Dominguez v. Dominguez

• Court: Arizona Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: HOWE, Judge
• Citation: Dominguez v. Dominguez, 547 P.3d 1079 (Ariz. App. 2024)
• Docket Number: 1 CA-CV 23-0363
• Decision Date: 28 March 2024
• Parties: ESTATE OF Magdelena Rios De DOMINGUEZ, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. Renee Kay DOMINGUEZ, Defendant/Appellee.

547 P.3d 1079

ESTATE OF Magdelena Rios De DOMINGUEZ, Plaintiff/Appellant,

v.Renee Kay DOMINGUEZ, Defendant/Appellee.

No. 1 CA-CV 23-0363

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division 1.

Filed March 28, 2024

Appeal from the Superior Court in Maricopa County, Nos. CV2020-011404, CV2020-013833, CV2022-001764 (Consolidated), The Honorable Randall H. Warner, Judge. AFFIRMED

Combs Law Group PC, Phoenix, By Christopher A. Combs, Haille Saal-Khalili, Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellant

Tiffany & Bosco PA, Phoenix, By Lance R. Broberg, Timothy C. Bode, Kyle J. Kopinski, Nicholas Beatty, Counsel for Defendant/Appellee

Vice Chief Judge Randall M. Howe delivered the opinion of the court, in which Presiding Judge Anni Hill Foster and Judge Brian Y. Furuya joined.

OPINION

HOWE, Judge:

¶1 The Estate of Magdalena Rios De Dominguez appeals the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to Renee Kay Dominguez ¹ on the parties’ competing quiet title and false documents claims. The Estate argues that its quiet title claim was not time-barred because A.R.S. § 12–524’s five-year limitation period does not apply to suits against a person who forges a deed to property. The Estate also argues that even if the quiet title claim was time-barred and the property belonged to Renee, it could still pursue the false documents claim against Renee for recording the forged deed. See A.R.S. § 33–420(A).

¶2 We reject the Estate’s first argument because a forgery allegation does not excuse a quiet title claim from A.R.S. § 12–524’s five-year limitation period. We also reject its second argument because the false document claim was time-barred under the applicable statute of limitation. Because we reject these arguments and the other arguments discussed below, we affirm the trial court’s orders.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶3 This appeal arises out of a real property dispute. In 1995, Magdalena and her husband, Isidro Dominguez, obtained title as joint tenants with right of survivorship to a vacant lot in Maricopa County, Arizona ("Property"). A few years later, their son Jose married Renee. In April 2002, a notarized warranty deed conveying the Property to "Jose Luis Dominguez and Rene Kay Dominguez" as "husband and wife" was executed and recorded in November 2003. Over the following years, all the assessed taxes on the Property were paid. Isidro died in 2012. Jose went missing in January 2020, and his remains were found a few months later. According to Magdalena’s signed declaration, shortly after Jose went missing, she started reviewing his belongings and discovered the deed, which she alleged was forged.

¶4 In September 2020, 17 years after the deed was recorded, Magdalena filed a complaint against Renee seeking to quiet title to the Property in her favor and claiming under A.R.S. § 33–420 that Renee had recorded a forged deed to the Property. To support her claim, Magdalena provided a forensic document examiner’s report concluding the signatures on the deed were likely forged. Shortly thereafter, Magdalena recorded a lis pen- dens—a document noting the pendency of an action affecting a property’s title—against the Property.

¶5 In response, Renee demanded that Magdalena quitclaim any interest in the Property to her. When Magdalena refused, Renee filed a separate complaint against Magdalena seeking to quiet the Property’s title in her favor and alleging false documents because Magdalena had clouded the Property’s title by filing the lis pendens and refusing to remove it. The trial court consolidated the cases.

¶6 Renee moved for summary judgment on the competing quiet title claims. She argued that Magdalena’s claim was barred by A.R.S. § 12–524, which established a five-year limitation on actions to recover ownership of a lot in a city or town. In response, Magdalena did not dispute that the lot was in a town or city, nor that Renee had claimed ownership. Instead, she argued that Renee did not have a "recorded deed" as the statute requires because the forged deed was void from the beginning. She also argued that although Renee has provided statements to show that the taxes on the Property were paid, she had not shown that she had paid the taxes herself.

¶7 After oral argument, the court granted Renee summary judgment on both competing quiet title claims ("First Order"). The court found that the parties did not dispute that the Property was within a town or city or that Renee had claimed ownership of it. It also found that no material question of fact existed that Renee had paid the taxes on the Property for at least the past five years before the suit was filed and noted that Magdalena offered no evidence controverting that fact. Finally, it found that Renee had a "recorded deed" to the Property, even though the evidence supported an inference of forgery. The deed was valid on its face because it properly described the Property, and the signatures of the grantors were notarized. The court held that an allegation of forgery did not suspend A.R.S. § 12–524’s five-year statute of limitations because it did not expressly have a "forgery exclusion."

¶8 Magdalena moved for reconsideration but died soon after, and the Estate assumed her role in the litigation as the real party in interest. The court denied the motion to reconsider. Renee asked the Estate to remove the lis pendens, but it refused to do so, claiming that it could still pursue its false documents claim. Renee again moved for summary judgment on the parties’ competing false documents claims, arguing that the Estate lacked standing to bring such a claim because it was not the current owner of the Property. The Estate responded and crossmoved for partial summary judgment on its claim, arguing that it could still pursue that claim because Magdalena had been the owner of the Property when the forged deed was recorded.

¶9 The court granted Renee summary judgment on both parties’ claims ("Second Order"). It found that the First Order quieting title in Renee barred the Estate’s false documents claim. It found that because Magdalena was not an owner "when she filed suit," she lacked standing to bring a claim under that statute, and the Estate had no good-faith basis to maintain the lis pendens against the Property. The court entered a judgment quieting title in Renee’s favor and granting her attorneys’ fees under A.R.S. § 12-1103(B). The Estate timely appealed. This court has jurisdiction under A.R.S. § 12-2101(A)(1).

DISCUSSION

[1] ¶10 The Estate argues that the trial court erred in granting Renee summary judgment on the competing quiet title and false documents claims.² This court "reviews a grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom summary judgment was entered." Dabush v. Seacret Direct LLC, 250 Ariz. 264, 267 ¶ 10, 478 P.3d 695, 698 (2021). Summary judgment is appropriate when the moving party shows that no genuine dispute as to any material fact exists and that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Ariz. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

I. The First Order

¶11 The Estate argues that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to Renee on the competing quiet title claims because AR.S. § 12–524 did not apply. Section 12–524 provides that "[a]n action to recover a lot located in a city or town from a person having a recorded deed therefor, who claims ownership and has paid the taxes thereon, shall be brought within five years after the cause of action accrues, and not afterward." Although the Estate does not dispute that Renee has claimed ownership of the Property, it does dispute the other statutory elements. An analysis of the facts of this case shows, however, that the statute of limitations applies to the Estate’s claim.

A. A Lot in a City or Town Element

[2] ¶12 The Estate argues—for the first time on appeal—§ 12-524 does not apply because the Property is not in a city or town. The Estate concedes that Magdalena did not dispute in the trial court that the Property is in a city or a town and did not raise this issue in post-ruling filings. But the Estate cannot dispute material facts in this court that it did not dispute in the trial court. Daggett v. Jackie Fine Arts, Inc., 152 Ariz. 559, 564, 733 P.2d 1142, 1147 (App. 1986). As the party opposing the motion for summary judgment, Magdalena—and the Estate as her successor-in-interest—had "the burden of showing the trial court that an issue of fact, exist[ed] and [ ] offer[ing] specific facts in opposition to the motion for summary judgment." Id. (citations omitted). She did not meet this burden.

[3] ¶13 Moreover, Magdalena’s concession was a judicial admission. A judicial admission is

[a]n express waiver made in court or preparatory to trial by the party or his attorney conceding for the purposes of the trial the truth of some alleged fact, has the effect of a confessory pleading, in that the fact is thereafter to be taken for granted; so that the one party need offer no evidence to prove it and the other is not allowed to disprove it. … It is, in truth, a substitute for evidence, in that it does away with the need for evidence.

State v. Allen, 253 Ariz. 306, 356 ¶ 181, 513 P.3d 282, 332 (2022) (internal quotation and citations omitted). Section 12-524’s requirement that the lot in question be in a city or town is therefore established and the Estate cannot disprove it.

[4] ¶14 The Estate asked this court at oral argument to overlook its admission and take judicial notice that the Property is not a lot in a city or town because a county government website indicates that the Property appears to be located within an unincorporated area of Maricopa County. Renee responded that because of the Estate’s concession below, it conducted no investigation and presented no evidence whether the Property is a lot in a city or town and disputes the conclusiveness of the website’s information. Because reviving this issue on appeal after the Estate affirmatively eschewed litigating it would be unfair to...