Quinn v. Quinn

• Decision Date: 06 October 2015
• Docket Number: No. COA14–979.,COA14–979.
• Citation: Quinn v. Quinn, 777 S.E.2d 121, 243 N.C.App. 374 (N.C. App. 2015)
• Parties: Leslie Frederick QUINN, Plaintiff, v. Danny S. QUINN and wife, Patricia Quinn, Defendants.
• Court: North Carolina Court of Appeals

243 N.C.App. 374

777 S.E.2d 121

Leslie Frederick QUINN, Plaintiff,

v.Danny S. QUINN and wife, Patricia Quinn, Defendants.

No. COA14–979.

Court of Appeals of North Carolina.

Oct. 6, 2015.

White & Allen, P.A., by E. Wyles Johnson, Jr., Kinston and Ashley Fillippeli Stucker, for plaintiff-appellant.

Wooten & Coley, Kinston, by William C. Coley, III and Everette L. Wooten, Jr., for defendant-appellees.

STROUD, Judge.

Plaintiff appeals order granting summary judgment in favor of defendants.For the following reasons, we reverse and remand.

I.Background

This case would make a good bar exam question, or perhaps several questions, since so many legal issues are raised.The briefs in this case have been of limited assistance to this Court, since both parties argue important facts diametrically opposed to those they previously asserted in their pleadings or depositions or both.

On 10 May 2004, the deed which is the subject of this dispute was recorded in the Lenoir County Register of Deeds in Book 1378, Page 691 of the Lenoir County Register of Deeds("recorded deed").¹The date on the deed when it was executed is 12 March 1999, but it was not notarized until 10 May 2004, the same day as recordation, by defendantPatricia Quinn.The recorded deed has no revenue stamp but recites that it was given for consideration.Plaintiff alleges in his complaint it was a gift deed.

It is undisputed in deposition testimony that the recorded deed arose from an agreed-upon exchange of two parcels of property between plaintiff and his brother, Thomas Quinn and wife, Inez Quinn.The deed from Thomas and Inez Quinn to plaintiff, which is not a subject of this case, was also executed on 12 March 1999 and not recorded until 10 May 2004 in Book 1378, Page 689 of the Lenoir County Register of Deeds.

In March of 2013, plaintiff filed a verified complaint against defendants.In the complaint, plaintiff alleges that he"made and executed" a gift deed from himself to defendants in 1999.DefendantPatricia Quinn notarized the deed in 2004, and it was then recorded.Plaintiff alleges that defendantPatricia Quinn"was disqualified to notarize" the deed "because she stood to receive directly from" it, and thus the deed should be treated as unrecorded.Plaintiff also alleged that because the deed was a gift that went unrecorded for more than two years, it is now void.Plaintiff made claims for a declaratory judgment, quiet title, and ejectment.

In May of 2013, defendants filed a motion to dismiss and answered plaintiff's complaint denying that plaintiff had "made and executed" a deed to them and asserting that the deed was not a gift and that defendantPatricia Quinn had indeed notarized the deed in 2004.Defendants denied the substantive allegations of plaintiff's claims.Defendants claimed that

[b]efore the deed was recorded, the first page of the deed was replaced with one showing ... Danny and Patricia as Grantees.This was done at the direction of Thomas and Inez as they intended throughout for this land to be Danny and Patricia's since it adjoined land already owned and occupied by Danny and Patricia.

Defendants alleged numerous affirmative defenses and counterclaimed in the alternative that if the recorded deed was voidthey should receive an award of damages for unjust enrichment and betterments for improvements they made to the property and if the recorded deed was validthey should have removal of any cloud on their title.In July of 2013, plaintiff answered defendant's counterclaims and raised numerous affirmative defenses.

On 29 August 2013, plaintiff was deposed.Plaintiff explained that he and his brother, Thomas Quinn, agreed to exchange two parcels of land.According to plaintiff, he did not sign a deed with Danny and Patricia Quinn as the grantees, but he executed a deed to Thomas Quinn as grantee.This testimony contradicts the allegations of his complaint but is consistent with the defendants' answer and forecast of evidence.

The following day, defendantPatricia Quinn was also deposed.DefendantPatricia Quinn stated that she notarized a deed signed by plaintiff as grantor and Thomas Quinn as grantee.DefendantPatricia Quinn vehemently denied numerous times throughout her deposition that she had ever notarized a deed from plaintiff to herself.According to defendantPatricia Quinn, page two of the recorded deed, the page signed by plaintiff and notarized by her, was not attached to page one as it is now recorded with defendants' names on it; defendantPatricia Quinn stated that when plaintiff signed the deed and she notarized it, page one reflected the grantee as Thomas Quinn.DefendantPatricia Quinn further opined that she did not believe plaintiff was aware the pages were switched.²

Thus, in summary, plaintiff filed a complaint alleging solely "technical" issues regarding the recorded deed from himself to defendants; plaintiff does not allege that the recorded deed is fraudulent or in any way not the deed he originally executed in 1999.Defendantsdenied that plaintiff had executed a deed to them as grantees.Plaintiff then clarified that the deed he executed was actually to his brother, Thomas Quinn.DefendantPatricia Quinn agreed with plaintiff and testified under oath that plaintiff signed a deed to Thomas Quinn and that is the deed she notarized.Thus, without speculation as to the family discord which most likely lies behind this scenario, because a determination of credibility can be made only by the jury or the trial judge sitting as such, there seem to be two possibilities from the facts as provided thus far: (1) If plaintiff's complaint is taken as true, plaintiff gave his land to defendants, and defendantPatricia Quinn notarized the deed to herself as a grantee or (2) if all of the other evidence is taken as true, plaintiff gave the land to his brotherThomas Quinn, and in 2004defendantPatricia Quinn notarized that deed.Patricia Quinn believed that Thomas and Inez took the deed to their attorney after it was signed by plaintiff in an attempt "to save money and time or whatever to just not have it recorded in their names" because they would have to switch it later to put the land into defendants' names, but again, this scenario is based upon defendantPatricia Quinn's speculations, and not even she asserts this is what actually occurred.However, even taking defendantPatricia Quinn's assumptions as true, this would mean that plaintiff never properly signed the deed as it was recorded.We are not aware of any evidence brought forth by defendants that indicates plaintiff executed a deed to them; rather their pleadings and defendantPatricia Quinn's deposition indicate the opposite.

On 7 October 2013, plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment.On 20 February 2014, the trial court entered an order granting defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's claim for a declaratory judgment and denying defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiff's claims for quiet title and ejectment.³On 27 February 2014, the trial court granted summary judgment on plaintiff's claim for quiet title and ejectment in favor of defendants;the trial court also granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on their claim of quiet title and "ordered that any ‘cloud on title’ of the Defendants by any claim of the Plaintiff ... is hereby removed."Thus, because the recorded deed was not determined to be void, all claims were resolved.Plaintiff appeals only the summary judgment order in which the trial court dismissed plaintiff's claims for quiet title and ejectment and granted summary judgment for defendants on their counterclaim to quiet title and remove any cloud on title.

II.Standard of Review

A trial court appropriately grants a motion for summary judgment when the information contained in any depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions, and affidavits presented for the trial court's consideration, viewed in the light most favorable to the non-movant, demonstrates that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.As a result, in order to properly resolve the issues that have been presented for our review in this case, we are required to determine, on the basis of the materials presented to the trial court, whether there is a genuine issue as to any material fact and whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Both before the trial court and on appeal, the evidence must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and all inferences from that evidence must be drawn against the moving party and in favor of the non-moving party.When there are factual issues to be determined that relate to the defendant's duty, or when there are issues relating to whether a party exercised reasonable care, summary judgment is inappropriate.We review orders granting or denying summary judgment using a de novo standard of review, under which this Court considers the matter anew and freely substitutes its own judgment for that of the trial court.

Trillium Ridge Condominium v. Trillium Dev.,––– N.C.App. ––––, ––––, 764 S.E.2d 203, 210–11(citations, quotation marks, and brackets omitted), disc. review denied, – –– N.C. ––––, 766 S.E.2d 619, disc. review denied, – –– N.C. ––––, 766 S.E.2d 646, disc. review denied, – –– N.C. ––––, 766 S.E.2d 836(2014);seeN.C. Gen.Stat. § 1A–1,Rule 56(2013).

III.Summary Judgment

It is elementary that summary judgment is proper only where there is no genuine issue of a material fact when the evidence is viewed in the light most favorable to the non-movant, and a party is clearly entitled to prevail based on the law.Seeid.Here, there are factual disputes, and we must consider whether the factual issues are material to the various legal theories raised by both plaintiff's claims and defendant's counterclaims.Here, plaintiff was the party who moved for summary judgment, and plaintiff argues on appeal that the trial court...