The Indiana Court of Appeals remanded for parenting-time findings while affirming custody and the denial of enhanced remedies for fraud in a dissolution case.
The Indiana Court of Appeals held that the State need not indemnify a former correctional officer whose noncooperation deprived it of an opportunity to defend.
The Indiana Court of Appeals rejected untimely tort and easement claims but allowed judicial review of a county guardrail decision to proceed on an undeveloped record.
The Indiana Court of Appeals held that a truck driver’s per-mile compensation was a wage and enforced the bright-line deadline for summary-judgment responses.
The Indiana Court of Appeals held that the Attorney General cannot issue a civil investigative demand without a concrete factual predicate for an existing investigation.
On remand, the Indiana Court of Appeals upheld exclusion of inflammatory impeachment and prior-act evidence and reinstated the jury’s defense verdict.
The Indiana Court of Appeals held that comments about incomplete financial records did not constitute defamation per se because they did not unambiguously accuse anyone of professional misconduct.
The Indiana Court of Appeals held that a revocation petition gave adequate notice of the requested sanction and that consideration of a later, unalleged arrest did not require reversal.
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the termination of a mother’s parental rights but reversed the termination of a father’s rights as to his two biological children. The father complied fully with every ordered service, held a job, and maintained consistent visitation; his only obstacle was stable housing blocked by his criminal history. Because DCS never sought a waiver for a sister-in-law’s disqualified home despite a written policy allowing it, and never followed through on deposit assistance when the father found an apartment one week before the termination hearing, the court held that DCS failed to make reasonable efforts and that proceeding to terminate his rights violated due process.
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for state elevator-oversight agencies on all claims brought by an elevator company and its employees following years of regulatory disputes over permits, alteration orders, and reciprocal licensing. Key holdings: Indiana does not recognize a private right of action for monetary damages under the Indiana Constitution; a regulatory takings theory not pled in the complaint is waived; and ITCA immunity for discretionary licensing denials is not defeated by evidence of vindictiveness — degree of culpability is simply not a relevant consideration once immunity attaches.
The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed a dissolution decree’s property division because a contingent forced-sale provision—triggered if the husband could not refinance the mortgage—would have awarded the wife 96% of the marital estate, dramatically contradicting the trial court’s own finding that only a slight deviation from equal division was warranted.
The Indiana Supreme Court held that a Board of Zoning Appeals’ approval of a solar-farm special exception in the town’s two-mile extraterritorial fringe—issued before the town formally authorized extraterritorial jurisdiction in its comprehensive plan—was voidable, not void; landowners who did not challenge the approval within the statutory 30-day review period waived their objection.
The Indiana Supreme Court held that when the State proves the constitutionality of a search or seizure at a pretrial suppression hearing, it is not required to re-establish constitutional compliance at trial; courts assessing the stop’s validity may consider evidence from both the suppression hearing and the trial, and the exclusionary rule’s aims are fully served by requiring proof once.
The Indiana Tax Court affirmed the DLGF’s approval of Lake County’s 2023 land order, rejecting challenges from a pro se petitioner and an intervenor to the order’s timing, sales data sufficiency, valuation methodology, and hearing notice; the court also clarified that DLGF review under Indiana Code § 6-1.1-4-13.6 is limited to county-wide base rates and does not extend to the application of those rates to individual parcels.
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed a custody modification to Mother, holding that a GAL report filed electronically ten calendar days before a hearing was timely — the ten-day deadline runs on calendar days, not business days — and that Indiana’s new Trial Rule 7(D) requires continuance motions to include timing estimates or risk procedural denial.
The Indiana Court of Appeals holds that claims against an opioid treatment program for failing to warn a patient about driving risks while on methadone fall under Indiana’s Medical Malpractice Act, even when the injured party is a third-party motorist.
The Indiana Court of Appeals reverses three Level 5 felony intimidation convictions, holding that DCS is a ‘governmental entity’ but not a ‘government’ under Indiana’s terrorism definition statute, and remands for entry of lesser-included misdemeanor convictions.
The Indiana Court of Appeals reverses a defense verdict, holding that Beacon Health improperly raised a nonparty fault defense naming pool designers whose lack of negligence had already been determined on summary judgment.
The Indiana Court of Appeals departs from nearly forty years of precedent, holding that the assisting a criminal statute does not require proof that the person assisted fled across state lines to qualify as a ‘fugitive from justice.’
The Indiana Court of Appeals holds that the State need not prove THC in a driver’s blood came from illegal marijuana rather than legal hemp to sustain vehicular homicide charges, rejecting both statutory and federal preemption arguments.
The Indiana Court of Appeals affirms a murder conviction after three trials, holding that the defendant tacitly consented to the mistrial that triggered retrials by failing to object during an off-the-record chambers discussion—foreclosing his double jeopardy defense. The court also upholds a 70-year sentence and a consecutive firearm enhancement under Indiana Code section 35-50-2-11.