Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

Defendant's patent discloses an investment tool designed to enable property owners to buy and sell properties without incurring tax liability by enabling like-kind exchanges under 26 U.S.C. 1031. The claims require aggregation of multiple properties into a portfolio; interests in the portfolio are divided into "deed shares" and sold to investors similar to the sale of stock. Each deedshare can be encumbered by its own mortgage. The patent allows for a master tenant to perform administrative tasks such as paying insurance, property taxes, and rents. The district court invalidated each of 41 claims in the patent for failing to claim patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C.101, reasoning that the claims were not tied to a particular machine or apparatus and that none of the claims transform any article to a different state or thing. The Federal Circuit affirmed, holding that the claims attempt to capture unpatentable abstract subject matter.

The tenant moved into an apartment in 2004. The building later came under management by defendants. In 2008 tenant filed suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. 1962, alleging that defendants conspired to harbor illegal aliens and to encourage or induce illegal aliens to reside in the U.S. in violation of 8 U.S.C. 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii). He claimed that the apartment complex fell into disrepair and that criminal activity went unreported, causing injury to his leasehold property. The district court dismissed. The Third Circuit affirmed. The "harboring" claim was properly dismissed; the complaint did not sufficiently allege that the conduct tended to substantially facilitate an alien's remaining in the U.S. illegally and to prevent government authorities from detecting the unlawful presence. With respect to the "inducing" claim, the court stated that it could not imagine that Congress contemplated that landlords and hotel and motel operators would be responsible for making complex legal determinations about who is permitted to live in this country, much less that they would be criminalized for an error in so doing.

Landlord leased commercial real property to Tenant. Landlord granted Tenant permission to renovate the property on the condition that Tenant would pay for the renovations. Tenant thereafter contracted with Contractor to perform the work. When Tenant defaulted on its payments to Contractor, Contractor filed a lien against Landlord's property. Contractor thereafter filed a complaint against Landlord and Tenant, asserting various claims and seeking to foreclose on its lien. The district court granted Landlord's motion for summary judgment, concluding that, pursuant to Wyoming's lien statutes, a valid mechanic's lien did not exist because Landlord did not agree to pay for the renovations to the property and that Tenant was not acting as Landlord's agent in contracting for the improvements. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court correctly interpreted Wyo. Stat. Ann. 29-2-105(a)(ii) to require a finding of agency between the landlord and tenant before a mechanic's lien may attach to the landlord's property for work performed at the tenant's behest; and (2) in this case, that relationship did not exist.

Amber Williams and Frederick Ormsby, who were not married, lived together in a house Amber received through her divorce settlement. Frederick eventually paid the remaining mortgage balance, and Amber gave him title to the property by executing a quitclaim deed. As a result of a later separation, Amber and Frederick signed a document in March 2005 to sell the house and allocate the proceeds. The couple subsequently tried to reconcile and, in June 2005, they signed a second document, purportedly making themselves equal partners in the house and providing for property disposition in the event that their relationship ended. After their relationship ended, the parties filed suit against each other. The trial court determined that the March 2005 agreement was supported by consideration but that the June 2005 agreement was not and held that title to the property was vested in Frederick exclusively. The federal court of appeals reversed, concluding that moving into home with another and resuming a relationship can constitute consideration sufficient to support a contract. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that merely moving into a home with another while engaging in a romantic relationship is not consideration for the formation of a contract.

Ohio Edison owned an easement over which an electric transmission line ran. Thomas and Derrell Wilkes owned a portion of the property subject to the easement and built an above-ground swimming pool and storage shed in the area of the easement. When it discovered the structures, Ohio Edison filed a complaint in the court of common pleas to enforce the easement, asking the court to order the Wilkeses to remove their structures. The Wilkeses filed their own complaint a few months later with the public utilities commission, asking the commission to order the company to move its transmission line. The commission dismissed the Wilkeses' complaint for lack of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the Wilkeses did not demonstrate that the commission erred in dismissing their complaint for lack of jurisdiction.

Plaintiffs filed an appeal in the Superior Court from a decision of the defendant board of health of Southbridge (board) approving a "minor modification" to the site assignment for an existing landfill and related processing facility in that town under G.L.c. 111, section 150A. At issue was whether plaintiffs had standing to seek judicial review of the Superior Court of the board's decision. As a threshold matter, the court concluded that the Superior Court judge had authority to allow plaintiffs' motion to extend the time for filing their notice of appeal. The court concluded, however, that on the record before the court, plaintiffs lacked standing to seek judicial review of the board's decision in the Superior Court as persons "aggrieved" and plaintiffs' substantive challenges to the decision lacked merit.

This case concerned three rivers which flow through Montana and then beyond its borders. At issue was whether discrete, identifiable segments of these rivers in Montana were nonnavigable, as federal law defined that concept for purposes of determining whether the State acquired title to the riverbeds underlying those segments, when the State entered the Union in 1989. Montana contended that the rivers must be found navigable at the disputed locations. The Court held that the Montana Supreme Court's ruling that Montana owned and could charge for use of the riverbeds at issue was based on an infirm legal understanding of the Court's rules of navigability for title under the equal-footing doctrine. The Montana Supreme Court erred in its treatment of the question of river segments and portage and erred as a matter of law in relying on evidence of present-day primarily recreational use of the Madison River. Because this analysis was sufficient to require reversal, the Court declined to decide whether the State Supreme Court also erred as to the burden of proof regarding navigability. Montana's suggestion that denying the State title to the disputed riverbeds would undermine the public trust doctrine underscored its misapprehension of the equal-footing and public trust doctrines. Finally, the reliance by petitioner and its predecessors in title on the State's long failure to assert title to the riverbeds was some evidence supporting the conclusion that the river segments over those beds were nonnavigable for purposes of the equal-footing doctrine. Accordingly, the judgment was reversed.

A property owner, Sheldon Road Associates, filed a valuation complaint in December 2008 that challenged the auditor's June 2008 correction of a clerical error relating to the 2007 tax year. The county Board of Revision (BOR) issued a decision that treated the complaint as pertaining to the tax year 2008. On appeal, the Board of Tax Appeals (BTA) decided that, because Sheldon's complaint was untimely as to the 2007 tax year, the BOR lacked jurisdiction. The BTA remanded with the instruction that the BOR dismiss the complaint. The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the BTA, holding that the BOR did have jurisdiction under the particular facts of this case. Remanded.

Robert Laux and Cynthia Moran-Laux (collectively Laux) appealed, and Ralph Harrington cross-appealed, from a judgment of the superior court declaring the continued existence and location of a road easement in favor of Harrington over Laux's property and awarding Harrington nominal damages for Laux's interference with the use of the easement. Laux asserted that a 1990 quitclaim deed given by Harrington's predecessor-in-title to Laux's predecessor-in-title extinguished the easement, or, alternatively, that construction on the site of its original entry point resulted in its abandonment. Harrington contended that the court erred in excluding certain evidence at trial, resulting in its miscalculation of his damages and failure to award punitive damages. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment, holding, inter alia, that the superior court did not err in (1) finding that the 1990 quitclaim deed was not intended to release Harrington's easement over the land now owned by the Lauxes; (2) concluding that Harrington did not abandon his easement; (3) calculating damages; and (4) finding that Laux's conduct did not rise to the level of actual ill will or outrageousness required to award punitive damages.

This case arose when defendant, landlord, without giving notice to or receiving permission from plaintiff, entered the demised premises at issue and installed cross-bracing between two existing steel support columns on both of plaintiff's leased floors causing a change in the flow of patron foot traffic on the first floor and slight diminution of the second floor waiting area. At issue was whether a minimal and inconsequential retaking of space that had been leased to a commercial tenant constituted an actual partial eviction relieving the tenant from all obligation to pay rent. The court concluded, under the circumstances of the case, where such inference by a landlord was small and had no demonstrable effect on the tenant's use and enjoyment of the space, total rent abatement was not warranted.