Kalorama Citizens Ass'n v. SunTrust Bank Co.
| Decision Date | 22 December 2022 |
| Docket Number | s. 21-CV-84,21-CV-183 |
| Citation | 286 A.3d 525 |
| Parties | KALORAMA CITIZENS ASSOCIATION, et al., Appellants, v. SUNTRUST BANK COMPANY, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | D.C. Court of Appeals |
Paul H. Zukerberg, Washington, for appellants.
Mary C. Zinsner, with whom Elizabeth M. Briones, Washington, was on brief, for appellees.
Before Easterly and McLeese Associate Judges, and Crowell, Associate Judge, Superior Court of the District of Columbia.*
Appellants Kalorama Citizens Association ("KCA") and Adams Morgan for Reasonable Development ("AMRD") appeal from the Superior Court's grant of summary judgment to appellee SunTrust Bank ("the Bank").1 The appellants had sought to enforce an alleged common law easement by public dedication that gave the public the right to use a plaza ("the Plaza") on land owned by the Bank, which sold the Plaza and its adjacent bank building to developers, who intend to tear both structures down in order to build a mixed-use development.
In this case we are asked to determine whether two community organizations have standing to enforce an alleged common law easement by public dedication. We conclude that they have both constitutional and prudential standing. Because we remand for consideration of whether the alleged easement exists, we reiterate the requirements for what must be proven to establish a common law easement by public dedication in the District of Columbia. Further, we hold that such an easement may be express or implied and that it may be accepted either by the government or by the public through general use.
Accordingly, for the reasons stated herein, we hereby reverse the order of summary judgment and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
The following provides a summary of the evidence proffered by the parties for the purposes of the summary judgment ruling. The record below contains numerous unresolved factual disputes regarding the parties’ relative understanding of the agreement or lack thereof that paved the way for the Plaza's construction. As a starting point, in 1976, the Bank sought to build a bank branch in Adams Morgan. At some point that year, community organizations filed objections with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board ("FHLBB") regarding the Bank's application. The planned and now present location at 1800 Columbia Road NW included an undeveloped area that was routinely used as a neighborhood farmers’ market and community space. Throughout 1976 and 1977, the Bank, mainly through its president, Thomas Owen, engaged in a series of meetings that the appellants allege were negotiations with the Adams Morgan Organization ("AMO"), the Adams Morgan Advisory Neighborhood Commission ("Adams Morgan ANC"), and other community groups prior to the construction of the bank building. During these negotiations, the Bank sought to obtain the Adams Morgan community's support for the construction of the building, while the community groups sought to maintain the open space for the broader community's use and ensure that the Bank operated according to certain non-discriminatory mortgage lending practices.
On November 2, 1976, Owen, in his capacity as the Bank's president, wrote an open letter to residents of Adams Morgan ("the Owen Letter"), in which he stated that "[the Bank] agreed to develop the property in such a way as to preserve its open quality, attractiveness and accessibility to the vendors that presently use it." Then, on December 6, 1976, Frank Smith, who served as Chairman of the Adams Morgan ANC and AMO at the time that the Bank acquired the property, sent a letter to Owen stating that the community organizations were willing to withdraw their opposition to the bank building's construction. The parties, however, dispute the import, meaning, and binding nature of Owen's and Smith's understandings of the alleged agreement, if any, to construct the Plaza in return for the community organizations’ support of the bank building's construction.
By January 17, 1977, the FHLBB had in its possession investigatory materials that included the Bank's architectural plans for the Plaza. In July 1977, the Bank finalized an agreement on mortgage lending practices with the community, which was entitled the Loan Policy Agreement ("LPA"). The LPA detailed the terms for how the Bank would extend mortgages in the community to ensure "the lower and moderate income and minority residents" in the neighborhood would have access to home financing opportunities. The LPA was then submitted to the FHLBB as an amendment to the Bank's licensing application. Notably, the LPA did not mention the future construction of the Plaza. Smith in his deposition, however, stated that he believed the LPA formally memorialized the parties’ agreed-upon terms and that he understood that this agreement included the Plaza's construction and the community's continued use of the space once the Plaza was completed. Essentially, the appellants contend that the community groups withdrew their opposition before the FHLBB at least in part in exchange for the Bank constructing the Plaza. Regardless of the parties’ disputed understanding of the Bank's agreement with the community groups, by August of 1977, the community groups withdrew their objections filed with the FHLBB, which cleared the path for approval of the Bank's application to open the new bank building. The Bank subsequently constructed the building and the Plaza, which, in 1979, was opened to the public.
The Plaza exists today, largely as it did in 1979, but ownership of the bank building and the Plaza has changed several times since its opening. At a preliminary injunction hearing, a Bank employee testified that throughout these changes of ownership, the Bank entered into licensing agreements with farmers’ market vendors and community groups to use the Plaza. Other uses by the general public have commonly occurred on the Plaza without licenses, such as break dancing, jump rope, and social meetups. The Bank paid for insurance that covered the entire Plaza and contracted for the Plaza's maintenance, including repairs and waste removal. The Bank paid taxes on the Plaza, physically maintained the Plaza, and settled a slip and fall case from an incident on the Plaza.
In 2015, the Bank contracted to sell the building and the Plaza to 1800 Columbia Road, LLC, a real estate development group ("the Developers"). The Developers intend to raze the bank building and the Plaza in order to construct retail space and condominiums with a substantially reduced public area (from 4,000 square feet down to 380 square feet).
As a result of the Developers’ plans to demolish the Plaza, the appellants sought to communicate with the Developers, signed petitions, and drafted various resolutions opposing the Plaza's destruction. The appellants presented their objections to the proposed site changes to the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Review Board, which, on January 26, 2017, deemed the proposed changes, including the removal of the Plaza, compatible with the Washington Heights Historic District. On May 3, 2017, the Developers proceeded with their construction plans and applied for a raze permit to demolish both the bank building and the Plaza.
On June 15, 2017, KCA and AMRD filed suit against the Bank and the Developers in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. The complaint set forth a claim for declaratory and injunctive relief for the appellants in order to enforce "an easement by dedication in favor of the public for the Plaza." On June 16, 2017, the appellants sought a preliminary injunction to prevent demolition of the bank building and the Plaza during the ongoing litigation. On August 4, 2017, the Superior Court (Edelman, J.) granted the motion for preliminary injunction. A jury trial was then set to commence on April 17, 2018.
In the intervening months, the case was reassigned. The Superior Court (Puig-Lugo, J.) then granted summary judgment in favor of all of the defendants except the Bank. Consequently, on March 7, 2018, the Bank removed the case to federal court due to the parties’ diversity of citizenship satisfying subject matter jurisdiction. (In the meantime, the appellants appealed the Superior Court's grant of summary judgement to this court, but we dismissed the appeal as taken from a nonfinal order.) The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia then remanded the case back to the Superior Court, finding that KCA and AMRD lacked prudential standing to access federal courts under Article III of the U.S. Constitution. The Superior Court then directed the parties to appear and show cause why the preliminary injunction should not be vacated.
At the show cause hearing on January 12, 2021, the Superior Court (Puig-Lugo, J.) vacated the preliminary injunction and then turned to the issues of jurisdiction and summary judgment. The Superior Court assumed constitutional standing and declined to address prudential standing. In granting summary judgment in favor of the Bank, the Superior Court concluded that an essential element of the alleged easement was government acceptance and that the community organizations had failed to demonstrate that there was a triable issue of fact as to that question.
On March 1, 2021, the Superior Court also ordered that KCA's $5,000 bond be released to the Bank and further required that both KCA and AMRD pay $7,167.03 to the Bank for costs. KCA and AMRD are now before this court on a consolidated appeal of the final orders issued by the Superior Court that granted summary judgment in favor of the Bank, released KCA's $5,000 bond, and required KCA and AMRD to reimburse the bank for $7,167.03 in costs.
The Superior Court's grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo. Zere v. District of Columbia , 209 A.3d 94, 98 (D.C. 2019). Summary judgment is proper "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to...
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