Montecalvo v. Mandarelli

• Decision Date: 30 August 1996
• Docket Number: No. 93-67-A,93-67-A
• Parties: Claire MONTECALVO v. Roger W. MANDARELLI et al. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 918

682 A.2d 918

Claire MONTECALVO v. Roger W. MANDARELLI et al.

No. 93-67-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Aug. 30, 1996.

Lauren Jones, Providence, Mark A. Sjoberg, Warwick, for Plaintiff.

Kevin McAllister, Providence, for Defendants.

OPINION

FLANDERS, Justice.

Before some wag made the inevitable attribution to Yogi Berra, Samuel Goldwyn reportedly remarked that "[a] verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." ¹ A case applying this practical wisdom comes before us on the appeal of the plaintiff, Claire Montecalvo, from a judgment entered by the Superior Court in favor of the defendants, Roger W. and Joyce Mandarelli (jointly referred to as the Mandarellis), after a jury trial involving claims and counterclaims arising out of the parties' real estate ventures and an alleged oral agreement relating thereto. ² For the reasons detailed below, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court and deny the plaintiff's appeal.

Travel

On January 13, 1987, plaintiff filed a complaint in Superior Court against the Mandarellis, alleging a one-half ownership interest in certain real property located at 1374-1376 Atwood Avenue (the Atwood Avenue property) in Johnston, Rhode Island. Seeking specific performance of an alleged "verbal" contract to transfer to her a one-half ownership interest in this Atwood Avenue property, plaintiff claimed that in October of 1977 defendant Roger Mandarelli (individually referred to as defendant) orally promised her such an interest after it became apparent that he could not contribute capital toward certain other real estate ventures that plaintiff and defendant were pursuing. Four years after filing her original complaint, plaintiff filed a third amended complaint, this time alleging breach of an oral partnership agreement, conversion, fraud and misrepresentation, fraudulent conveyance, and unjust enrichment.

The Mandarellis responded by denying the existence of any partnership agreement with respect to the Atwood Avenue property and counterclaimed for slander of title. They alleged that plaintiff had filed a notice of a lis pendens on the subject property, that she had done so maliciously and without legal justification, and that it caused the Mandarellis to suffer irreparable harm. Because the Superior Court partially granted the parties' respective motions for directed verdicts, ³ the only claims submitted to the jury concerned the existence of an alleged oral partnership, plaintiff's misrepresentation claims, and the Mandarellis' counterclaim for slander of title. After an eleven-day trial, the jury rejected plaintiff's partnership and misrepresentation claims and awarded the Mandarellis $50,000 on their slander-of-title counterclaim. The plaintiff then appealed to this court after the Superior Court entered judgment on the jury's verdict.

Facts

The plaintiff, a licensed real estate broker, first met defendant, a builder and developer, in 1969. Since that time, plaintiff brokered the sale of approximately forty or fifty properties that defendant had either owned or built. Sometime during the 1970s and while acting as defendant's real estate agent, plaintiff testified that she and defendant began a partnership whereby she would acquire title to properties that defendant would later build upon or renovate. ⁴ Thereafter, plaintiff would sell or lease the developed properties, and the two would split the profits. According to plaintiff, at least six properties were bought, developed, and sold in this manner.

On September 21, 1976, plaintiff acted as a co-broker in the sale to the Mandarellis of the Atwood Avenue property. ⁵ The plaintiff received a $1,134 commission for co-brokering the sale. Subsequently, defendant allegedly proposed to plaintiff that they become partners in the property. According to plaintiff, her partnership agreement with defendant was that, in exchange for a one-half ownership interest in the property, she would lease the premises, collect the rents for him, and forego funds due her from other real estate transactions for the purpose of her having these funds be credited as her contribution toward the operating costs of the Atwood Avenue property.

In 1986 defendant allegedly repudiated this oral partnership agreement by claiming that he and his wife were the only owners of the property with no obligation to transfer any ownership interest to or share any profits therefrom with plaintiff. Although this claim was consistent with the Mandarellis' having had sole record title to the Atwood Avenue property for the previous ten years, ⁶ plaintiff responded by recording a lis pendens on the property and by commencing this suit.

The defendant denied any partnership agreement with plaintiff regarding ownership of the Atwood Avenue property. He claimed that, during the early 1970s, he and plaintiff became friends while plaintiff brokered the sale of many properties on his behalf as his real estate agent. Occasionally he collaborated with plaintiff to purchase, develop, and sell selected parcels, but he always contended that each of these transactions represented separate ventures. Their relationship, defendant explained, was such that when plaintiff needed funds to pay expenses for properties that plaintiff and her husband owned jointly, defendant would advance her money without hesitation. Consequently, defendant assumed plaintiff was returning the favor when she would periodically lease the units and collect the rents for him pertaining to the Atwood Avenue property. The defendant admits he never paid plaintiff for these services. The plaintiff's actual intent in filing the lis pendens, defendant contended, was not to assert a valid property interest in Atwood Avenue but to prevent its sale and development and to pressure defendant into paying plaintiff money she claimed defendant owed her.

Analysis

The plaintiff raises six issues on appeal. These issues will be considered in the order in which they were raised in plaintiff's principal brief. Further facts will be supplied as needed to discuss these issues.

A. Jury Instructions on the Slander-of-Title Counterclaims

The plaintiff argues that the trial justice's instructions regarding the slander-of-title counterclaims improperly permitted the jury to find that plaintiff had slandered the Mandarellis' title to the Atwood Avenue property without requiring plaintiff to have maliciously uttered false statements about their ownership interest in that property. In support of this argument, plaintiff cites the following passage from the trial justice's instructions to the jury:

"If there is evidence by a fair preponderance of the evidence that the Atwood Avenue property has been slandered, then Joyce Mandarelli is entitled to your verdict against Claire Montecalvo. Whether you return a verdict in favor of * * * Roger, depends. What does it depend on? It depends on what you decided about the partnership. And it simply is this: If you find that Claire failed to prove her partnership by a fair preponderance of the evidence, then in addition to giving Joyce your verdict, you must give Roger your verdict."

The plaintiff asserts that these instructions allowed the jury to find slander of title for defendant after finding slander of title for Joyce Mandarelli simply by concluding that plaintiff had failed to establish her partnership agreement with defendant. However, a review of all of the court's jury instructions belies this contention.

In evaluating the propriety of jury instructions, we view the charge "as a whole in light of the meaning and interpretation that a jury composed of ordinary, intelligent lay persons would give them." Hueston v. Narragansett Tennis Club, Inc., 502 A.2d 827, 829 (R.I.1986). "An erroneous charge warrants reversal only if it can be shown that the jury 'could have been misled' to the resultant prejudice of the complaining party." Brodeur v. Desrosiers, 505 A.2d 418, 422 (R.I.1986) (quoting Anter v. Ambeault, 104 R.I. 496, 501, 245 A.2d 137, 139 (1968)).

Upon review of the record before us, and notwithstanding plaintiff's claim to the contrary, we believe the trial justice properly instructed the jury on each of the elements the Mandarellis had to prove for the jury to find for them on their respective claims of slander of title. To recover for slander of title, the Mandarellis had to establish "that the [plaintiff] maliciously uttered false statements about [their] ownership of real estate which resulted in [their] sustaining an actual pecuniary loss." Peckham v. Hirschfeld, 570 A.2d 663, 666-67 (R.I.1990) (quoting DeLeo v. Anthony A. Nunes, Inc., 546 A.2d 1344, 1346 (R.I.1988)). Malice in the context of a slander-of-title claim is "an intent to deceive or injure." Hopkins v. Drowne, 21 R.I. 20, 23, 41 A. 567, 568 (1898). It is established by showing that a party made a false statement, with full knowledge of its falsity, for the purpose of injuring the complainant(s). Id. at 23, 41 A. at 568; see also Peckham, 570 A.2d at 667.

Here, the trial justice's instructions specifically charged the jury on each of these elements. Specifically, the trial justice stated in pertinent part:

"What is it that Roger Mandarelli and Joyce Mandarelli must prove to establish a slander of title? Each one of the following four elements which make up the wrong called slander of title or slander of property, must be proved by a fair preponderance of the evidence. First, the uttering and publishing of a statement, that's the first thing. * * * Second, that the statement was false. Third, that the statement was malicious. Fourth, that the Mandarellis suffered pecuniary loss.

" * * * *

"If you are persuaded that the Mandarellis have proved that statement to be false, you must proceed to consider whether Mrs. Montecalvo made the statement maliciously. You must proceed to consider the question of malice, and insofar as malice is concerned, I say to you that it consists of an intent to...