Randall v. City Of Laconia
| Decision Date | 24 March 2011 |
| Docket Number | Civil No. 10-cv-50-LM |
| Parties | Jameson C. Randall v. City of Laconia |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Hampshire |
Jameson Randall is suing the City of Laconia ("City"), for selling him a house without making the disclosures concerning lead-based paint that are required by 42 U.S.C. § 4852d ("Title X"). Before the court are cross motions for summary judgment to which objections have been duly filed. For the reasons given, the City's motion for summary judgment is granted and, necessarily, Randall's motion for summary judgment is denied.
Summary judgment shall be granted "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). "Once the moving party avers an absence of evidence to support the non-moving party's case, the non-moving party must offer ^definite, competent evidence to rebut the motion, '" Meuser v. Fed. Express Corp., 564 F.3d 507, 515 (1st Cir. 2009) (citing Mesnick v. Gen. Elec. Co., 950 F.2d 816, 822(1st Cir. 1991)), and "cannot rest on 'conclusory allegations, improbable inferences, [or] unsupported speculation, '" Meuser, 564 F.3d at 515 (quoting Welch v. Ciampa, 542 F.3d 927, 935 (1st Cir. 2008)). When ruling on a party's motion for summary judgment, a trial court "constru[es] the record in the light most favorable to the nonmovant and resolv[es] all reasonable inferences in [that] party's favor." Meuser, 564 F.3d at 515 (citing Rochester Ford Sales, Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 287 F.3d 32, 38 (1st Cir. 2002)).
The following facts are undisputed. On May 15, 2003, Jameson Randall entered into a purchase and sale agreement with the City. The subject of the agreement was a residential property at 192 Elm Street in Laconia that was built before 1978.
On May 1, 2003, Randall and his agent both signed, as purchaser and agent, a form titled "Disclosure of Information on Lead-Based Paint and Lead-Based Paint Hazards FOR HOUSING SALES" (hereinafter "disclosure form"). Neither the City nor its agent ever signed the disclosure form, made the seller's disclos ures listed therein, or provided a completed copy of the form to Jameson. Jameson took title to the subject property in July of 2003.
In August of 2008, Randall's son was diagnosed with an elevated lead level. On February 9, 2010, Randall sued the City in one count, asserting that the City violated 42 U.S.C. § 4852d(a)(1)(B) by failing to provide him with the disclosures required by that statute.1
The City moves for summary judgment, arguing that Randall's action is barred by the statute of limitations. In his objection, Randall does not identify any factual dispute but, rather, relies on the discovery rule and argues that his action is not time barred because he filed suit within three years after learning of his son's elevated lead level. The court does not agree.
The City argues, and Randall appears not to contest, that the statute of limitations applicable to this case provides as follows:
Except as otherwise provided by law, all personal actions... may be brought only within 3 years of the act or omission complained of, except that when the injury and its causal relationship to the act or omission were not discovered and could not reasonably have been discovered at the time of the act or omission, the action shall be commenced within 3 yearsof the time the plaintiff discovers, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the injury and its causal relationship to the act or omission complained of.
N.H. Rev. Stat. Ann. ("RSA") § 508:4, I.
In order to properly apply the statute of limitations, it is necessary to accurately identify "the act or omission complained of" and the resulting "injury." Given that the sole cause of action in this case is provided by 42 U.S.C. § 4852d(b)(3), the act or omission of which Randall complains is the City's failure to provide him with the disclosures required by Title X when it sold him the subject property.2 Necessarily, then, the injury Randall suffered was that he took title to the subject property without having been provided with the disclosures required by Title X.3
Having established the alleged wrongdoing and the resulting injury in this case, the court turns to the statute of limitations. While it seems counterfactual, the court willassume for purposes of this motion that at the time Randall took title to the subject property, he had not discovered that the City had failed to make the required disclosures, and had not discovered the causal relationship between the City's failure to make those disclosures and his taking title to the property without them.4 The question then becomes whether Randall could reasonably have discovered, at the time of the City's unlawful omission, his injury and his injury's causal relationship to the City's omission. He could reasonably have made those discoveries.
Given that Randall signed his portion of the disclosure form in May of 2003, and discussed it with his agent at that time, there was nothing to prevent Randall from discovering his injury, i.e., his lack of Title X disclosure when he took title, at the time he was injured. That is, there is no basis for determining that Randall's injury "could not reasonably have been discovered at the time of the act or omission." RSA 508:4, I. So, too, with the causal relationship between Randall's injury (his lack of Title X disclosure) and the City's act or omission (its failure to provide Title X disclosure). There wasnothing to prevent...
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