Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

The limited issue before the Oklahoma Supreme Court in this case was whether Appellants Steve and Kaci Snow (the Snows) had standing to assert a claim for inverse condemnation against the Town of Calumet (Town), Oklahoma. Landowners sued the Town for trespass and inverse condemnation due to maintaining two municipal sewer lines across the owners' property after the expiration of two temporary easements. The town counterclaimed to quiet title. Both parties moved for summary judgment. The district court granted the landowners' motion for summary judgment on the town's quiet-title claim and granted the town's motion for summary judgment on the landowners' claims for trespass and inverse condemnation. The landowners appealed the district court's judgment on their inverse condemnation claim. The Supreme Court answered the issue presented in the affirmative. Town's temporary easements for sewer lines installed by Town on the Snows' property expired in 2010, and Town then sought perpetual easements without compensation from the Snows for the continual use and maintenance of the sewer lines. Under these facts, the Snows had standing to assert a claim for inverse condemnation. View "Snow v. Town of Calumet" on Justia Law

The Texas Legislature limited beer-to-go sales to brewers and manufacturers that produced no more than 225,000 barrels annually “at all premises [they] wholly or partly owned.” Tex. Alco. Bev. Code Ann. Sections 62.122(a) and 12.052(a).   The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) ordered CANarchy to cease and desist after it determined that CANarchy’s facilities collectively exceeded the 225,000-barrel limit. CANarchy complied with the order but then filed suit, seeking a declaratory judgment that the 225,000- barrel threshold did not apply to barrels produced at leased premises. The district court agreed with CANarchy that “premises wholly or partly owned” do not include leased premises and granted it summary judgment.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order granting Plaintiff’s motion for a declaratory judgment. The court held that “premises wholly or partly owned” do not include leased premises and granted it summary judgment.   The court wrote, “it is the Legislature’s prerogative to enact statutes; it is the judiciary’s responsibility to interpret those statutes according to the language the Legislature used, absent a context indicating a different meaning or the result of the plain meaning of the language yielding absurd or nonsensical results.” Here, the ordinary definition of “owned,” when applied to sections 12.052(a) and 62.122(a) of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code, establishes that the 225,000-barrel production threshold set in those statutes encompasses only barrels produced at premises owned by the brewer, either in whole or in part, and not at premises leased by the brewer. View "CANarchy Craft Brewery v. Texas Alcoholic" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court quashed the portion of the superior court order granting partial summary judgment in favor of Plaintiffs as to liability against Westlo Management, LLC on counts one, two, three, and seven of Plaintiffs' third-amended complaint, holding that the record was inadequate for a determination of whether the hearing justice abused his discretion in granting the motion to intervene filed by The Rhode Island Commission for Human Rights.Plaintiff Curtis Andrade filed a charge of discrimination with the Commission. The Commission found probable cause that Defendants had violated Plaintiff's rights. Plaintiff then filed this action, after which the hearing justice granted the Commission's motion to intervene as a party plaintiff. The hearing justice granted Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment on four counts against Westlo, finding that Westlo had discriminated against Plaintiff by denying him the reasonable accommodation of having his dog his residence. The Supreme Court vacated the decision below, holding that Westlo failed provide the Court with a proper transcript of the hearing on the Commission's motion to intervene this Court was unable to conduct a meaningful review of the superior court's decisions on the issue of the Commission's intervention. View "Andrade v. Westlo Management LLC" on Justia Law

In 1979, the property was owned by one entity and divided into four parcels. Before 1997, the county assessor divided the property into three parcels with distinct assessor’s parcel numbers (APNs). In 1997, the owner reconfigured it into two parcels. In several transactions, one reconfigured parcel was conveyed to XPO, and the other to Hayward. The 1997 document reconfiguring the property has an error in defining one parcel by its metes and bounds. The boundaries of the APNs were not changed. The metes-and-bounds descriptions support XPO’s claim to the disputed area; the APN references arguably support Hayward’s claim. XPO sued to quiet title. Hayward cross-complained to quiet title or obtain restitution for property taxes and the purchase price.The court granted XPO judgment on the title claims. The parties ultimately stipulated to an estimated amount of real property taxes Hayward had paid for the disputed area, in excess of the taxes that XPO had paid on part of Hayward’s property. The court quieted title to the disputed area in XPO, denying Hayward’s purchase-price restitution claim, and awarding relief on its tax restitution claim in the stipulated sum—plus prejudgment interest,The court of appeal affirmed in part. The trial court correctly disregarded APN references in the deeds; Hayward did not acquire an interest in the disputed area. The award of prejudgment interest on Hayward’s restitution award was reversed so the court can exercise its discretion in determining the amount. The court affirmed the orders taxing XPO’s costs and denying sanctions. View "XPO Logistics Freight, Inc. v. Hayward Property, LLC" on Justia Law

The First Circuit vacated the district court's grant of summary judgment in this mortgage dispute, holding that the district court abused its discretion in denying Appellants' motion to defer the adjudication of a pending motion for summary judgment and proceeding to grant summary judgment.At is on appeal in this dispute that stretched over more than a decade and implicated several lawsuits was whether the district court abused its discretion in denying Appellants' motion for discovery under Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(d) and then granting summary judgment against them. The First Circuit answered the question in the affirmative, holding that the district court abused its discretion in denying Appellants' Rule 56(d) motion in its totality. The Court remanded this case for further proceedings. View "Emigrant Residential LLC v. Pinti" on Justia Law

In 2008, the City of Gulfport undertook a project to replace the infrastructure associated with its water and sewer systems relating to damage caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The repair project involved federal, state, and local agencies and ultimately cost approximately $85 million to complete. The original design of the Area 3B project, the sewer infrastructure that crossed the Cowan Road property located north of U.S. Highway 90 and east of Highway 605 were to be replaced, and the new infrastructure was to be installed within the City’s existing easements across the properties. The Cowan Road property at issue was located in the Area 3B geographic zone. Robert “Kris” Riemann, P.E., then-director of the City’s department of public works, was notified that John Felsher had inquired about relocating the sewer infrastructure in Area 3B. Based on an agreement with Felsher to relocate the utilities, the City had the Area 3B design drawings redrafted to move the utilities. The City's project manager was notified that the discovery of underground telephone lines and other utilities required that the sewer line being relocated had to cut the northwest corner of the property. Cowan Road filed a complaint in the Chancery Court of Harrison County, Mississippi, advancing a claim for inverse condemnation against the City. The chancery court transferred the case to the Special Court of Eminent Domain in Harrison County. Due to the jurisdictional limits of county court, the case ended up in Harrison County Circuit Court. The circuit court entered an order granting the motion for partial summary judgment filed by the City on the issue of the date of the taking. The parties eventually settled the reverse condemnation claim, and the City agreed to pay $100,000 to Cowan Road & Hwy 90, LLC, for the improper and unlawful taking of its property. The issue before the Mississippi Supreme Court centered on the circuit court's grant of attorneys' fees and expenses: Gulfport argued that Cowan Road should not have been allowed to recover attorneys’ fees under Section 43-37-9. Finding that the statute applied and fees were appropriate, the Supreme Court affirmed. However, the Court found the trial judge abused his discretion by disallowing requests for postjudgment interest. View "City of Gulfport v. Cowan Road & Hwy 90, LLC, et al." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals affirming the order of the district court concluding that Plaintiff was entitled to "reasonable attorney's fees" on appeal from a decision of the magistrate in Plaintiff's favor, holding that there was no error.The trial court awarded the attorney's fees at issue in this action seeking the recovery of money Defendant owed Plaintiff under a contract to purchase real estate that obligated Defendant, the buyer, to pay Plaintiff, the seller, a due diligence fee and an earnest money deposit. The court of appeals affirmed the attorney's fee award. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that Defendant's allegations of error were unavailing. View "Reynolds-Douglass v. Terhark" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the court of appeals affirming the order of the trial court granting summary judgment to Belmont Association, Inc. on its claim for injunctive relief and dismissing Defendants' first counterclaim for declaratory judgment, holding that the court of appeals erred in its interpretation of N.C. Gen. Stat. 22B-20.In its order, the trial court ruled that section 22B-20(d) applied to this action involving a binding agreement that runs with the land that would prohibit the location of solar collectors as described in section 22B-20(b) and that section 22B-20(c) was not applicable. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that neither subsection (d) nor (c) of the statute applied and that the restriction at issue violated section 22B-20(b). View "Belmont Ass'n v. Farwig" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court reversed the order of the district court granting Respondents' consolidated petitions for judicial review and reinstating the decision of the State Engineer approving the Diamond Valley Groundwater Management Plan (GMP), holding that the State Engineer's decision to approve the GMP was not erroneous.Once an over-appropriated basin is designated a critical management area (CMA) water permit and certificate holders may petition the State Engineer to approve a GMP that sets forth the necessary steps for removal of the basin's designation as a CMA. After Diamond Valley was designated a CMA the State Engineer approved the Diamond Valley GMP, which deviated somewhat from the doctrine of appropriation. The district court invalidated the order. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the GMP complied with Nev. Rev. Stat. 534.037 and 534.110(7); and (2) therefore, the GMP was valid. View "Diamond Natural Resources Protection & Conservation Ass'n v. Diamond Valley Ranch, LLC" on Justia Law

The issues this case presented for the Washington Supreme Court involved the priority of mortgage liens, the scope of RCW 60.04.226, and whether to adopt certain sections of the Restatement (Third) of Property: Mortgages (Am. Law Inst. 1997). Principal among them: whether a senior mortgage holder’s future advances clause maintained priority over an intervening junior mortgage on the same property. The parties and the Court of Appeals referred to future advances and modification of mortgages interchangeably throughout this case. Though similar, these were different mortgages provisions, carried different legal consequences, and were governed by different provisions of the Restatement. The parties and the appeals court applied Restatement § 7.3 to the future advances clause in the instant mortgage documents. Restatement § 2.3 was the provision that governed future advances while Restatement § 7.3 governed mortgage modifications. Applying both Restatement § 7.3 and RCW 60.04.226 to a future advances clause creates a conflict because the statute does not provide a “stop-notice” protection while the Restatement does. The Washington Supreme Court read RCW 60.04.226 as applying only in the construction context. The Court thus reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded to the trial court to determine the correct priority of claims by applying the common law rules outlined in our cases for both future advances and modifications. View "In re Gen. Receivership of EM Prop. Holdings, LLC" on Justia Law