Mondoux v. Vanghel
| Decision Date | 27 January 2021 |
| Docket Number | PC 16-3438,No. 2018-219-Appeal.,2018-219-Appeal. |
| Citation | 243 A.3d 1039 |
| Parties | Reney A. MONDOUX et al. v. Peter A. VANGHEL. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
Karen Auclair Oliveira, Esq., for Plaintiffs.
Steven T. Hayes, Esq., Donna M. Lamontagne, Esq., for Defendant.
Present: Suttell, C.J., Goldberg, Flaherty, and Robinson, JJ.
The plaintiffs, Reney A. Mondoux and Joseph N. Mondoux, Jr., appeal following a May 8, 2018 final judgment of the Superior Court, granting summary judgment in favor of the defendant, Peter A. Vanghel. The plaintiffs contend before this Court that the trial justice erred in determining that their claim for breach of the implied warranty of habitability was time-barred pursuant to this Court's holding in Nichols v. R.R. Beaufort & Associates, Inc. , 727 A.2d 174 (R.I. 1999). For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.
The following facts, concerning which there is no material dispute, are taken from the parties’ briefs before this Court, defendant's memorandum of law in support of his motion for summary judgment, plaintiffs’ memorandum in opposition thereto, and other documents in the record.
On December 24, 1997, plaintiffs purchased a house from defendant; that house is located on a waterfront parcel alongside a lake in Glocester, Rhode Island. According to plaintiffs, defendant represented that he was a licensed builder and that he had initially constructed the house for himself and his wife, but that he was instead selling it as the builder-vendor.
At the time plaintiffs purchased the house in question, construction had been substantially completed, and the only remaining tasks to be completed were staining the deck and acquiring a refrigerator. Moreover, no real estate broker had been engaged by either party to the transaction. The plaintiffs received a warranty deed from defendant on December 24, 1997.
In the Fall of 2012, plaintiffs discovered interior water damage on the lakeside-facing wall of the house, which damage they believed had been caused by a recent hurricane. Specifically, plaintiffs noticed "rotting" above a French door. Subsequently, plaintiffs filed a claim with their homeowners insurance company with respect to the damage. According to plaintiffs, on July 25, 2013, Robert L. Smith of C & L Builders, Inc., examined the lakeside-facing wall of the house. After removing the clapboards and some sheathing on the side of the house that faced the lake, Mr. Smith discovered extensive water damage.
Mr. Smith opined that the damage was due to defendant's improper workmanship and to his use of improper materials. Mr. Smith opined that defendant had failed to use a "waterproof underlayment" in the affected area and that he had not "wrapped" the sliding glass door and windows so as to prevent water from entering the infrastructure of the house. According to plaintiffs, Mr. Smith informed them that defendant's failure to have used proper materials caused all the plywood in the affected area to rot and that it would be necessary to replace the entire lakeside-facing wall of the house.
On July 21, 2016, plaintiffs filed a complaint against defendant in Superior Court. Thereafter, on August 11, 2016, they filed an amended complaint alleging breach of contract (Count One); breach of warranty (Count Two); breach of the implied warranty of habitability (Count Three); negligence (Count Four); breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing (Count Five); fraud in the inducement (Count Six); and negligent misrepresentation (Count Seven).
The defendant filed his answer to the amended complaint on August 31, 2016. Thereafter, on January 24, 2018, he filed a motion for summary judgment. The defendant asserted that plaintiffs’ contract claim was barred by the statute of frauds and the doctrine of merger by deed; he further asserted that the claims sounding in tort were barred by the statute of repose. General Laws 1956 § 9-1-29.1 Similarly, defendant contended that plaintiffs’ claims for breach of warranty and breach of the implied warranty of habitability were also time-barred pursuant to this Court's holding in Nichols . Nichols , 727 A.2d at 174.
In response, plaintiffs countered that Counts One through Seven all sounded in contract and that, accordingly, § 9-1-13—the general statute of limitations for civil actions—applied.2 In addition, plaintiffs argued that, with respect to claims involving improvements to real property, § 9-1-13 "begins to run when the evidence of injury to property * * * is sufficiently significant to alert the injured party to the possibility of defect." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) As a result, plaintiffs contended that the statute of limitations did not begin to accrue until July of 2013, when Mr. Smith alerted them to the injury.
On April 25, 2018, a hearing was held before a justice of the Superior Court on defendant's motion for summary judgment. The hearing justice determined that plaintiffs’ tort claims (Counts Four through Seven) were barred by the statute of repose. The hearing justice also found that this Court's holding in Nichols barred the plaintiffs’ claim based on the implied warranty of habitability (Count Three). The hearing justice granted summary judgment in favor of defendant on all counts in plaintiffs’ amended complaint. The plaintiffs timely appealed to this Court, challenging only the grant of summary judgment as regards their claims as to breach of contract, breach of express warranty, and breach of the implied warranty of habitability (Counts One through Three). See Mondoux v. Vanghel , 216 A.3d 597, 597 (R.I. 2019) (mem.).
On September 26, 2019, the case came before this Court pursuant to an order directing the parties to appear and show cause as to why the issues raised should not be summarily decided. Id. After hearing oral argument, this Court affirmed the judgment of the Superior Court with respect to plaintiffs’ breach of contract and express warranty arguments (Counts One and Two). Id. However, with respect to plaintiffs’ claim for breach of the implied warranty of habitability (Count Three) and the issue of whether or not the holding in Nichols applied to this case, this Court was of the opinion that cause had been shown. Id. Accordingly, we assigned that remaining issue to the full argument calendar and directed the parties "to address whether the ten-year limitation on claims for breach of implied warranties, as set forth for subsequent purchasers in Nichols , should act as a bar to the plaintiffs’ claim in this case." Id.
We review "a hearing justice's grant of a motion for summary judgment de novo ." CFS 915, LLC v. Unetixs Vascular, Inc. , 226 A.3d 1058, 1060-61 (R.I. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). In deciding whether summary judgment was appropriate, we apply the same standard as the hearing justice and, therefore, we "must determine whether ‘no genuine issue of material fact exists and [if] the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.’ " Id. at 1061 (quoting Cancel v. City of Providence , 187 A.3d 347, 350 (R.I. 2018) ). When making this determination "[w]e view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party." Id. (quoting Narragansett Indian Tribe v. State , 81 A.3d 1106, 1109 (R.I. 2014) ). "[O]nce the moving party establishes the absence of a material factual issue, the party opposing the motion has an affirmative duty to establish either by affidavit or by other means the material issue of fact to be decided." Id. (quoting Mello v. Killeavy , 205 A.3d 454, 459 (R.I. 2019) ).
Because this case involves multiple statutes of limitation and a tolling theory, we will begin by providing a brief overview of each applicable statute of limitations and the argument as to the tolling that is at issue.
Section 9-1-29, known as the tort statute of repose, generally bars any tort action against any contractor, subcontractor, or materials supplier "on account of any deficiency in the design, planning, supervision, or observation of construction" upon the expiration of a period of ten years after substantial completion of the improvement.
Similarly, § 9-1-13(a), the general civil statute of limitations, bars "all civil actions [that are not] commenced within ten (10) years next after the cause of action shall accrue * * *." (Emphasis added.)
In certain instances, this Court has applied the so-called "discovery rule" to toll a statute of limitations; however, this Court has done so only "[i]n some narrowly circumscribed factual situations * * * when the fact of the injury is unknown to the plaintiff when it occurs * * *."
Polanco v. Lombardi , 231 A.3d 139, 146 (R.I. 2020) (quoting Mills v. Toselli , 819 A.2d 202, 205 (R.I. 2003) ). In such a scenario, the "statute of limitations will be tolled and will not begin to run until, in the exercise of reasonable diligence, the plaintiff should have discovered the injury or some injury-causing wrongful conduct." Id. (quoting Mills , 819 A.2d at 205 ).
The plaintiffs contend that the principles set forth in this Court's decision in Nichols should not act as a bar to their claim for breach of the implied warranty of habitability. The plaintiffs contend that, in Nichols , this Court expressly held that § 9-1-29 serves as a bar only to untimely tort claims and that § 9-1-13 applies to claims of contract-based breach of implied warranty. Additionally, plaintiffs claim that Nichols clearly supports the argument that the discovery rule is applicable to their claim of contract-based breach of implied warranty. Based on their interpretation of Nichols and the discovery rule, plaintiffs contend that the statute of limitations did not accrue until Mr. Smith alerted them to the defect in July of 2013. Finally, plaintiffs aver that this Court in Nichols imposed a ten-year limitation on claims for breach of the implied...
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...as Trustee of Goat Island Realty Trust , 246 A.3d 927, 935 n.6, 936 n.8 (R.I. 2021) (Robinson, J.) (same); Mondoux v. Vanghel , 243 A.3d 1039, 1045 n.3 (R.I. 2021) (Robinson, J.) (same); La Gondola, Inc. v. City of Providence, by and through Lombardi , 210 A.3d 1205, 1221 (R.I. 2019) (Robin......
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...inapplicable to contract-based breach-of-implied-warranty claims.” 727 A.2d at 181. However, the Supreme Court of Rhode Island clarified in Mondoux that “[a] claim for breach of warranty will be considered timely if the homeowner files suit ‘within three years of the date when they discover......