S & G INVESTORS, LLC v. Blackley, 99-61.

• Decision Date: 11 January 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-61.,99-61.
• Parties: S & G INVESTORS, LLC; and Tom Moreno, Appellants (Defendants), v. Faye L. BLACKLEY, f/k/a Faye L. Burzynski, Appellee (Plaintiff).
• Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

994 P.2d 941

S & G INVESTORS, LLC; and Tom Moreno, Appellants (Defendants), v. Faye L. BLACKLEY, f/k/a Faye L. Burzynski, Appellee (Plaintiff).

No. 99-61.

Supreme Court of Wyoming.

January 11, 2000.

Representing Appellant: Steven F. Freudenthal of Herschler, Freudenthal, Salzburg, Bonds & Zerga, P.C., Cheyenne, WY. Argument presented by Mr. Freudenthal.

Representing Appellee: Charles S. Chapin of Crowell & Chapin, P.C., Casper, WY. Argument

presented by Mr. Chapin, Representing Appellee.

Before LEHMAN, C.J., and THOMAS, MACY, GOLDEN, and HILL, JJ.

HILL, Justice.

S & G Investors appeals from a summary judgment order granting title in Appellee Faye L. Blackley on the basis of adverse possession.

We affirm.

ISSUES

S & G Investors present two issues for review:

A. In light of genuine issues of material fact, whether the District Court erroneously granted summary judgment quieting title to real property in the Appellee.

B. Whether the District Court erroneously failed to consider or rule on Appellants' Motion for Continuance Pursuant to W.R.C.P. 56(f).

Appellee Blackley rephrases the issues as follows:

A. Did the trial court, in reviewing Appellee's Motion for Summary Judgment, the Affidavits, and documents presented in support of and in opposition thereto, correctly determine that there were no issues of material fact and that the Appellee was entitled to judgment quieting title to the at issue real property in Appellee, as a matter of law, pursuant to W.R.C.P. 56(c)[?]

B. Did the trial court correctly refused [sic] to consider or rule on appellant's motion for continuance pursuant to W.R.C.P. 56(f), as Appellants failed to establish the requisite elements entitling them to the relief sought?

FACTS

Appellee Faye L. Blackley is the former wife of Larry Burzynski (a/k/a Larry Burns). The property in dispute is Lot 17, Block 74, of Paradise Valley Country Club Estates near Casper in Natrona County, Wyoming. This property was formerly owned by Burzynski's company, which, in 1980, quitclaimed the property, along with other lots, to his stepdaughter, Appellee's child, R.F. Crotteau. In a subsequent lawsuit in 1986, the quitclaim deed was determined to be a fraudulent conveyance.

In 1987, Appellee divorced Burzynski "alleging that the parties owned no property jointly" and requested that she be granted "all rights to remain living at her current residence," which is the property in dispute. On May 29, 1987, R.F. Crotteau conveyed the property to Blackley by quitclaim deed. Four days later, on June 2, 1987, the divorce was final and the decree was signed and filed granting Appellee all rights to remain living at "her residence." The 1987 quitclaim deed, however, was not filed until January 1991 when Appellee also conveyed the property to herself in her current married name.

In 1993, Appellee's new husband successfully intervened in the 1986 order ruling the conveyances of property in 1983 to be fraudulent. Mr. Blackley established that the judgment on which the order was based had been satisfied by the sale of certain lots. The remaining lots, of which the property in dispute was one, were declared to be the subject of good conveyances to Crotteau in an amended judgment.

In November 1997, Burzynski offered the property in question to Appellants S & G Investors as security in exchange for a ten percent interest in a mining venture in Mexico. When Burzynski failed to pay for his share of the venture in a timely manner, Burzynski's Company, Burzynski, and Crotteau conveyed the property to Appellants.

In 1997, after S & G Investors asserted ownership in the property, Appellee filed a complaint to quiet title claiming superior title by virtue of the 1987 quitclaim deed, or in the alternative, adverse possession based on a combination of the 1987 quitclaim deed from the divorce decree and her subsequent use of the property for ten years before Burzynski conveyed it to Appellants in November 1997. The district court granted Appellant's motion for summary judgment. This timely appeal followed.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

The general rule is that summary judgment is appropriate when no genuine issue of material fact exists and when the prevailing party is entitled to have a judgment as a matter of law. Covington v. W.R. Grace-Conn., Inc., 952 P.2d 1105, 1106 (Wyo. 1998). We review the record from the vantage point most beneficial to the nonmoving party, awarding that party all favorable inferences which may be drawn from the facts. Austin v. Kaness, 950 P.2d 561,...