G2003B owned a 45-acre parcel it acquired from Aspen, which had received subdivision approval from the town’s planning board in January 2002. At the March 2002 town meeting, the voters approved a petitioned zoning amendment creating a historic district overlay that restricted development in the area that included the Aspen parcel.
Having acquired the parcel, in June 2003 G2003B filed for a declaratory judgment in superior court that the zoning amendment was unconstitutional and sought damages for inverse condemnation because it claimed the ordinance rendered the parcel valueless.
The planning board and the board of selectmen had opposed the petitioned zoning amendment. They sent a letter to town residents who had circulated the petitioned article informing them that the town would not expend the funds necessary to vigorously defend the zoning amendment. The selectmen notified the residents that they could intervene in the case. Some residents filed a motion to intervene, which the superior court granted. In a 23-page order, the superior court denied G2003B’s request to have the ordinance declared unconstitutional on its face. It deferred the issue of whether the ordinance was unconstitutional as applied to G2003B’s property.
The town and G2003B then filed a motion for a consent decree in which the parties agreed that the amended ordinance was unconstitutional as applied to G2003B’s property because it prevented reasonable use of the land. The agreement permitted the subdivision and development of the property in return for G2003B’s withdrawal of other claims against the town including damages for inverse condemnation.
The intervenors filed a motion objecting to the consent decree, arguing that facts in the consent decree were either false or unsupported by the evidence. After a hearing on both motions, the superior court approved the consent decree.
The intervenors appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the trial court erred in approving the consent decree because it was based on erroneous facts and conclusions of law. They argued that the trial court should have granted them an evidentiary hearing. The Court disagreed, noting that the intervenors received notice of and attended the hearing on the motion to approve the consent decree and the intervenors’ motion to object, where they were permitted to present their case and could have presented evidence at that time.
The intervenors also argued that the superior court should not have approved the consent decree without verifying the facts asserted in it. As the Court noted, consent decrees are “freely contracted agreements between parties” and “are encouraged by New Hampshire’s well-established principle of favoring the settlement of litigation.” Therefore, the Court said, it will overturn a consent decree only if the court unsustainably exercised its discretion to approve a consent decree motion.
The Supreme Court disagreed with the intervenors’ argument that the lower court didn’t have sufficient facts to approve the consent decree because, the Court noted, the lower court held oral arguments, allowed the parties to submit memoranda of law and findings of fact, took a view of the site and thoroughly considered the constitutional issues in its initial 23-page order.
The Court held that the lower court’s approval of the consent decree motion was not an unsustainable exercise of the court’s discretion.