Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

The State of Alaska prevailed in a quiet title action brought against it by two landowners and was awarded approximately $205,000 in attorney’s fees pursuant to the Alaska Civil Rule 82(b)(2) schedule. In an earlier appeal the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s decision on the merits but determined that the court’s findings on attorney’s fees were inadequate for review. The case was remanded for the trial court’s express consideration of two factors relevant to whether a scheduled award should be reduced: Rule 82(b)(3)(I) and Rule 82(b)(3)(J). The superior court expressly considered these factors on remand, made additional findings to explain its reasoning, and affirmed its earlier award. The landowners again appealed. The Supreme Court concluded: the superior court did not err in its interpretation of factors (I) and (J); that it did not abuse its discretion by declining to rely on them to reduce the award; and that the award did not violate the landowners’ constitutional rights of due process and access to the courts. Furthermore, the Supreme Court concluded the superior court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to hold proceedings on remand in abeyance while the landowners evaluated the significance of an anonymous letter accusing the State and its attorneys of litigation misconduct. View "Dickson v. Alaska Dept. of Natural Resources" on Justia Law

Loyd Eugene Ware filed suit against the City of Kendrick (the City) alleging that in December 2016, a water pipe maintained by the City failed and flooded his property, causing damage. The City answered, claiming that Ware had failed to file a timely notice of tort claim within 180 days of the City’s alleged negligence, a statutory prerequisite to filing suit against a governmental entity under Idaho Code section 6-906. The City averred the flooding occurred on December 17, 2016, and the notice of tort claim was not filed until two hundred twenty-two days later. The City thus moved for summary judgment, which was granted by the district court. Ware timely appealed. Finding no reversible error, the Idaho Supreme Court affirmed the grant of summary judgment in favor of the City. View "Ware v. City of Kendrick" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the circuit court dismissing Appellants' challenges to certain amendments to the Fairfax County Zoning Ordinance and the imposition of a Transient Occupancy Tax, holding that the circuit court did not err.Appellants owned or possessed homes within Fairfax County. In 2018, the Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County amended the Zoning Ordinance (the STL Amendment) redefining a dwelling and adding definitions for "transient occupancy" and "short-term lodging." The Board also amended the County Code to impose a transient occupancy tax of two percent of the cost of the short-term lodging (the TOT Amendment). Appellants brought a declaratory judgment action challenging the validity of the STL Amendment and the TOT Amendment. The trial court dismissed Appellants' claims with prejudice. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the trial court did not err in dismissing Appellants' challenges to the amendments. View "Norton v. Board of Supervisors of Fairfax County" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the circuit court determining that the Historic Alexandria Foundation lacked standing to pursue the claims asserted in this case, holding that there was no error in the circuit court's judgment.Vowell, LLC filed applications to obtain certain permits for the renovation of property located in the Old and Historic District of the City of Alexandria. The Old and Historic Alexandria District Board of Architectural Review (the BAR) approved Vowell's applications, and the City Council affirmed the BAR's decision. The Foundation appealed the City's Council decision. The circuit court dismissed the matter with prejudice, concluding that the petition did not establish that the Foundation was an aggrieved party with standing to pursue the appeal. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the Foundation lacked standing because the allegations of the petition failed to establish that the Foundation suffered particularized harm that differed from that suffered by the public in general. View "Historic Alexandria Foundation v. City of Alexandria" on Justia Law

Venoco operated a drilling rig off the coast of Santa Barbara, transporting oil and gas to its Onshore Facility for processing. Venoco did not own the Offshore Facility but leased it from the California Lands Commission. Venoco owned the Onshore Facility with air permits to use it. Following a 2015 pipeline rupture, Venoco filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and abandoned its leases, relinquishing all rights in the Offshore Facility.Concerned about public safety and environmental risks, the Commission took over decommissioning the rig and plugging the wells, paying Venoco $1.1 million per month to continue operating the Offshore and Onshore Facilities. After a third-party contractor took over operations, the Commission agreed to pay for use of the Onshore Facility. The Commission, as Venoco’s creditor, filed a $130 million claim for reimbursement of plugging and decommissioning costs. Before the confirmation of the liquidation plan, Venoco and the Commission unsuccessfully negotiated a potential sale of the Onshore Facility to the Commission. The Commission stopped making payments, arguing it could continue using the Onshore Facility without payment under its police power.After the estates’ assets were transferred to a liquidation trust, the Trustee filed an adversary proceeding, claiming inverse condemnation, against California. The district court affirmed the bankruptcy court’s rejection of California's assertion of Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity. The Third Circuit affirmed. By ratifying the Bankruptcy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, states waived their sovereign immunity defense in proceedings that further a bankruptcy court’s exercise of its jurisdiction over the debtor's and the estate's property. View "In re Venoco, LLC" on Justia Law

Taxpayers Kraig and Kelly Strenge appealed directly to the Louisiana Supreme Court a declaration by a district court that La. R.S. 47:1990 was unconstitutional, as applied. The district court’s ruling on partial summary judgment also held that the Louisiana Tax Commission (the “Commission”) exceeded its authority in promulgating Section 3103(Z) of Title 61, Part V of the Louisiana Administrative Code (the “Rules and Regulations”) and declared Section 3103(Z) unconstitutional. The underlying issue centered on the Taxpayers challenge to the correctness of the appraisal of their residential property in Lafayette Parish in 2016. After the Lafayette City-Parish Council (Board of Review) ruled in favor of the Assessor, Taxpayers appealed to the Commission. The Commission ruled that the fair market value of the property for tax year 2016 was $231,500, not $288,270 as determined by the Assessor, and ordered the Assessor to reduce Taxpayers’ 2016 assessment accordingly. Two days after the Commission’s oral ruling, the Assessor assessed the fair market value of Taxpayers’ property for the 2017 tax year again at $288,270. Taxpayers again appealed, and after a hearing, the Commission issued a “Rule to Show Cause” to the Assessor. That dispute went before the district court, and the court’s decision served as the grounds for this appeal. The Supreme Court found the district court erred in ruling the Commission exceeded its authority in promulgating Section 3103(Z) and declaring Section 3103(Z) unconstitutional but correctly declared La. R.S. 47:1990 unconstitutional, as applied. Accordingly, judgment was reversed in part and affirmed in part. View "Comeaux v. Louisiana Tax Commission" on Justia Law

The Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act took effect in 2014, 410 ILCS 130/999, “to protect patients with debilitating medical conditions, as well as their physicians and providers, from arrest and prosecution, criminal and other penalties, and property forfeiture if patients engage in the medical use of cannabis.” The Department of Agriculture (DOA), charged with enforcing the provisions of the Act related to registering and overseeing medical cannabis cultivation centers, adopted Administrative Rules.Medponics petitioned for administrative review of a DOA decision, awarding a permit to Curative, to operate a medical cannabis cultivation center in Aurora. Medponics alleged that the location of Curative’s proposed facility violated the Act because it was located within 2500 feet of the R-1 and R-5 districts in Aurora, both of which Medponics alleged were zoned exclusively for residential use. DOA found Curative’s proposed location satisfied the location requirement because multiple nonresidential uses were authorized in Aurora’s R-1 and R-5 districts. The circuit court reversed the DOA’s decision.The appellate court ordered the permit reinstated to Curative. The Illinois Supreme Court affirmed. DOA’s interpretation of the location requirement is not erroneous, unreasonable, or in conflict with the Act; the definition is reasonable and harmonizes with the purpose of the Act. View "Medponics Illinois LLC v. Department of Agriculture" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Board of Tax Appeals (BTA) upholding the tax commissioner's denial of a municipality's request for an exemption for tax years 2015, 2016, and 2017, holding that the BTA reasonably and lawfully upheld the denial of an exemption.The village of Obetz enacted an ordinance in 2017 in an effort to reinstate the tax-exempt status of real property under a tax-increment-financing (TIF) arrangement after it expired in 2014. The commissioner explained that the 2017 could not retroactively reinstate the exemption for tax years 2015, 2016, and 2017 because Ohio Rev. Code 5709.40(G) provides that an exemption may begin no earlier than a tax year that "commences after the effective date of the ordinance." The BTA affirmed, agreeing that the 2017 ordinance created a new exemption rather than extending the earlier one so that section 5708.40(G) barred the exemption from applying during the relevant tax years. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the BTA's decision was reasonable and lawful. View "Obetz v. McClain" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the Board of Tax Appeals (BTA) affirming the journal entry issued by Ohio Tax Commissioner Jeffrey McClain adopting a per-acre valuation table for use by county auditors in assessing land that qualifies for "current agricultural use valuation" (CAUV), holding that substantial evidence supported the BTA's decision.For three reasons, the BTA found no abuse of discretion on the part of the tax commissioner in adopting the CAUV unit-value table. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Ohio Adm.Code 5703-25-34(E) furnished no basis for challenging the CAUV journal entry; and (2) the BTA correctly determined that the tax commissioner did not abuse his discretion in adopting the valuation table. View "Johnson v. McClain" on Justia Law

Kevin Johnson, APLC, Kevin Johnson, and Jeanne MacKinnon (collectively, the attorney defendants) filed a petition for writ of mandate and complaint on behalf of their clients Christian Clews (Christian), Barbara Clews (Barbara), and Clews Land & Livestock, LLC (CLL) (collectively, Clews Horse Ranch) challenging a decision of the City of San Diego (City) to approve the construction of a private secondary school adjacent to the Clews’ commercial horse ranch. The petition asserted the City’s approval of the project and adoption of a mitigated negative declaration for the project violated the California Environmental Quality Act, the San Diego Municipal Code, and the City’s land use plan. The trial court denied relief and, in Clews Land and Livestock, LLC v. City of San Diego, 19 Cal.App.5th 161 (2017), the Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment. Jan Dunning, Cal Coast Academy RE Holdings, LLC, and North County Center for Educational Development, Inc. (collectively, Cal Coast), the developers of the project and real parties in interest in the CEQA Litigation, then filed this lawsuit against Clews Horse Ranch and the attorney defendants for malicious prosecution. Cal Coast asserted the defendants lacked probable cause and acted with malice when they pursued the CEQA Litigation. The attorney defendants filed a special motion to strike Cal Coast’s complaint under the anti-SLAPP statute, to which the Clews Horse Ranch joined. The trial court denied the motion after finding that Cal Coast established a probability of prevailing on its malicious prosecution claim. Clews Horse Ranch and the attorney defendants appealed the order denying the anti-SLAPP motion. The Court of Appeal concluded Cal Coast established a probability of prevailing on its malicious prosecution claim against Clews Horse Ranch, but not against the attorney defendants. Therefore, the Court affirmed the order denying the anti-SLAPP motion as to Clews Horse Ranch, and reversed the order denying the anti- SLAPP motion as to the attorney defendants. View "Dunning v. Johnson" on Justia Law