Goffe v. Pickard

• Decision Date: 26 March 1991
• Docket Number: No. 89-846.,89-846.
• Citation: 588 A.2d 265
• Parties: Robert R. GOFFE, et al., Appellants, v. John G. PICKARD, et al., Appellees.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

588 A.2d 265

Robert R. GOFFE, et al., Appellants, v. John G. PICKARD, et al., Appellees.

No. 89-846.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued November 20, 1990.

Decided March 26, 1991.

Raymond B. Benzinger, for appellants.

William H. Jeffress, Jr., for appellees.

Before ROGERS, Chief Judge, and FERREN and FARRELL, Associate Judges.

FARRELL, Associate Judge:

In this appeal from judgment following a bench trial, we sustain the trial judge's determination that appellants, as landlord, are liable for the cost of rectifying a leakage of water that originates on property under appellants' control. We also uphold the judge's award of attorney's fees to appellees under the exception to the American Rule for bad faith litigation.

I.

In the spring of 1986, appellee John G. Pickard was looking for a townhouse to purchase as an office for his urban planning and design business. Through his real estate agent, Pickard learned that a townhouse located at 3244 Jones Court, near Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown, was for sale. The house, advertised at a price of $215,000.00, was jointly owned by appellant Robert Goffe and two others, and was one of a group of ten townhouses built off a shared courtyard. Five of the houses, including the one owned by Goffe and one owned by Arnold Kuperstein, have private patios in the rear; beneath these patios are five garages which open into an alley running alongside the Goffe townhouse and occupy the land owned by Goffe and Kuperstein. The real estate listing noted that garage parking was available and instructed interested parties to "inquire of lister." In response to the listing, Mr. and Mrs. Pickard made a written offer to buy the Jones Court townhouse for $210,000.00. This sum was for the townhouse and "garage 3 conveyed by easement." Robert Goffe and the co-owners accepted the reduction in price proposed by the Pickards, but amended the garage clause to read: "garage 4 or 5 at the purchasers' option conveyed by easement or leasehold. Garage to convey in `as is' condition." The Pickards agreed to this change and, after inspecting garages four and five, chose garage number five, which is directly below all of the private patio of the townhouse owned by Kuperstein and half of the patio of the townhouse owned by Goffe.

Settlement took place on September 12, 1986. At that time, the Pickards received a lease agreement signed by Robert R. Goffe, Julie H. Goffe, and William D. Goffe as landlord, leasing garage number five to John Pickard and D. Patricia Pickard for ninety-nine years. The Pickards sought and obtained various modifications in the lease; one was the addition of language allowing the garage to be used as a "storage area for professional or residential related items." The lease provided that "Tenant agrees to take the Premises in `as is' condition."

As the trial judge found, when Mr. Pickard examined the garage with his real estate agent before settlement, he "saw no evidence of serious leaks through the roof of the garage." Not until a heavy rainstorm some weeks after settlement did Pickard discover that the garage had a significant leakage problem. Following the storm, Pickard found a large quantity of water leaking into the garage from the roof. The floor of the garage had flooded, preventing use of the garage as a reliable storage space for professional or personal materials, as provided for in the lease. Moreover, as the judge noted, the water draining into the Pickard garage was corrosive.

In his findings of fact, the judge credited Mr. Pickard's explanation of the source of the water seepage problem, finding that "the leak was attributable to the construction of the patios of the townhouses owned by Mr. Goffe and Mr. Kuperstein." The Kuperstein and Goffe private patio areas, each uncovered and exposed to the elements, together form the roof of garage number five. The ceiling of the garage is composed of concrete panels, each approximately four feet wide and running horizontally from one side of the garage to the other. Rain collects on the patios during either moderate or severe storms and seeps through the mortar that joins the bricks, through gaps in the garage's concrete slab ceiling, and into the garage underneath. The rainwater combines chemically with components in the concrete, making the water that leaks into the garage corrosive. To protect any cars using the garage from these deposits, Pickard built a kind of "awning" of plastic sheeting hung from a wooden frame erected just below the garage's ceiling. The measure was only a temporary solution, however, because the sediment deposited by the leaking water damaged the plastic, requiring it to be replaced periodically. Also, to install the awning Pickard had to remove the garage door, which kept the garage from being secured and made it unsuitable for use as a storage space.

Pickard notified Robert Goffe in writing on October 23, 1986 that the garage leaked, leaving sediment on any cars parked in the garage, and asked that they meet to discuss correcting the situation. Goffe did not reply to this letter, but in the late fall of 1986 the two men met unexpectedly in the courtyard of the townhouses at Jones Court, at which time, as the trial judge found, Robert Goffe disclaimed responsibility for the problem. On February 6, 1987, some time after this encounter, Pickard wrote a second letter to Goffe asking that he repair both the Goffe and Kuperstein patios as a permanent remedy for the leaks. In this letter, Pickard also expressed his understanding that the owner of 3250 Jones Court, Kuperstein, had granted Goffe an easement over the Kuperstein patio. Goffe responded in a letter dated February 10, 1987, rejecting Pickard's contention that Goffe had any responsibility for fixing the garage roof, and stating that Pickard was free to "take whatever steps necessary to alleviate your problem as long as it does not disturb my property or lessen its value." In his February 16, 1987 answer to Goffe, Pickard explained that the leaks could not be stopped without a significant intrusion upon both the Goffe and Kuperstein properties to make the repairs. Pickard emphasized that because half of the garage was below the Kuperstein patio, entering the Kuperstein property was essential to completion of the needed repairs, and Goffe's easement agreement entitled Goffe alone to a right of access to the Kuperstein patio.

Pickard, who had never seen the purported easement agreement between Kuperstein and Goffe, became concerned about a possible cloud on his leasehold interest in the garage. His concern proved to be well-founded. The Goffe and Kuperstein townhouses shared the same lot. As the trial judge found, at the time the two owners purchased their townhouses, they had agreed to subdivide the lot to give them separate ownership of their properties. The proposed agreement called for sole ownership by Kuperstein of garage number one, and sole ownership by the Goffes of garages two through five. When the subdivision agreement proved impossible to effectuate, however, the parties drafted and submitted to each other counter-proposals to carry out the intent of the agreement by reciprocal leases or easements. Pickard searched the public record for the existence of an easement and found that, while the original subdivision agreement between Kuperstein and Goffe was recorded, no lease or easement implementing the agreement had ever been filed. He met with Kuperstein and was told that the latter had not executed a set of reciprocal leases Goffe had prepared in the fall of 1983 that would have allowed Goffe to lease garage number two to a tenant. Instead Kuperstein had sent Goffe a proposed easement agreement in May 1984 obligating Goffe to pay a share of Kuperstein's property taxes on the 3250 Jones Court townhouse, apparently in consideration for Goffe's effective ownership of four of the five garages. Goffe did not respond to receipt of this document, and as a result, according to Kuperstein, "no such easement agreement exists."

Concerned about this threat to their 99-year lease, the Pickards engaged counsel who wrote Robert Goffe requesting a copy of any easement agreement between Goffe and Kuperstein. In reply, Goffe asserted that the Pickards had been given a copy of the easement agreement allowing Goffe to lease garage number five "well before the closing." The trial judge found, however, that the Pickards had not been given any such easement before or after closing. Further correspondence between the Pickards' attorney and Goffe yielded no evidence of Goffe's right to lease Kuperstein's property, nor any willingness by Goffe to resolve the problem of title or the leakage problem informally. The Pickards brought suit on July 29, 1987, seeking good leasehold title to the garage through specific performance and correction of the water leakage problem, as well as other relief not here relevant.

Of key importance to the trial judge's ultimate decision to award attorney's fees is the judge's finding that after the Pickards' suit had commenced, Robert Goffe, responding to a document request, "produced a copy of the easement agreement proposed to him by Kuperstein in May 1984, reflecting the signatures of the Goffes notarized in October 1984." In the copy of the agreement provided by Goffe, the language requiring Goffe to pay a share of Kuperstein's property tax had been stricken. These alterations were accompanied by the initials "ANK"—purportedly placed there by Kuperstein—along with the initials of the Goffes. Robert Goffe never produced the original of this document, but testified both that the document was authentic and that his legal right to lease the garage to the Pickards stemmed in part from the agreement it embodied. Kuperstein testified, by contrast, that the initials represented as his and the changes alongside those initials had been forged, that in fact Kuperstein had never received the original easement...