Background
Christopher and Jessica Cover own a vacation cottage in Brownington, Vermont that abuts a property owned by Susan Tyrell and used by her and Robert Nolan. What began as a pleasant neighborly relationship deteriorated after defendants pressured plaintiffs to participate in litigation against their seller, remove a fence, modify an easement, and sell a portion of their land. When plaintiffs declined, defendants launched what the trial court described as “an unambiguous campaign of retaliatory harassment.”
Over the following years, defendants deployed an expanding surveillance apparatus—including cameras repositioned to cover plaintiffs’ property, motion-sensing alarms that announced “You are being recorded” when plaintiffs walked on their own land, seismic sensors, drone surveillance, and eventually a yard robot that maneuvered around a privacy fence plaintiffs had erected. Nolan sent Cover text messages boasting of his sniper certification and rifle scope upgrades, and forwarded a graphic description of a squirrel he had shot—messages the trial court found were intentionally threatening. Nolan also conducted target practice aimed toward areas where Ms. Cover walked her dog, warned plaintiffs they could be in his “line of fire,” and told them a visiting “marksman/sniper” friend would be armed and should not be surprised at night. Defendants additionally entered plaintiffs’ property without permission, removed safety-zone stakes, installed gate sensors to track plaintiffs’ comings and goings, and sent repeated threats of litigation.
Plaintiffs filed four anti-stalking complaints in Vermont Superior Court in August 2025. After a two-day evidentiary hearing, the trial court issued a nine-page written decision finding that both defendants had stalked both plaintiffs and entered final anti-stalking orders for a two-year period. The orders required defendants to stay away from plaintiffs, to refrain from firing weapons onto plaintiffs’ property, and to ensure their surveillance equipment did not capture movement on plaintiffs’ property. Defendants appealed, represented by counsel.
The Court’s Holding
The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed all four anti-stalking orders. On the threshold procedural issue, the court held that defendants waived all challenges to the trial court’s factual findings by failing to order the transcript of the September 2025 hearing day; because the court’s findings drew on evidence from both hearing days, the missing transcript made informed appellate review of any factual challenge impossible under V.R.A.P. 10(b).
Turning to the legal challenges, the court rejected defendants’ argument that Tyrell could not be held responsible for Nolan’s conduct. The trial court found she was at minimum a willing participant in the surveillance effort, and Nolan had explicitly told Cover that Tyrell “will agree to the tone / intentions in this text as well.” The anti-stalking statute’s definition of “course of conduct” expressly reaches acts taken “directly or indirectly, and by any action, method, device, or means,” 12 V.S.A. § 5131(1)(B), which the court found sufficient to attribute the joint campaign to both defendants.
The court also rejected defendants’ claims that their security systems were lawful conduct beyond the statute’s reach, that the trial court’s findings were insufficiently specific, and that the threatening communications were constitutionally protected speech. On the last point, the court reiterated that the First Amendment does not shield “true threats”—statements communicating a serious intent to commit unlawful violence—and that such threats need not be express or overt under Vermont’s statute. The court found no error in the trial court’s application of the objective “reasonable person” standard required by 12 V.S.A. § 5131(6).
Key Takeaways
- Failing to order all hearing transcripts on appeal waives every factual challenge that depended on the missing record, regardless of the merits.
- Vermont’s anti-stalking statute reaches conduct carried out “indirectly,” allowing courts to hold a co-participant responsible for a campaign of harassment even when the other defendant performed the overt acts.
- Lawful security equipment—cameras, drones, seismic sensors, yard robots—can constitute unlawful stalking surveillance when deployed with a dual purpose of monitoring neighbors, not merely securing one’s own property.
- Threatening messages invoking weapons training, shooting demonstrations, and warnings about armed visitors are not protected speech and may satisfy the statute’s “true threat” element even if framed as incidental communications.
- The court issued a sanctions warning to defense counsel for citing a nonexistent case in the original brief and, after being permitted to amend, mischaracterizing a real case and fabricating a quotation from it.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates how Vermont courts will apply the anti-stalking statute to technology-enabled neighbor harassment—combining consumer surveillance hardware, drones, robotic devices, and text messaging into a legally cognizable “course of conduct.” Attorneys advising clients in property disputes should note that deploying surveillance systems with even a partial purpose of monitoring neighbors, rather than purely securing one’s own premises, can cross the line into actionable stalking under 12 V.S.A. § 5131.
The opinion also carries a pointed professional-responsibility lesson: the court publicly warned defense counsel that submitting a brief containing a fabricated citation, and then—after being granted leave to amend—mischaracterizing precedent and inventing a quotation from it, may result in Rule 11 sanctions proceedings. The reminder underscores that appellate courts scrutinize cited authority and that citation errors, whether negligent or deliberate, carry serious consequences for counsel’s credibility and standing.