Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

This appeal arises from the tragic death of a man who died while in custody. Appellants appealed the district court’s orders dismissing their claims against the Sheriff and granting summary judgment to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Department Officers, NaphCare, and a NaphCare employee.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the claims against the Sheriff and its grant of summary judgment to both the Officers and the employee. However, the court vacated and remanded the district court’s summary judgment in favor of NaphCare. The court explained that in Appellants’ response to NaphCare’s motion for summary judgment, Appellants relied mainly on the medical report and deposition of Dr. Timothy Hughes but also referred to the report and deposition of two other witnesses, as required by O.C.G.A. Section 9-11-9.1. Dr. Hughes’s report concluded the failure of NaphCare medical staff to properly screen, examine, and treat the decedent was the proximate cause of his death. This testimony is supported by the other witnesses. The court agreed with Appellants that, based on Dr. Hughes’s testimony, there is enough of a genuine issue of material fact for NaphCare’s liability to reach a jury. Dr. Hughes did not solely rest his argument on NaphCare’s failure to sedate the decedent. It was the failure of the staff to follow through with the decedent at all that was the problem. While this included the need for sedation, it also included immediate classification to suicide watch and observation. View "April Myrick, et al v. Fulton County, Georgia, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs-landowners alleged Anadarko Petroleum Corporation's intracompany practice of leasing its mineral interests to its affiliated operating company, including its 30% royalty rate, had the intent and effect of reducing the value of Plaintiffs’ mineral interests. Plaintiffs claimed Anadarko thereby maintained and furthered its dominant position in the market for leasing oil and gas mineral interests in violation of the Sherman Act § 2 and Wyoming antitrust laws. Plaintiffs sought treble damages and attorneys’ fees under § 4 of the Clayton Act. The federal district court certified a class action, for liability purposes only, comprised of “[a]ll persons . . . having ownership of Class Minerals during the Class Period.” Anadarko appealed the district court’s class certification pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f). The Tenth Circuit concluded the district court applied the correct legal standard in deciding whether the class satisfied the requirements of Rule 23, and it did not abuse its discretion in certifying the class. The Court therefore affirmed the district court’s class certification. View "Black, et al. v. Occidental Petroleum, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant Loretta Stiles lived in a Laguna Woods residential unit (the property) owned by Dan Blechman. Stiles was permitted to live at the property by Blechman without provision for the payment of rent or the duration of her stay. Stiles had worked for Blechman for many years and, instead of being paid a salary, he allowed her to live at the property beginning in 2011 and also paid her expenses. After Blechman passed away, the administrator of his estate, plaintiff Alex Borden, served Stiles with a 30-day notice to quit the property. After Stiles refused to leave, he filed an unlawful detainer action. Borden moved for summary judgment against Stiles. Stiles in turn moved for summary judgment, arguing Borden’s notice to quit failed to state just cause for terminating her tenancy, as required by the Tenant Protection Act of 2019 at Civil Code section 1946.2. The parties agreed in their respective motions Stiles had a tenancy at will. The trial court concluded section 1946.2 applied to Stiles’s tenancy and consequently granted Stiles’s motion and denied Borden’s motion on the ground Borden’s 30-day notice failed to state just cause for terminating the tenancy as defined in the statute. The Appellate Division affirmed the trial court’s judgment in favor of Stiles. The Court of Appeal reversed, finding the record reflected the tenancy at issue was created by a hiring, and such a tenancy is “terminable at the pleasure of one of the parties.” The tenancy would have terminated when Stiles was notified of Blechman’s death. At that point, Stiles would have become a holdover tenant, and no longer in lawful occupation of the property. The Court found the record silent on the specifics regarding the timeframe in which Stiles performed work for Blechman in exchange for her tenancy, when Blechman passed away, when Stiles was notified of his death, and whether thereafter Borden had potentially entered into a tenant relationship with Stiles. Because triable issues of material fact existed as to whether Stiles was in lawful occupation of the property within the meaning of section 1946.2 (i)(3), summary judgment should not have been entered in either party’s favor. View "Borden v. Stiles" on Justia Law

In 2004, the Defendants-appellees Joe and Cindy Witherspoon obtained an installment loan in the amount of $66,400.00 from a mortgage company. The promissory note was secured by a standard Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac uniform security instrument containing an optional acceleration clause. In July 2014, Bank of New York Mellon (BNYM), as the holder of the Note, filed a petition to foreclose the Mortgage. BNYM alleged that the Witherspoons defaulted on the Note and Mortgage by failing to pay the monthly installment due on December 1, 2010 and that they had failed to make any subsequent payments. BNYM asserted it elected to accelerate the debt and declare the entire balance due and payable. On October 13, 2014, BNYM voluntarily dismissed the foreclosure action without prejudice. After a series of transfers and assignments, Plaintiff-appellant MTGLQ Investors, L.P. became the holder of the Note and Mortgage on June 4, 2018. By August, MTGLQ sent the Witherspoons a Notice of Intent to Foreclose. The letter informed the Witherspoons they had defaulted on the Note and Mortgage by failing to pay the monthly installment due on January 1, 2013 and that failure to cure the default by paying all past due payments on or before September 25, 2018 might accelerate sums secured by the Mortgage and, ultimately, sale of the property. MTGLQ and the Witherspoons filed motions for summary judgment. The Witherspoons argued BNYM already accelerated the loan when they defaulted in 2010 and that MTGLQ filed its petition to foreclose on December 7, 2018, which was more than six years later, therefore, the claim was barred by the statute of limitations. MTGLQ responded that when BNYM dismissed the foreclose action, the note decelerated as a matter of law. The trial court granted summary judgment to the Witherspoons. The Oklahoma Supreme Court concluded: (1) pursuant to 12A O.S.2011, § 3-118(a), the statute of limitations began to run when the note holder exercised the option to accelerate an installment note; and (2) voluntary dismissal of a foreclosure action decelerates the loan as a matter of law. As a result, the foreclosure action was not barred by the statute of limitations, and the Witherspoons were not entitled to judgment as a matter of law. View "MTGLQ Investors v. Witherspoon" on Justia Law

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court dismissing Matthew Haney's complaint, brought as the Trustee of the Gooseberry Island Trust, against the Town of Mashpee and its Zoning Board of Appeals, holding that Haney's arguments on appeal were either waived or meritless.Haney brought this action seeking a declaratory judgment that Defendants' actions constituted uncompensated taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution due to an unconstitutional taking and the Massachusetts Constitution due to inverse condemnation. The district court dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the claims were not ripe for review. The First Circuit affirmed, holding (1) Haney waived his argument relative to whether the government had reached a final decision on the Trust's request for variances; and (2) Haney's remaining arguments were meritless. View "Haney v. Town of Mashpee" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals concluding that rezoning by amending a local government's zoning ordinance is legislative in character, and therefore, due process did not require an impartial decision-maker.Trustee Jan Miller (Trustee Miller), who served on the Village Board of Lyndon Station, cast the deciding vote in favor of an application filed by her daughter and son-in-law to amend the Village's zoning ordinance to rezone their residential property for commercial development. Thomas Miller (Miller), a local business owner, sought certiorari review of the Village's Zoning Board Appeals' decision upholding the Board's vote to amend the zoning ordinance. The circuit court reversed, concluding that Trustee Miller was not a fair and impartial decision-maker, and therefore, her participation in the vote violated due process. The court of appeals reversed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the Village Board's action was legislative in nature, and therefore, Miller was not entitled to an impartial decision-maker. View "Miller v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of Village of Lyndon Station" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review centered on whether Respondent Roger Hill had a legally protected interest that gave him standing to pursue his claim for a declaratory judgment “that a river segment was navigable for title at statehood and belongs to the State.” To this, the Court concluded he did not: Hill had no legally protected right independent of the State’s alleged ownership of the riverbed onto which he could hook his declaratory judgment claim. Hill's favorite fishing hole was on a riverbed along the Arkansas River. The record owners of the land abutting the river were Mark Warsewa and Linda Joseph, who had a home overlooking the fishing hole. Hill alleged that for several years, he repeatedly attempted to fish there and Warsewa and Joseph chased him off the property, sometimes with force. Hill asserted the riverbed was not in fact owned by Warsewa and Joseph, but instead public land owned by the State of Colorado and held in trust for the people. In both federal and state proceedings, the State argued that it alone could decide whether and when to pursue its property rights and that Hill did not have standing to bring these claims. Hill appealed, arguing that the riverbed was public land as a matter of federal law, and invoking the equal footing doctrine: that the segment of the Arkansas River that traversed the subject property was navigable at statehood, and therefore title to the riverbed transferred to the State by operation of law when Colorado achieved statehood in 1876. Because the federal government did not own the riverbed, it could not have transferred its title to Warsewa and Joseph’s predecessors in interest. A division of the court of appeals upheld the trial court’s dismissal of the quiet title claim, concluding that Hill could not pursue the property rights of the State because he did not himself have any claim to title. The Colorado Supreme Court concurred and affirmed dismissal. View "Colorado v. Hill" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court dismissed this case involving permits issued in 2017 and 2018 by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) to four different swine confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), holding that current circumstances rendered moot the legal challenges brought by Sierra Club.In 2017, Husky Hogs LLC formulated a plan to rebuild and expand its CAFO. As part of the plan, the rebuild planners formed Prairie Dog Pork, LLC, which was granted a portion of Husky Hogs' property. Thereafter, KDHE granted each LLC a permit. Subsequently, the same group of landowners created two additional LLCs to further their growing capacities and were given permits from KDHE. Sierra Club brought this lawsuit alleging that the permits issued to the four CAFOs violated the surface water setback requirements of Kan. Stat. Ann. 65-1,180. The district court held that the permits were unlawful. The CAFOs appealed, and while the appeal was pending KDHE issued four new permits to the CAFOs reflecting new legal descriptions of the four facilities. The court of appeals remanded the case with directions to reinstate the 2017 and 2018 permits, which were no longer operational. The Supreme Court dismissed the case, holding that there was no longer any actual controversy concerning the 2017 and 2018 permits. View "Sierra Club v. Stanek" on Justia Law

The plaintiffs were the wrongful-death beneficiaries of a man killed in an apartment fire and two other people injured in the same fire. The fire occurred at an apartment complex in Pike County, Mississippi. The plaintiffs sued the apartment complex’s management company, Alpha Management Corporation, which had its principal place of business in Madison County. And they also named as a defendant the purported property owner, Community Park Apartments, Inc. (CPA). At the time the complaint was filed, the Mississippi Secretary of State’s website listed CPA as having its principal office in Hinds County. So the plaintiffs filed suit in Hinds County. The controlling issue in this interlocutory appeal is fraudulent joinder—did the plaintiffs join a defendant for the sole purpose of establishing venue in Hinds County? Alpha Management asserted that CPA did not own the apartments. And because CPA was not a proper defendant, Alpha Management moved that venue be transferred from Hinds County to Pike County or Madison County. CPA similarly filed a motion to dismiss, attaching a copy of the same warranty deed showing it had sold the apartments in 1975 and then ceased to operate as a nonprofit corporation. Hinds County Circuit Court denied both motions. The Mississippi Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s ruling and remanded with instructions to dismiss CPA as a defendant and transfer the case to either Madison County or Pike County. View "Alpha Management Corporation, et al. v. Harris, et al." on Justia Law

In August 2015, Plaintiff-appellant, TIB-The Independent Bankers Bank ("TIB"), filed a foreclosure action against Kyle Goerke, based on a mortgage executed and recorded in 2007. TIB also included claims against Kyle Goerke's brother, defendant-appellee, Joseph Goerke ("Goerke"), and several of their family members because they possessed a right of first refusal recorded in the chain of title. At the time, Goerke also possessed a second interest in the property, a mortgage recorded in 2015. Although the title report ordered by TIB reflected both of Goerke's interests, TIB only named him as a defendant in the 2015 foreclosure based on his right of first refusal--and not on his mortgage interest. Goerke, an attorney, filed an answer in the 2015 foreclosure on behalf of himself and the other family members, noting that their right of first refusal had expired. Accordingly, Goerke claimed they had been improperly named as defendants and demanded that the claims against them be dismissed with prejudice. Goerke did not assert or reference his mortgage interest in his answer. TIB complied with Goerke's demand and dismissed the claims against him and his family members with prejudice. Kyle Goerke later resolved the default, and TIB dismissed the 2015 foreclosure action. Kyle Goerke defaulted again shortly thereafter, and TIB initiated a second foreclosure action. In the 2016 foreclosure, TIB discovered Goerke's mortgage interest and named him as a defendant on that basis. Goerke filed an answer to the 2016 foreclosure, claiming TIB was barred from bringing further claims against him because TIB dismissed him with prejudice from the 2015 foreclosure. Both TIB and Goerke filed motions for summary judgment. The district court entered an order denying TIB's motion for summary judgment and a journal entry granting Goerke's motion. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the trial court. On certiorari, the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that Plaintiff's claim against Goerke was not barred by the doctrine of claim preclusion. View "TIB-The Independent Bankers Bank v. Goerke" on Justia Law