Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

The Lloyds owned property abutting property owned by the Bardorfs. Both properties were zoned R-10. The Bardorfs filed an application for a special-use permit proposing the removal of a deck and an existing two-story addition on the rear of their home and the construction of an addition and a deck. The Lloyds objected to the application. The city's zoning board of review (board) granted the special-use permit. The superior court affirmed the board's decision. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the board and trial justice did not err in applying the standard governing a special-use permit to the Bardorfs' application, as the appropriate form of relief for a party seeking to expand a dimensionally noncomforming structure is a special-use permit; (2) neither the superior court nor the board erred in allowing the Bardorfs to utilize expanded lot coverage authorized by a 1992 dimensional variance; (3) because the zoning ordinance does not contemplate a calculation of building mass or three-dimensional spaces in the criteria for alterations of dimensionally noncomforming structures, the trial justice did not err in finding the addition would intensify the nonconformity associated with lot building coverage; and (4) legally competent evidence supported the trial justice's findings. View "Lloyd v. Zoning Bd. of Review for City of Newport" on Justia Law

Defendant was a nonprofit conservation corporation that owned beachfront property. Plaintiff filed a complaint seeking the superior court's recognition of its right to traverse Defendant's land to get access to its own property. Plaintiff then amended its complaint to add a claim for easement by prescription. The superior court recognized a prescriptive easement over Defendant's property. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the superior court, holding (1) Plaintiff's first complaint sufficiently pleaded a claim for an easement by prescription; but (2) Plaintiff did not establish by clear and convincing evidence that a prescriptive easement existed over Defendants' property. Remanded to permit the parties to supplement the existing record. View "R.I. Mobile Sportfishermen, Inc. v. Nope's Island Conservation Ass'n" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a civil action against Sportsman's Inn, Inc., a hotel and lounge, and DLM, Inc., the corporation that leased the premises to the hotel, alleging that he was shot as a result of the failure of Defendants to provide adequate security at the business. Several months later, Plaintiff learned that the property where the hotel was located was for sale, and moved for a preliminary injunction. The trial justice granted Plaintiff's motion to enjoin the sale of the property, concluding that Plaintiff had established a likelihood of success that the corporate formalities should be disregarded and that Sportsman's Inn had breached its duty of reasonable care to him. Defendants appealed, contending that the trial justice erred in finding Plaintiff had demonstrated there was a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of the negligence claim and that the corporate veil should be pierced. The Supreme Court vacated the superior court's order granting a preliminary injunction, holding that Plaintiff did not establish a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of his underlying negligence claim and that a "piercing of the corporate veil" analysis was unnecessary at this stage of the litigation. View "Vasquez v. Sportsman's Inn, Inc." on Justia Law

Bowen's Wharf was a tourist destination including a marina and a variety of retailers, restaurants, and art galleries. In this appeal, the Supreme Court was called upon to decide a question that would clarify the rights and obligations of two adjacent landholders whose combined property comprised the entirety of Bowen's Wharf. The question presented for review was whether the trial justice erred in finding that a right of first refusal granted to Defendant, Bowen's Wharf Company, Inc., by Plaintiff, Ronald Fatulli, in 1969 had expired by expiration of law. The trial justice found the parties' right of first refusal agreement expired in 1979, and accordingly, Plaintiff was not obligated to offer a parcel of the property, a wharf, and a business to Defendant in the event of a bona fide third party's offer. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the trial court did not err in finding that, on these facts, a wharf or dock may properly be characterized as real property; and (2) Defendant's right of first refusal expired by operation of R.I. Gen. Laws 34-4-26, which governs the expiration of recorded rights affecting real estate. View "Fatulli v. Bowen's Wharf Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiff Laurel Y. Hazard appealed the grant of a motion for summary judgment in favor of the defendant, East Hills, Inc., declaring that the plaintiff was barred by the doctrine of laches from prosecuting a claim of ownership to an undeveloped eight-acre tract of land in South Kingstown, Rhode Island and finding that the defendant had established ownership of the tract of land by adverse possession and in accordance with the Rhode Island Marketable Record Title Act. On appeal, plaintiff asserted that her claim should not have been barred by the doctrine of laches, that the defendant failed to satisfy the requisite elements of adverse possession of the subject property, and that a 1909 boundary agreement entered into by the defendant's predecessor in interest was defective and was improperly relied upon by the special master as a title transaction for purposes of establishing marketable record title. Upon review of the record, the Supreme Court affirmed, finding no error in the trial justice's conclusion that defendant proved the requisite elements of the complete-defense of laches, and therefore did not reach plaintiff's subsequent issues.

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was the Plaintiff Allen Drescher's appeal of a Superior Court judgment declaring that he failed to establish an easement by prescription over a right-of-way owned by Defendant Sigurd W. Johannessen. At trial, Plaintiff was unsuccessful in his attempt to prove that the right-of-way at issue also constituted a dedicated public road. Though mindful of Plaintiff's intermittent use of the disputed right-of-way for almost twenty-five years to access his property, the Supreme Court found no error in the trial justice's determination that Plaintiff failed to demonstrate the requisite elements for a prescriptive easement by clear and convincing evidence. Likewise, the Court held that the trial justice arrived at the proper conclusion in finding that the right-of-way was not a public road.

The issue before the Supreme Court was a dispute over the existence of an alleged prescriptive easement that was necessary for large commercial vehicles to get to the loading dock of a commercial building. The plaintiffs, Butterfly Realty and Dairyland, Inc., appealed the judgment entered against them on their claims for a prescriptive easement on the property of the defendant, James Romanella & Sons, Inc. (JR & Sons). Butterfly Realty purchased a parcel of land from Albert Romanella, who, at the time, was president and 50 percent shareholder of JR & Sons. On that same date, Albert Romanella also assigned to Butterfly Realty his lease for an adjacent lot. Dairyland, Inc. was the owner of another adjacent parcel. Access to the loading dock at the rear of Butterfly’s building was impossible without crossing onto JR & Sons' property to some degree because the commercial building was built so close to the common property line between the lots in question. Therefore, JR & Sons granted an express easement to Butterfly to provide access to the loading dock of Butterfly’s commercial building. After a delivery truck struck a building on JR & Sons' property, JR & Sons surveyed the area in May 2010 to determine the precise location of the express easement. Then, in an effort to encourage Butterfly to "come to some kind of agreement for * * * using all of [its] property all the time, JR & Sons installed “concrete pylons" along the southwestern borders of the express easement making it nearly impossible for trucks to continue to pull directly up to the loading dock as had been done previously. The trial justice denied Butterfly's claim for a prescriptive easement and denied both Butterfly and JR& Sons' requests for injunctive relief. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that the trial justice misapplied the law with regard to Butterfly's use of the easement as "sufficiently hostile," and this misapplication sufficiently tainted the balance of the trial justice's decision. The Supreme Court vacated the superior court's judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings.

Plaintiffs Philip and Eileen Pelletier challenged a Superior Court judgment in favor of their neighbor Aphrodite Laureanno which dismissed their complaint for injunctive relief and monetary damages. The Pelletiers believed that a written and recorded agreement, entered into by the Pelletiers and Laureanno's predecessor-in-interest, created a permanent easement for parking on a small portion of Laureanno's adjacent property. Laureanno disagreed, and erected a fence, which served to obstruct the Pelletiers' long-standing parking there. After a trial on the merits, the trial justice concluded that the written agreement at issue did not grant an easement to the Pelletiers, but instead served merely as a revocable license. On appeal, the Pelletiers argued that the Superior Court erred in dismissing their complaint. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the trial justice was justified in his assessment of Mrs. Pelletier's testimony regarding the parties' intent in executing the driveway agreement. Conferring the requisite substantial deference to the trial justice's credibility determination at issue, the Court did not find the trial court's assessment as arbitrary or in error. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the Superior Court's judgment.

Defendant Michael A. Langlois appealed a Superior Court's declaratory judgment entered in favor of Plaintiff Townhouses at Bonnet Shores Condominium Association. The judgment decreed that a lease agreement that Defendant had entered into violated the "Declaration of Condominium of Townhouses at Bonnet Shores Condominiums." Defendant asserted on appeal that the declaration was ambiguous and that, therefore, the trial justice incorrectly interpreted it to exclude the lease agreement. Upon review of the lease agreement in question, the Supreme Court concluded the trial justice did not incorrectly interpret the language, and affirmed that court's decision.

At issue in this case was a 1966 property division that created Lot 733, an undeveloped parcel owned by Plaintiffs. When Plaintiffs requested a zoning certificate from the zoning enforcement officer for the town, the officer refused based on his belief that Lot 733 resulted from an illegal subdivision in contravention of the town zoning and subdivision regulations in force in 1966. The zoning board dismissed Plaintiffs' appeal. Plaintiffs then filed suit requesting that the zoning board's decision be overturned and that the court declare that Lot 733 was a lawful lot. The trial justice determined that the 1966 property division that created the disputed lot was proper. Defendants, owners of property adjoining Lot 733, appealed, arguing that the property division constituted an illegal subdivision because it lacked adequate street access. The Supreme Court affirmed the superior court but on different grounds, holding that the creation of Lot 733 was not a subdivision.