Quinn, In re
| Decision Date | 08 June 1993 |
| Docket Number | No. 92-2366,92-2366 |
| Parties | NOTICE: Fourth Circuit I.O.P. 36.6 states that citation of unpublished dispositions is disfavored except for establishing res judicata, estoppel, or the law of the case and requires service of copies of cited unpublished dispositions of the Fourth Circuit. In Re: Thomas D. QUINN and Danna R. Quinn, Debtors. Thomas D. QUINN; Danna R. Quinn, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Allen H. NEUHARTH; Janet A. Neuharth, Defendants-Appellees. . Argued: |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Albert V. Bryan, Jr., Senior District Judge. (CA-92-6-M, BK-90-11684-AB)
Argued: Stephen Zak Chertkof, Kator, Scott & Heller, Washington, D.C., for Appellants.
Robert F. Brooks, Sr., Hunton & Williams, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees.
On Brief: Joseph B. Scott, Kator, Scott & Heller, Washington, D.C., for Appellants.
Paul E. Mirengoff, Jack R. Wilson, III, Hunton & Williams, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees.
E.D.Va.
AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED.
Before NIEMEYER and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges, and GARBIS, United States District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation.
In this diversity action, the plaintiffs-appellants Thomas and Danna Quinn (the Quinns) brought an action in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia alleging, under Virginia law, claims of slander of title, abuse of process, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and intentional interference with contractual relations. After the case was transferred to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants-appellees Allen Neuharth, and his daughter Janet Neuharth (the Neuharths), on the Quinns' claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress and intentional interference with contractual relations. The case proceeded to trial on the other two claims. After the Quinns presented their case, the district court granted a directed verdict in favor of the Neuharths on the remaining claims. The Quinns appeal. We now affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for a new trial.
The convoluted saga between these would-be Hatfields and McCoys has its beginning in the year 1986, when the Quinns purchased a fifty acre tract of land known as "Four Chimneys" located in Loudoun County, Virginia. The property adjacent to the east and south of Four Chimneys is a 115 acre horse farm, known as "Paperchase Farms," a farm purchased the previous year by the Neuharths. 1 From the time the Neuharths purchased Paperchase Farms, it was evident that they were interested in acquiring and coveted the property that comprised Four Chimneys.
For reasons not entirely clear from the record, in April 1986, the Quinns sued Allen Neuharth challenging the boundary between the two properties. As a result of this suit, the Neuharths and the Quinns agreed to a common boundary line. This agreement was memorialized in the form of a "Boundary Line Agreement." According to the Boundary Line Agreement, Four Chimneys and Paperchase Farms shared a common boundary in the form of two straight lines, one running southwest (south line) and the other running southeast (east line). The two agreed common boundary lines were based on the survey of Horace Jarrett (Jarrett survey). The Jarrett survey determined the south line of the common property line between Four Chimneys and Paperchase Farms to be a straight line 1301.11 feet in length. This measurement was a distance between two found iron pipes at each end of the south property line. The length of the east line of the common property line between Four Chimneys and Paperchase Farms, according to the Jarrett survey, was a straight line 1245.76 feet in length. This measurement was also a distance between two found iron pipes at each end of the east property line. 2
Once a settlement was reached between the parties, any tensions that may have existed seem to have subsided. The parties thereafter remained social friends, and in fact, the Quinns continued to board their horses at Paperchase Farms and their daughter participated in Janet Neuharth's wedding.
In the spring and summer of 1986 and 1987, Thomas Quinn, a real estate developer by trade, worked on the Four Chimneys property, cleaning up, among other things, a cabin area and some underbrush, and removing the remnants of a derelict fence obscured by some underbrush near the property line. In addition to this work, Thomas Quinn also built a manure loading area for the Neuharths on their property. The record reflects that the Neuharths were, at that time, entirely pleased and satisfied with the quality of Thomas Quinn's work.
The parties' relationship began to sour in August 1988, around the time the Quinns subdivided the Four Chimneys property into five lots, creating the Quinn Family Subdivision. The Quinns retained one of these five lots (Lot 1) and conveyed the other four parcels (Lots 2, 3, 4, and 5) to themselves as trustees for their relatives. Only Lots 1 and 4 border Paperchase Farms. The Quinns hired John Schiller to survey the property and design the subdivision.
The Schiller survey used the same endpoints (the found iron pipes) as the Jarrett survey to fix the common boundary lines between the two properties. The length of the common boundary lines on the Schiller survey and the Jarrett survey differed only slightly. Schiller measured the straight line between the two found iron pipes along the south line at 1300.72 feet in length and the straight line between the two found iron pipes along the east line at 1245.38 feet in length. Thus, the distances between the fixed points on the east and south lines in the Schiller survey each differed from the distances in the Jarrett survey by about four inches. 3 The surveys also differed in another respect. The bearings of the Schiller survey differed slightly in seconds from the Jarrett survey. As a result, if one ignored the established monuments, i.e., the iron pipes, and calculated the boundary lines simply on the basis of the bearings in the two surveys, the Schiller survey reduced the size of Paperchase Farms (thereby increasing the size of Four Chimneys) by a pie-shaped piece of land which was four-and-one half inches at its widest, along the south line.
In connection with the creation of the Quinn Family Subdivision in June 1988, the Quinns built a driveway off U.S. Route 50 leading to the proposed homesite on Lot 1. Shortly thereafter, the Quinns began constructing a house on Lot 1. Thereafter, in order to provide electricity to the house, Virginia Electric and Power Company (VEPCO) ran an underground service line to the house on Lot 1. The underground cable crossed over the boundary line onto the Neuharths' property. The encroachment consisted of an underground cable and transformer box, just a few feet inside the east boundary line. In addition, the driveway constructed by the Quinns encroached upon the Neuharths' property.
In early 1989, Janet Neuharth asked Thomas Quinn when he was going to replace the derelict fence that the Quinns removed. Thomas Quinn responded that he intended to build a fence when he finished construction of the house on Lot 1 in Four Chimneys. The parties agreed at that time to share the cost of the fence. A short time later, Janet Neuharth came over with her husband, Joseph Keusch, and told Thomas Quinn she wanted him to build a fence along the property line at his sole expense. Quinn stated that the derelict fence that he removed was not serviceable, but nevertheless reiterated his agreement to pay for half the cost of the fence.
Knowing that the Quinns filed a subdivision plan and started construction of the house on Lot 1 in Four Chimneys, Janet Neuharth became concerned about what the land records in Loudoun County might reflect regarding the Boundary Line Agreement. In response to this concern, Janet Neuharth, accompanied by her attorney, Ruth Rosenberg, examined the land records and discovered that the Boundary Line Agreement was not referenced in the subdivision plan, and that the subdivision plan was based upon the Schiller survey as opposed to the Jarrett survey. 4
About the time of her review of the land records and just prior to the transfer of Paperchase Farms from Allen Neuharth to Janet Neuharth, the Neuharths had a survey of Paperchase Farms performed by Dewberry & Davis (Dewberry & Davis survey). As a result of this survey, the Neuharths learned that the driveway built by the Quinns and the power line installed by VEPCO encroached upon their property. When the Neuharths notified the Quinns of these encroachments, Thomas Quinn cured the encroachments within a few weeks at no cost to the Neuharths. Shortly thereafter, in April or May 1989, the Neuharths built, at their expense (approximately $6,000), a fence along the east and south property lines. 5
On May 5, 1989, Rosenberg, on Janet Neuharth's instructions, sent a demand letter to Thomas Quinn. That letter stated that "several weeks ago" Thomas Quinn had removed a fence from the area of the property line. The letter demanded four things from the Quinns: (1) move the driveway; (2) have VEPCO move the utility line; (3) construct a fence on the property line at the Quinns' sole expense; and (4) plant shrubs on the Quinns' side of the property line. At the time this letter was written, the driveway and VEPCO encroachments had been cured and the fence along the property line had been erected by the Neuharths.
On May 26, 1989, Robert Schwenger of Dewberry & Davis wrote the Neuharths' attorney, Ruth Rosenberg:
Summarizing our meeting Friday, May 26th, we looked at the Jarrett Survey for the Shepherd property (now Quinn), the subdivision plat for the Quinn property by Schiller, the Dewbery &...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Wal-Mart Real Estate Bus. Tr. v. Garrison Realty Inv'rs, LLC
... ... 2001) (discussing history and scope of absolute ... privilege). It appears that the Maryland appellate courts ... have not yet determined whether the absolute privilege is ... applicable to a notice of lis pendens, and states are split ... on this issue. See In re Quinn ... ...