Bay Harbor Farm, LC v. Sumsion, 20120812–CA.

• Court: Court of Appeals of Utah
• Writing for the Court: ORME
• Citation: 329 P.3d 46,762 Utah Adv. Rep. 4
• Parties: BAY HARBOR FARM, LC, Plaintiff, Appellee, and Cross-appellant, v. Steven R. SUMSION, Defendant, Appellant, and Cross-appellee.
• Docket Number: No. 20120812–CA.,20120812–CA.
• Decision Date: 12 June 2014

329 P.3d 46
762 Utah Adv. Rep. 4

BAY HARBOR FARM, LC, Plaintiff, Appellee, and Cross-appellant,
v.
Steven R. SUMSION, Defendant, Appellant, and Cross-appellee.

No. 20120812–CA.

Court of Appeals of Utah.

June 12, 2014.

John L. Valentine, Steven R. Sumsion, and Kevin R. Worthy, for Appellant and Cross-appellee.

Stephen W. Geary and Adam M. Kaas, for Appellee and Cross-appellant.

Judge GREGORY K. ORME authored this Opinion, in which Judges J. FREDERIC VOROS JR. and STEPHEN L. ROTH concurred.

Opinion
ORME, Judge:

¶ 1 Steven R. Sumsion appeals a district court order nullifying his lien under the Wrongful Lien Act. We reverse and direct the district court to dismiss Bay Harbor Farm's wrongful lien petition.

BACKGROUND

¶ 2 Bay Harbor Farm owns property in Utah County on which it operated a farm. In 2002, a farm worker was injured while working with a tractor on or near the farm. That worker subsequently brought a workers' compensation claim against Bay Harbor and Donald Proctor, a manager and forty-five-percent owner of Bay Harbor. Proctor

[329 P.3d 47]

retained Sumsion, an attorney, to defend him against the workers' compensation claim. Sumsion provided Proctor with an engagement letter confirming that Sumsion would represent Proctor on “numerous matters involving Bay Harbor Farms and various personal matters.” Proctor signed the letter twice, once on a line labeled “Donald Proctor,” and again on a line labeled “Bay Harbor Farms, LLC, Don Proctor, Manager.”

¶ 3 In 2006, Sumsion recorded a notice of attorney's lien on Bay Harbor's property because he had not been paid for his work on the workers' compensation matter. In June 2011, Bay Harbor demanded that Sumsion release his lien. Sumsion refused and sent documents to Bay Harbor that he believed supported the validity of his attorney's lien. Sumsion also recorded an amended notice of his lien, in which he maintained that his lien was a valid attorney's lien “in accordance with the provisions of Sections 38–2–7 et seq.” of the Utah Code because Sumsion “was engaged and provided legal services at the request of and for Bay Harbor” and the property subject to his lien “was the subject of or connected with work performed by [Sumsion] for Bay Harbor.”

¶ 4 Bay Harbor filed a petition in the district court to have Sumsion's lien declared wrongful under the Wrongful Lien Act. SeeUtah Code Ann. § 38–9–7 (LexisNexis 2010). Bay Harbor also requested and obtained a hearing in accordance with the Wrongful Lien Act. See id. § 38–9–7(3)(b).

¶ 5 The district court granted Bay Harbor's petition and nullified Sumsion's lien. It ruled that Sumsion's lien was a wrongful lien under the Wrongful Lien Act because it was not expressly authorized by statute. See id.§ 38–9–1(6)(a) (stating that liens that are “expressly authorized by this chapter or another state or federal statute” are not wrongful liens). Sumsion appeals.

¶ 6 Sumsion challenges the district court's interpretation of the Wrongful Lien Act. Whether a lien is wrongful under section 38–9–1 of the act is a question of law, and we therefore review the district court's determination for correctness. See Pratt v. Pugh, 2010 UT App 219, ¶ 7, 238 P.3d 1073; Russell v. Thomas, 2000 UT App 82, ¶ 8, 999 P.2d 1244.

ANALYSIS

¶ 7 The Wrongful Lien Act provides that “[a]ny record interest holder of real property against which a wrongful lien ... has been recorded may petition the district court in the county in which the document was recorded for summary relief to nullify the lien.” Utah Code Ann. § 38–9–7(1) (LexisNexis 2010). However, a lien may be nullified through this type of expedited procedure only if, at the time the lien was recorded, it was not “expressly authorized by [the Wrongful Lien Act] or another state or federal statute.” Id.§ 38–9–1(6).

¶ 8 Sumsion contends on appeal, as he did below, that because the Utah Code authorizes attorney's liens, his lien is expressly authorized by statute and therefore not subject to nullification in an expedited hearing under the Wrongful Lien Act. The district court, however, determined that Sumsion's lien was not authorized by statute. In reaching this conclusion, the district court analyzed the enforceability of Sumsion's lien under the attorney's lien statute. Quoting the statute, the district court explained that

[t]he attorney lien statute requires two relevant elements: first, [Bay Harbor] must have been the “client” of [Sumsion] for the work performed; second, that the Property must have been “the subject of or connected with work performed for the client.”

SeeUtah Code Ann. § 38–2–7(2) (LexisNexis 2010). The court then noted that it was “unable, upon this expedited proceeding, to find whether or not [Bay Harbor] was a client of [Sumsion]” for the work performed on the workers' compensation case. But the court did find that the Bay Harbor property “was not the subject of or connected with [Sumsion's] work on the [workers' compensation] matter.” The district court then concluded that because Sumsion's lien was unenforceable as an attorney's lien under

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section 38–2–7, it was a wrongful lien under the Wrongful Lien Act and “void ab initio.” ¹

¶ 9 The Utah Supreme Court considered this issue under factually similar circumstances in Hutter v. Dig–It, Inc., 2009 UT 69, 219 P.3d 918. In Hutter, the parties disputed the meaning of...