Background
C.G. was born in May 2019 to respondent Sarah Goodwin, who became a client at the Rutland County Parent Child Center. Petitioner Mary Zigman was the Center’s executive director, and her co-petitioner Chris Scotellaro was also a Center employee; the two were in a romantic relationship from 2019 to 2023. Their involvement with Goodwin and C.G. began through their professional roles providing social services. In late 2019, Goodwin called Zigman in crisis due to substance use and asked her to watch C.G. overnight. Over the following years, petitioners regularly cared for C.G., provided respondent with substantial support during episodes of substance abuse and domestic violence, and developed a bonded relationship with the child. Goodwin executed documents granting petitioners permission to care for C.G., including a conditional consent-to-treat allowing emergency medical decision-making.
In spring 2024, Goodwin’s mental health deteriorated and she cut off petitioners’ contact with C.G. Petitioners reported their concerns to the Department for Children and Families and, in May 2024, filed separate petitions in Rutland Superior Court, Family Division, seeking adjudication as de facto parents of C.G. under Vermont’s De Facto Parentage Act, 15C V.S.A. §§ 501–502. After a three-day evidentiary hearing, the trial court found petitioners had satisfied five of the seven statutory factors but denied both petitions in December 2024, concluding they had not proven by clear and convincing evidence that they undertook full and permanent parental responsibilities (factor C) or that continuing the relationship was in C.G.’s best interests (factor G).
Zigman moved for a new trial on factors C and G, alleging ineffective assistance of her original trial counsel. The court granted the motion and held a supplemental hearing in June 2025, which also encompassed Scotellaro’s pending motion for reconsideration. In August 2025, the court issued a final order again denying both petitions on factors C and G. Zigman, now self-represented, appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court.
The Court’s Holding
The Supreme Court affirmed the denial of Zigman’s de facto parentage petition. The court first noted a threshold briefing problem: several case citations in Zigman’s brief did not correspond to any existing decisions, and arguments resting solely on those fabricated citations were deemed inadequately briefed under V.R.A.P. 28(a)(4) and declined on that basis. The court warned that future filings of this nature could result in sanctions under V.R.C.P. 11.
On preservation grounds, the court rejected Zigman’s procedural due process challenges to the June 2025 hearing. It was Zigman herself who had originally requested that the evidentiary record be reopened only as to factors C and G, and she had also originally moved to consolidate the proceedings with Scotellaro’s petition. Having invited the procedural posture she now challenged, and having failed to object below, she could not raise those issues on appeal. The court similarly declined to reach Zigman’s hearsay challenge because her trial counsel withdrew the exhibit and did not object when the court interrupted the testimony at issue, leaving the point unpreserved.
On the merits, the court deferred to the trial court’s factual findings and upheld its legal conclusions on both contested factors. As to factor C, the court agreed that Zigman’s caretaking responsibilities were “limited and conditional” — carried out under documents that were time-limited and conditional, always subject to Goodwin’s instructions, and primarily aimed at stabilizing respondent — and therefore did not constitute the “full and permanent responsibilities of a parent.” As to factor G, the court found no abuse of discretion in the trial court’s conclusion that Zigman had not demonstrated that continuation of her relationship with C.G. was in his best interests, including its decision to give limited weight to expert testimony from a doctor who had never evaluated C.G.
Key Takeaways
- All seven statutory factors under 15C V.S.A. § 501(a)(1) must be proven by clear and convincing evidence; failure on even one — here, factor C (full and permanent parental responsibility) and factor G (best interests) — is independently sufficient to defeat a de facto parentage petition.
- Caretaking that is conditional, permission-based, and undertaken primarily to support the legal parent rather than to assume independent parental status does not satisfy the “full and permanent responsibilities of a parent” required by factor C.
- Procedural challenges are waived when the appealing party itself requested or acquiesced in the procedure below; invited error and failure to preserve an objection will bar review on appeal.
- The Supreme Court issued an explicit Rule 11 warning to Zigman after her brief cited case references that did not correspond to real decisions, underscoring that self-represented litigants are bound by the same certification obligations as attorneys.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the high evidentiary bar Vermont courts apply to de facto parentage claims, clarifying that significant, loving involvement in a child’s life — even over several years — does not automatically satisfy the statutory requirement of “full and permanent” parental responsibility if the caretaking was conditional on and subordinate to the legal parent’s ongoing direction and consent. Practitioners representing clients in de facto parentage proceedings should carefully document evidence showing that their client exercised independent parental judgment rather than merely acting as an extension of the legal parent’s authority.
The court’s pointed warning about fabricated case citations — characteristic of AI-generated “hallucinations” — signals that Vermont’s courts are alert to this risk in self-represented filings and prepared to impose sanctions. This is a notable procedural development as self-represented litigants increasingly use generative AI tools to draft appellate briefs, and it may foreshadow similar warnings or sanctions in other Vermont cases and jurisdictions.