Guite Renews Dispute with Critic

Vermont Telephone Co. CEO Michel Guite successfully overcame a recent court challenge to block him from excavating a cemetery to make way for a home that he wanted to build in Hartland, in a case that provoked outrage among many in the community.

http://www.vnews.com/10062011/8082014.htm

Published 10/6/2011
Guite Renews Dispute with Critic
By Mark Davis
Valley News Staff Writer

Hartland -- Vermont Telephone Co. CEO Michel Guite successfully overcame a recent court challenge to block him from excavating a cemetery to make way for a home that he wanted to build, in a case that provoked outrage among many in community.

But apparently, Guite was not satisfied with his legal victory: He has returned to court, this time to sue the 85-year-old Hanover man who tried to stop him from digging up and moving the remains interred in the centuries-old cemetery.

Guite -- who as of last year owned a $3.3 million home in Greenwich, Conn. -- says that Jerome King, who contested the cemetery excavation and whose family owned the property 30 years ago, should reimburse him for the cost of removing two underground fuel tanks buried on the property.

The parties are scheduled to appear next week in Windsor Superior Court. Guite, in his lawsuit, says the tanks are King's responsibility, even though King's family sold the property in 1983.

In an interview, King, a retired professor who lives in the Kendal retirement community said he plans to defend himself against his adversary's claims without hiring an attorney.

“He's a guy who doesn't want anybody to stand in his way, and it aggravates him when someone does,” King said. “I don't have the kind of money for lawyers that Guite has … (but) I can do the research.”

Guite's attorney, George Lamb of Springfield, Vt., declined to comment yesterday. Guite did not respond to a message left at VTel's headquarters in Springfield, Vt.

King has filed several legal motions arguing the law that Guite's lawsuit is trying to invoke was passed well after King family sold the land, and therefore doesn't apply in the instance cited.

“I don't feel it's going to go (Guite's) way,” King said, who is not a lawyer.

King's parents, Robert and Dorothy, owned the 173-acre hilltop property off Town Farm Hill Road between 1950 and 1983, where they operated a farm.

King worked as a farm manager, according to court documents, before going on to a career teaching politics at the University of Vermont, Middlebury College and other schools.

The property was sold multiple times before Guite bought it in 2008.

Last year, Gutie says he found two 1,000-gallon petroleum storage tanks buried in the ground on his property. The complaint does not state if the digging was related to the exhumation of the remains in the cemetery.

Guite's lawsuit contends that the tanks date to the years when the Kings owned the property because they were found buried near other debris, including discarded bricks, milk buckets, and a rusted clothes iron, that would be associated with the King family farm operation.

“King … would have had knowledge of and used the underground storage tank during his operation of the farm … (and therefore should have ensured) that said underground tank was removed and was not a source of pending environmental risk,” Lamb wrote in a court filing.

King said that he has no knowledge of the second tank that was discovered. He said the first tank the family used to store fuel for haying operations. But when the cow barn burned down in 1956, the family ceased operating the dairy. He said the tank was drained and he later simply forgot about it.

“No longer in use, the tank was put quite out of mind, until George Lamb's letter … a half century later brought it back to me,” King himself wrote in a court filing.

After unearthing the tanks, Guite said that he notified the Vermont environmental regulators and the town of Hartland, and hired an environmental consulting firm to examine and remove the tanks.

While Guite did not provide a cost for that work in court documents, King said in the interview he was told the total cost was more than $20,000. In his court filing, King says that Guite wants him to pick up that tab.

But King says he cannot be held responsible for the costs of removing the tanks.

King's parents died in the 1970s, and he became trustee of their estate in 1979. He sold the property in 1983.

The law governing responsibility for underground storage tanks -- which is the center of Guite's lawsuit -- was passed in 1985. “It is a general principle of equity that civil liability law is not retroactive,” King, wrote in a court filing.

Moreover, King argues, even if the law is found to apply, it excludes the types of tanks that Guite found buried on his property.

Ironically, Guite spent much of the past few years arguing that King had no legal claim on the property. Shortly after buying the property in 2008, Guite sought permission to relocate the cemetery, which contained the remains of Noah Aldrich, a veteran of the War of 1812, and his two granddaughters, along with the ashes of King's parents, and others.

Guite initially said the cemetery would interfere with a home he wanted to build nearby, though in subsequent interviews and court hearings he said he wanted to move the cemetery to another area on his property to provide for easier access to descendants, and to keep interlopers from venturing near his own home.

But the plan outraged the community: Hartland residents passed a non-binding resolution against the proposal during Town Meeting, and the head of the Vermont Old Cemetery Association called it “a heinous thing.”

Meanwhile, King went to court, filing motions and wrangling with Guite attorney's Lamb, during hearings in which the lawyer insisted that King had no legal standing to challenge the relocation of the grave plots.

After a lower court judge sided with King and rejected Guite's plan, Guite took the case to the Vermont Supreme Court, which in June overturned previous rulings and allowed him to proceed.

King said that while he lives comfortably, he is distressed that such a wealthy individual as Guite would sue him to reclaim a comparatively minor sum of money.

Last year, VTel won $116 million in federal stimulus funds to expand high-speed Internet service throughout Vermont.

In addition, Guite and his family gave more than $72,000 in campaign contributions to benefit Vermont politicians and related campaigns between 2005 and 2010, as previously reported.

“I am among the more fortunate in the world, but I can't afford to lose much money, either,” King said.

“I would like my children to inherit a little something, and I wouldn't want Guite's children inheriting my children’s (money).”