Opinion
No. 168-75
Opinion Filed June 1, 1976
Declaratory Judgments — Purpose
Purpose of declaratory judgment is to enunciate, so far as is requested and appropriate, the rights of the parties, and where clarification was not forthcoming in lower court and declaration was not carried out, reversal and remand were required. 12 V.S.A. § 4711.
Petition for declaratory judgment. Superior Court, Rutland County, Hill, Chief Superior Judge, presiding. Reversed and remanded.
J. Fred Carbine, Jr., Rutland, for Plaintiff.
Webber and Costello, Rutland, for Adirondack Bottled Gas Corp. of Hudson Falls, Home Gas Corp. of Housatonic, and Adirondack Bottled Gas of Fairlee, for Defendants.
Present: Barney, C.J., Smith, Daley, Larrow and Billings, JJ.
The parties in this case came to the lower court seeking a clarification and declaration of legal rights and relationships existing between them, a remedy authorized by law. See 12 V.S.A. § 4711. The purpose of a declaratory judgment is to enunciate, so far as is requested and appropriate, the rights of the parties. Graves v. Town of Waitsfield, 130 Vt. 292, 292 A.2d 247 (1972). Clarification was not forthcoming and the entitlement to declaration was not carried out. The matter must be reversed and remanded for a proper resolution of the issues because of errors in both the determination of the facts and the failure to properly apply the proper postulates of the law.
Reversed and remanded.