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The Indiana Supreme Court granted transfer to three cases for the week ending June 30, including one involving a a pool company that, according to the Court of Appeals of Indiana’s judgment, didn’t properly file a motion to set aside default judgment.
In that case — Expert Pool Builders, LLC v. Paul VanGundy, 23S-PL-171 — Expert Pool Builders LLC faced a complaint that alleged breach of contract, fraud, negligence and other allegations.
The trial court granted default judgment for the plaintiff, Paul Vangundy, after the defendants didn’t respond to the pleadings.
EPB then filed a motion to set aside the default judgment, alleging it had been mistakenly made on a neighboring business. Vangundy agreed to set aside the default judgment, but EPB needed to respond to the complaint within 30 days.
EPB did not respond within that time, so Vangundy filed another motion for default judgment. EPB responded with a motion to dismiss, claiming the parties had agreed not to file responsive pleadings while they considered voluntary dismissal of EPB.
Vangundy denied that such an agreement existed, and the St. Joseph Superior Court ultimately entered default judgment against EPB.
EPB then filed a motion to correct error under Indiana Trial Rule 59, but not Trial Rule 60(B). The motion was denied.
A split Court of Appeals dismissed EPB’s appeal, ruling the company failed to follow the proper procedure to contest the trial court’s entry of default judgment as laid out in Siebert Oxidermo, Inc. v. Shields, 446 N.E.2d 332 (Ind. 1983).
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Nancy Vaidik wrote Siebert wasn’t applicable.
Oral arguments have not been scheduled.
Justices have already issued opinions in the two other cases that were granted transfer.
In State of Indiana v. Bryan D. Lyons, 23S-CR-163, a unanimous court ruled an Indiana trial court properly sanctioned the state by excluding a defendant’s statements related to a polygraph that was supposed to be admissible.
Justices also laid out a two-factor test for determining whether such sanctions are permissible under Trial Rule 37. According to the rule, trial courts must consider a finding that exclusion is the sole remedy available to avoid substantial prejudice, or a finding that the sanctioned party’s culpability reflects an egregious discovery violation.
In Christopher Jerome Harris v. State of Indiana, 23S-CR-165, a split Supreme Court ruled a defendant’s testimony about a prior, unrelated felony was irrelevant to his habitual offender trial.
The court’s majority determined Article 1, Section 19 of the Indiana Constitution applies to a habitual offender jury trial, ruling the provision doesn’t require the Indiana Legislature to “entrust sentence enhancement status decisions to juries” but that when a jury trial is held, “the jury must be allowed to perform its constitutionally mandated functions.”
“Thus,” Justice Christopher Goff wrote, “in the habitual offender phase, the jury may determine both whether the defendant has the convictions alleged and whether those convictions make the defendant a habitual offender as a matter of law.”
Justice Derek Molter concurred in part and in the judgment with a separate opinion, which Justice Mark Massa joined.
Chief Justice Loretta Rush concurred in part and dissented in part with a separate opinion, which Justice Geoffrey Slaughter partially joined.
Justices denied transfer to 16 cases.
Rush penned a dissenting opinion in the denial of Nickalas James Kedrowitz v. State of Indiana, 22A-CR-457, which involved a teenager whose convictions and 100-year sentence for murder were upheld by the Court of Appeals.
Goff joined Rush’s opinion.
In that case, Nickalas Kedrowitz was convicted in adult court for killing two younger siblings. He was 13 years old at the time of the incident in May 2017.
During an interview as part of a child in need of services case, Kedrowitz said he “freed” his 2 1/2-year-old sister and 11-month-old brother.
He later confessed to his great-aunt, uncle, grandmother, a court-appointed special advocate and a counselor, telling his great aunt he had suffocated his siblings to “protect” them from “the kind of life that [he was] leading.”
The juvenile court waived jurisdiction, and Kedrowitz proceeded to trial on two murder charges in Ripley Circuit Court. A jury found him guilty as charged, and he was sentenced to 50 years on each charge, to be served consecutively.
On appeal, Kedrowitz argued the juvenile court erred in finding him competent and in waiving its jurisdiction. He also claimed that the Ripley Circuit Court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over his case, and that the trial court abused its discretion and violated his constitutional rights in sentencing him.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentence, ruling in part that the juvenile court “engaged in a thorough inquiry into Kedrowitz’s competence.”
In her dissent, Rush cited the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Section 16 of the Indiana Constitution that prohibit cruel and unusual punishment.
Kedrowitz’s case, Rush wrote, illustrates that some defendants have less protection under the Indiana Constitution.
“Transfer is needed to rectify this gap,” she wrote.
A juvenile’s characteristics matter when considering if their sentence violates Article 1, Section 16, Rush wrote.
“And we also pass up an important opportunity to consider whether Kedrowitz’s 100-year sentence—a de facto sentence of life without parole—passes constitutional muster,” she wrote.
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