## Facts

- Rejean Lussier was fatally shot on his farm while seated in a tractor cab during deer hunting activity nearby.
- Anthony Bessette, Rene Lussier, and Adam Reed hunted with Collin Viens using a “pushing/driving” method: several hunters (“pushers”) move through woods to drive deer toward a stationary “sitter.”
- By agreement, Viens acted as the sitter, positioned at the northeast corner of the decedent’s woodlot with sightlines along the treeline; the defendants acted as pushers and started after giving Viens time to get into place.
- The tractor was east of Viens’s position, within a line of fire along the treeline; at the time of the shooting, the defendants could not see Viens or the tractor.
- The Estate alleged defendants were jointly and severally liable for wrongful death under a concerted-action theory based on participation in the group hunting plan.
- The trial court granted summary judgment to defendants; the Estate appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether defendants were jointly liable under concerted-action principles for Viens’s negligent shooting because they participated in a common hunting plan.
2. Whether defendants substantially assisted or encouraged Viens while knowing his conduct was tortious.
3. Whether defendants were independently negligent in planning or executing the hunt, and whether any such negligence proximately caused the death.

## Decision

- The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for defendants.
- The court held the record did not support concerted-action liability because defendants neither shared a tortious design nor knowingly provided substantial assistance or encouragement to tortious conduct.
- The court also held the record did not support independent negligence or proximate cause as to defendants based on the hunting plan or their participation as pushers.

## Legal Principles

- Concerted-action liability requires more than participation in group activity; it requires either:
  - action pursuant to a common design to commit a tort, or
  - substantial assistance/encouragement given with knowledge that the other’s conduct breaches a duty, or
  - substantial assistance where the assisting party’s own conduct is an independent breach of duty to the injured person.
- A lawful common plan that merely creates an occasion for another participant’s negligence does not establish a shared tortious purpose.
- Without contemporaneous knowledge of the tortious aspect of another’s conduct, a participant’s general assistance in the underlying activity is insufficient for concerted-action liability.
- In negligence, liability requires a breach of duty and proximate causation; attenuated planning allegations are insufficient when the immediate harm results from another person’s unexpected negligent act.

## Conclusion

The court declined to extend joint liability to co-participants in a coordinated hunt where the defendants did not agree to unsafe conduct, did not knowingly assist the shooter’s wrongful acts, and did not otherwise breach a duty that proximately caused the fatal shooting.


Lussier v. Bessette, 16 A.3d 580 (Vt. 2010)