This case is a wrongful-death suit brought by the parents of a minor murder victim against Motoring Technical Services, Inc., a private vocational school, after an inmate participating in a state-run community placement program at Motoring left the premises, entered the victim's nearby home, and committed the crime. The Superior Court granted Motoring's motion for summary judgment, and the Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed. The court held that Motoring owed no duty of care to the victim because it was not in the business of supervising inmates, had been told to treat the inmate like any other student without special monitoring, and had not been informed of his prior sexual-assault adjudication. The opinion reviewed the summary-judgment standard, emphasizing the absence of any genuine issue of material fact regarding duty, a required element of negligence.
The case involved defendant Robert Sabetta's appeal from jury convictions on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of assault with intent to commit murder, arising from a 1993 shooting at an auto garage in Foster, Rhode Island, where witnesses identified Sabetta (a suspended police officer) as the gunman and linked the crimes to his motive from a prior assault indictment. He received consecutive life sentences on the murder counts and a twenty-year sentence on the assault count. The Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed the convictions, holding that the trial justice's comment referencing the prosecutor's suggestion that defense counsel was misleading the jury did not imply the judge's own belief in misconduct and that any potential prejudice was cured by the subsequent cautionary instruction to the jury.
This case involved Wickes Asset Management appealing from Superior Court rulings in seven consolidated tax-abatement actions challenging Lincoln's assessments on its 29.5-acre industrial property for tax years 1985 through 1991. The trial justice found Wickes had failed to file required annual accounts, barring most challenges under the relevant statute, but granted limited equitable relief for the 1991 assessment due to delayed revaluation and denied relief for other years after evaluating appraisals and property conditions. On cross-appeals, the Rhode Island Supreme Court ruled that equity jurisdiction was unavailable because an adequate legal remedy existed under the tax-abatement statute, vacated the 1991 reduction, and remanded for the trial court to determine if the account-filing defense was properly raised, to address constitutional challenges, and to reconsider the 1990 assessment without regard to the owner's fault in property deterioration.
This case involved a per-diem substitute teacher who had been laid off from full-time employment and was already receiving unemployment benefits, which were offset by her substitute earnings; the Department of Employment and Training Board of Review disqualified her from those prior benefits during school vacation periods under G.L. 1956 § 28-44-68. The District Court reversed the board's decisions, and the Supreme Court affirmed that ruling. The court reasoned that the statute's disqualification applies only to school employees who plan for periodic unemployment during recesses and does not reach individuals already collecting benefits from prior full-time separation, whose existing awards are unaffected except for the standard earnings offset under § 28-44-7.
This case is an appeal by both parties from a Rhode Island Family Court decision granting an absolute divorce on grounds of irreconcilable differences after a lengthy trial. The Family Court awarded the wife sole custody of the couple's child with no visitation rights for the husband, divided marital property including the home and retirement accounts, determined the husband's income at $85,000, and ordered him to pay weekly child support plus certain fees and sanctions. The Supreme Court upheld the divorce, custody, property division, and most other rulings, finding the trial justice did not abuse discretion and that the husband's conduct warranted the outcomes. It sustained the appeals only on the child support amount, remanding for proper application of the child-support guidelines worksheet.
This case involved Koch Fuels, Inc., a Delaware corporation, challenging a Rhode Island gross-earnings tax assessment on its sales of fuel oil delivered to Narragansett Electric Company in Providence between 1982 and 1984. The Tax Administrator imposed the tax under the Gross-Earnings Tax Act, the District Court upheld the assessment after finding it did not violate the Commerce Clause or Due Process Clause and that Koch qualified as an importer, and the Rhode Island Supreme Court affirmed on certiorari. The court reasoned that the tax functions as a sales tax on transactions where shipments occur to points within the state, Koch caused the oil to be imported by negotiating sales and retaining title until delivery at the Rhode Island terminal, and the statute's plain language applied to Koch as the entity bringing the product into the state for sale there.