Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

This appeal arose from the United States' effort to forfeit the assets of C.L.P., a cigarette manufacturer, following its guilty plea to several tobacco-related charges. The United States obtained a preliminary order of forfeiture allowing it to seize funds that C.L.P. had deposited into an escrow account, which held 35 sub-accounts for the benefit of each state in which C.L.P. sold its products. Two of those states, Oregon and Wisconsin, sought to amend the forfeiture order to exclude their respective sub-accounts from the forfeiture. Because the court concluded that the states have not proven by a preponderance of the evidence that they have a legal interest that entitled them to amendment of the forfeiture order, the court vacated the forfeiture order and remanded.

BP appealed a district court order granting summary judgment in favor of Charles V. Stanley, Jr., and his business (defendants), in BP's action seeking to enforce a restrictive covenant in a deed. BP also appealed the district court's award of attorneys' fees and costs. The court held that the district court erred in finding the Petroleum Restriction (PR), in the Special Warranty Deed that was attached to the Purchase and Sale Agreement (PSA) at issue, was overbroad and unenforceable where the PR did not prohibit Stanley from operating a non-BP-branded vehicle repair business on his property so long as the business did not also sell non-BP-branded gasoline. The court also concluded that the PR's prohibition of the sale of certain enumerated items was too inconsequential to invalidate the entire PR. Therefore, the PR on the whole "afford[s] a fair protection" to BP's interest without being "so large as to interfere with the interests of the public." Therefore, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants, vacated the fee and cost award, remanding for further proceedings.

In this bankruptcy case, SunTrust filed a proof of claim for repayment of a loan that it claimed was secured by a deed of trust on two contiguous parcels of debtor's real property in Orange County, North Carolina (Tract I and Tract II). The Trustee commenced this action under 11 U.S.C. 544(a)(3) to avoid the lien on Tract I because the deed of trust, while recorded on the official recordation index of Orange County as to Tract II, was not so recorded as to Tract I. SunTrust contended that even though the recordation was deficient, the Trustee was imputed with constructive knowledge of the lien on Tract I. The bankruptcy court rejected SunTrust's arguments and ordered its lien on Tract I avoided under section 544(a)(3), and the district court affirmed. Because the Trustee's status vis-a-vis the title of Tract I was, under section 544(a)(3), that of a bona fide purchaser under North Carolina law, the Trustee was only imputed with the notice that would be imputed to a bona fide purchaser of Tract I under North Carolina law. And North Carolina law allowed a purchaser to rely exclusively on the official recordation index of the county to discover liens, regardless of what other independent knowledge that purchaser might have. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment.

Plaintiff, an unincorporated association made up of homeless and formerly homeless people that advocated for their rights, sued defendants, alleging that defendants had conspired to establish the Conrad Center on Oliver Hill Way, a site removed from Richmond's downtown community, for the purpose of reducing the presence of the homeless population in the downtown area by providing services for them in a remote location. Plaintiff claimed that the relocation of homeless services to the Conrad Center violated 42 U.S.C. 1983 and 1985(3); the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq.; the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; and the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq. The court held that plaintiff did not state a valid section 1985(3) conspiracy claim; plaintiff's 1983 and equal protection claims were barred by the applicable statute of limitations; plaintiff's FHA claims were barred by the two-year statue of limitations and, more fundamentally, they failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted; and plaintiff's ADA retaliation claim was properly dismissed. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.