Brannock v. Lotus Fund

• Decision Date: 29 December 2015
• Docket Number: No. 33,950.,33,950.
• Citation: 367 P.3d 888
• Parties: Ann BRANNOCK, Daniel M. Mowery and Marsha J. Mowery, Plaintiffs–Appellees, v. The LOTUS FUND, Christine Hough Smith, and Christopher Smith, Defendants–Appellants, and Douglas Coombs and Colleen Coombs and Eugene Hands and Maria Hands, Voluntary Defendants.
• Court: Court of Appeals of New Mexico

367 P.3d 888

Ann BRANNOCK, Daniel M. Mowery and Marsha J. Mowery, Plaintiffs–Appellees,

v. The LOTUS FUND, Christine Hough Smith, and Christopher Smith, Defendants–Appellants,andDouglas Coombs and Colleen Coombs and Eugene Hands and Maria Hands, Voluntary Defendants.

No. 33,950.

Court of Appeals of New Mexico.

Dec. 29, 2015.

Certiorari Denied, Feb. 19, 2016, No. S-1-SC-35728.

Ronald T. Taylor, Albuquerque, NM, for Appellees.

Michael L. Danoff & Associates, P.C., Michael L. Danoff, Ryan P. Danoff, Albuquerque, NM, for Appellants.

OPINION

BUSTAMANTE

, Judge.

{1} Defendants The Lotus Fund (LF), Christine Hough Smith, and Christopher Smith appeal from the district court's findings of facts and conclusions of law entering judgment¹ on behalf of Plaintiffs Ann Brannock, Daniel M. Mowery, and Marsha J. Mowery. On appeal, Defendants raise both issue and claim preclusion arguments and contend that, in any event, the district court erred in concluding that Plaintiffs proved the elements of prescriptive easement and easement by necessity. Concluding that the prior case does not have preclusive effect over the present case and that substantial evidence supports the district court's findings and conclusions that Plaintiffs proved the elements for prescriptive easement, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

{2} This appeal involves litigation over a disputed access to property. In order to best understand the facts and legal issues in the present case, we will first explain the legal posture that led to the present case. Prior to the present case, a separate case (the Coombs case) was initiated by Douglas M. Coombs and Colleen E. Coombs (together, the Coombses) against The Lotus Fund Limited Partnership (LFLP), an affiliate or otherwise related company to one of the present Defendants, The Lotus Fund. The Coombses and Defendants/LFLP own property adjacent to one another, which properties are separated by a twenty-five-foot dedicated easement (the dedicated easement) that is entirely on the Coombses' property. Notwithstanding this dedicated easement, the Coombses alleged that they and others used a path to access properties owned by the Coombses, Eugene and Maria Hands (the Hands), and present Plaintiffs, which path was partially on the dedicated easement on the Coombses' property and partially on Defendants'/LFLP's property. After a dispute arose between Defendants/LFLP and the Coombses regarding use of the disputed access, the Coombses filed a complaint for declaratory judgment and injunction against LFLP.

{3} In the Coombs case, Judge Brickhouse concluded that

[a]s a matter of law there [are] no prescriptive easement rights for [the Coombses] because the required elements, which are usage by the general public continued for the length of time necessary to create a right of prescription if the use had been by an individual, provided that such usage is open, uninterrupted, peaceable, notorious, adverse, under a claim of right, and continued for a period of ten years with the knowledge, or imputed knowledge of the owner, were not proven at trial.

By this, Judge Brickhouse meant either that insufficient evidence was presented on this claim—perhaps because the Coombses instead elected to pursue an ownership argument—or that the Coombses failed to prove their prescriptive easement rights or public prescriptive easement rights despite their efforts to do so. In any event, the conclusion of law, in significant part, states that there are no prescriptive easement rights for the plaintiffs in the Coombs case, as opposed to stating that prescriptive easement rights on the disputed access could never be proven by any other party against Defendants/LFLP.

{4} Plaintiffs in the present case, who own/have owned property to the south of the Coombses (non-adjacent) and the Hands (adjacent), thereafter brought a case against present Defendants for prescriptive easement, easement by necessity, and permanent restraining order, seeking court verification of their easement over the same disputed roadway that was litigated in the Coombs case. The Coombses and the Hands were additionally named as "voluntary defendants" in the present case. Both parties filed motions for summary judgment, and the district court denied both motions. In the order denying summary judgment, the district court took judicial notice of the Coombs case; noted that the plaintiffs in the Coombs case are not the same as Plaintiffs in the present case or in privity with them; and found that the Coombs case determined legal ownership of land, whereas the present case deals with the right to use that land. The case therefore proceeded to trial.

{5} After a trial on the merits, the district court filed findings of fact and conclusions of law, granting judgment in favor of Plaintiffs. The district court reiterated that the ownership rights determined in the Coombs case did not have preclusive effect on the usage rights as asserted by Plaintiffs in the present matter and concluded that Plaintiffs had proved the elements of prescriptive easement and easement by necessity. Defendants appeal.

II. DISCUSSION

{6} On appeal, Defendants raise both issue and claim preclusion arguments and additionally contend that, in any event, the district court erred in concluding that Plaintiffs proved the elements of prescriptive easement and easement by necessity. We first address Defendants' preclusion arguments and, concluding that the present case is not precluded by the Coombs case, then proceed to the merits of the easement issues.

A. Collateral Estoppel

{7} Defendants argue that "the disputed easement access" issue is precluded from litigation in the present case based on the doctrine of collateral estoppel. We review a decision by the district court to apply or not apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel for an abuse of discretion. See Shovelin v. Cent. N.M. Elec. Coop., Inc., 1993–NMSC–015, ¶ 10, 115 N.M. 293, 850 P.2d 996

. "The doctrine of collateral estoppel fosters judicial economy by preventing the relitigation of ultimate facts or issues actually and necessarily decided in a prior suit." Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The party invoking the doctrine

must demonstrate that (1) the party to be estopped was a party to the prior proceeding, (2) the cause of action in the case presently before the court is different from the cause of action in the prior adjudication, (3) the issue was actually litigated in the prior adjudication, and (4) the issue was necessarily determined in the prior litigation.

Id. "If the movant introduces sufficient evidence to meet all elements of this test, the trial court must then determine whether the party against whom estoppel is asserted had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue in the prior litigation." Id. (emphasis added). In this case, Defendants have failed to satisfy several of the requirements.

{8} With regard to the first element, the plaintiffs in the prior litigation were the Coombses. In the present case, Plaintiffs are Ann Brannock, Daniel M. Mowery, and Marsha J. Mowery. Although the Coombses and the Lotus Fund (or an affiliate thereof) are defendants in both cases, Plaintiffs in the present case are the parties Defendants are seeking to estop and are thus the parties to whom the doctrine would apply. See id. (identifying the first element as "the party to be estopped was a party to the prior proceeding" (emphasis added)). Plaintiffs were not parties to the prior litigation. As the movant must introduce all elements of the test in order for the district court to even consider "whether the party against whom estoppel is asserted had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue in the prior litigation[,]" see id., Defendants have failed to show that the district court abused its discretion in determining that Plaintiffs were not estopped from proceeding with their claims of easement by prescription and by necessity.

{9} Defendants nevertheless argue that Plaintiffs were "in privity with" the plaintiffs in the prior action because there was a "substantial identity between the issues in controversy and ... the parties in the two actions are really and substantially in interest the same." Deflon v. Sawyers, 2006–NMSC–025, ¶ 4, 139 N.M. 637, 137 P.3d 577

; see also City of Sunland Park v. Macias, 2003–NMCA–098, ¶ 10, 134 N.M. 216, 75 P.3d 816 (stating that the doctrine of collateral estoppel requires, inter alia, that "the parties in the current action were the same or in privity with the parties in the prior action"). Specifically, Defendants contend that the two sets of plaintiffs are in privity with one another because Plaintiffs were aware of the prior case; many of the witnesses were the same, including Mr. Mowery himself testifying in the prior case; counsel for plaintiffs was the same in both cases; Judge Brickhouse already determined there was not a prescriptive easement on the contested roadway; the experts were the same in both cases and they dealt with the same evidence; and there was/is a concurrent relationship by the two sets of plaintiffs to the same property involving the disputed access. Defendants' argument is unavailing.

{10} As our Supreme Court explained in Deflon,

[t]here is no definition of "privity" which can be automatically applied in all cases involving the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel. Thus, each case must be carefully examined to determine whether the circumstances require its application.... Privity requires, at a minimum, a substantial identity between the issues in controversy and showing that the parties in the two actions are really and substantially in interest the same.

2006–NMSC–025, ¶ 4, 139 N.M. 637, 137 P.3d 577

(internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "[P]arties have been found in privity where they represent the same legal right or where they have a mutual or successive relationship to the same rights of property." Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

{11} In ...