
FN3. Defendants contend that the State failed to establish the inform-
ant's veracity or basis of knowledge, citing V.R.Cr.P. 41(c). The argument
is premised on a misconstruction of Vermont law. V.R.Cr.P. 41(c) "applies
only to searches upon warrant." Reporter's Notes, V.R.Cr.P. 41 at 171.
Warrantless searches are "governed by constitutionally mandated standards
found in the case law." Id; see State v. Goyette, No. 89-440, slip op. at 3
(Vt. May 31, 1991) (holding V.R.Cr.P. 41(c) inapplicable to warrantless
search of a vehicle). As the case at hand involves a warrantless search,
V.R.Cr.P. 41(c) is inapplicable.
We note that defendants do not contend that under the Vermont Consti-
tution the State must establish the informant's veracity and basis of
knowledge. Accordingly, we do not address that issue.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
