Scully v. Schubert

This case presents the issue of whether the usual rule of appellate waiver of trial error applies when a state’s attorney’s office, after mishandling a URESA petition, moves for relief from judgment on an erroneous ground. We hold that due to the nature of URESA proceedings the rule that a lawyer’s tactical decisions bind a client is relaxed and accordingly reverse and remand.

Allison Scully was an unmarried inn-worker in the Dorset area of Vermont when she became pregnant in September 1985. She left the state and moved to Ipswich, Massachusetts, in November 1985, and there gave birth to Emma.…