Riley v. Venice Beach Citizens Ass'n, Inc.

• Court: Maryland Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: Gould, J.
• Citation: Riley v. Venice Beach Citizens Ass'n, Inc., 487 Md. 1, 314 A.3d 319 (Md. 2024)
• Docket Number: 5
• Decision Date: 19 April 2024
• Parties: CHARLES RILEY, JR. REVOCABLE TRUST, et al. v. VENICE BEACH CITIZENS ASSOCIATION, INC.

487 Md. 1

314 A.3d 319

CHARLES RILEY, JR. REVOCABLE TRUST, et al.

v.VENICE BEACH CITIZENS ASSOCIATION, INC.

No. 5, Sept. Term, 2023

Supreme Court of Maryland.

April 19, 2024

Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, Case No.: C-02-CV-19-003841, Paul F. Harris, Jr., Judge

Argued by N. Tucker Meneely (Wayne T. Kosmerl of Council, Baradel, Kosmerl & Nolan, P.A., Annapolis, MD), on brief, for Petitioners.

Argued by Barbara J. Palmer and Kyra L. Wheatley (Hyatt & Weber, P.A., Annapolis, MD), on brief, for Respondent.

Argued before: Fader, C.J., Watts, Hotten, Booth, Biran, Gould, Eaves, JJ.

Gould, J.

The main issue in this title dispute is whether a party has a right to rely on a favorable partial summary judgment ruling when the rest of the case goes to trial. The issue arises from a dispute between a homeowner and a citizens association over a parcel of undeveloped land. The parcel was bisected into two sections by a stone wall. The homeowner claimed adverse possession over the entire parcel, but in an amended complaint, the homeowner treated the two sections as distinct parcels acquired at different times and on different grounds. The homeowner moved for summary judgment on the claim to the smaller section, which the circuit court granted.¹

A different judge presided over the bench trial on the homeowner’s claim to the larger section. When the homeowner finished his case-in-chief, the citizens association moved for judgment. The trial court granted the citizens association’s motion and entered judgment for it on the homeowner’s claims, including the claim to the smaller section that had been resolved in the homeowner’s favor on summary judgment.

After the trial court denied the homeowner’s motion to alter or amend the judgment, he appealed to the Appellate Court of Maryland which, among other things, affirmed the trial court’s disposition of the homeowner’s claims to both the smaller and larger sections.

We granted the homeowner’s petition for certiorari. The citizens association did not cross-petition.

On the main issue, we hold that the circuit court abused its discretion by implicitly vacating the summary judgment entered in the homeowner’s favor on his claim to the smaller section and then entering judgment for the citizens association on that claim. For the reasons discussed below, we reverse in part and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Petitioner Charles Riley, Jr. bought a residential property ("home lot") on Wayman Avenue in the Venice Beach community in Anne Arundel County in 1987.² Riley’s house faces east toward Wayman Avenue and the Chesapeake Bay. A 4,443 square foot, undeveloped parcel of land ("Subject Property") lies southeast of the home lot. The home lot shares a small part of its eastern border with the western border of the Subject Property. The Subject Property is bordered to the east by Wayman Avenue, which runs parallel to the Chesapeake Bay, and to the south by Chesapeake Avenue.

When Riley bought the home lot, the Subject Property was bisected by a block wall that severed the Subject Property into two sections: a 228³ square foot parcel on the north side of the wall ("Small Section") and a 4,215 square foot parcel on the south side of the wall ("Large Section"). The home lot lies next to the Small Section and catty-corner to the Large Section.

The Subject Property was part of an undeveloped tract of land ("Venice Beach property") acquired by Osborn T. Taylor in 1919. The Venice Beach property was subdivided and developed into a residential community. When Mr. Osborn died in 1935, he still owned parts of the original tract, consisting of beach, roads, and undeveloped parcels—including the Subject Property ("remaining Venice Beach property").

By 1977, through inter vivos transfers and inheritances, the remaining Venice Beach property was owned by three individuals as tenants in common: Irena Leak, with a 37.5 percent interest, Jennie Wilder, with a 37.5 percent interest, and Benjamin Taylor, with a 25 percent interest. In 1977, Ms. Leak deeded her interest in the remaining Venice Beach property—including the Subject Property—to her son, John Clay Leak, Jr. In 1987, Mr. Leak sold his interest in one parcel of the remaining Venice Beach property—the Subject Property—to Richard and Marcella Jones.⁴ And in June 2019, the Joneses deeded their interest in the Subject Property to Bay Pride, LLC ("Bay Pride"), a limited liability company formed and owned by Riley.

Ms. Wilder died in 1978, leaving her interest in the remaining Venice Beach property to her two children. In 1987, the Wilder children executed a deed to convey their interest in the remaining Venice Beach property to the Respondent, Venice Beach Citizens Association, Inc. ("Association"). That interest, however, was still owned by their late mother’s estate and so in the early 1990s, the transfer was declared invalid by the circuit court. In 2017, the Association received and recorded a deed correcting the defect.

Nobody seems to know what happened to Benjamin Taylor’s interest. He died in 1956. His lone survivor was his wife; she died in 1996. The identities and whereabouts of his heirs are not known. So, by June 2019, the only known title holders of the Subject Property were Bay Pride and the Association.

The Complaint

On November 22, 2019, Riley and Bay Pride sued the Association in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County. They subsequently amended their complaint to join the unknown heirs of Benjamin Taylor, who were served by publication. The amended complaint asserted five counts.

In counts one and three, captioned "adverse possession" and "quiet title," respectively, Riley sought a declaration that he had acquired full legal title to the Small Section. For convenience, we will refer to these two counts as the "Small Section claim."

In counts two and four, also captioned "adverse possession" and "quiet title," respectively, Bay Pride sought a declaration that it had acquired full legal title to the Large Section. For convenience, we will refer to these two counts as the "Large Section claim."

In count five, Riley and Bay Pride asked the court to appoint a trustee to sell the Subject Property in lieu of a partition among its joint tenant owners ("Trustee Sale claim").

The Association’s Counterclaim

The Association countersued Riley and Bay Pride. Claiming that the Venice Beach community residents used and main- tamed the Subject Property, the Association’s amended counterclaim asked the court to declare, among other things, that it had a prescriptive easement benefiting those members. The Association also sought to enjoin Riley and Bay Pride from interfering with the easement.

Riley Awarded Summary Judgment on the Small Section Claim

Riley moved for partial summary judgment on the Small Section claim. Riley’s supporting affidavit explained that the block wall severing the Subject Property was there when he bought the home lot in 1987. And, in the early 1990s, he incorporated the Small Section into the home lot through landscaping, curbing, and fencing. He alone maintained the Small Section since 1987. Riley also supported his motion with affidavits from other witnesses and various deeds, emails, surveys, and pictures.

In response, the Association did not dispute that Riley incorporated the Small Section into the home lot’s landscape design or that he exclusively possessed and maintained it since 1987. The Association instead argued that Riley did not establish the element of hostile use of the Subject Property. Why? Because Bay Pride held an interest in the Subject Property, and so Riley’s maintenance and use of the Small Section could not have been hostile.

The circuit court (Alban, J.) heard the motion in December 2020. The court later issued a Memorandum Opinion and accompanying order granting Riley’s motion ("Small Section SJ Order"). As the court observed, since 1994, Riley "treated the [Small Section] as his own property through landscaping it[,]" which was "visible and obvious, making the possession open" to any observer. Rejecting the Association’s argument that Riley did not establish the element of hostile use, the court noted that Bay Pride acquired its interest in 2019, and by then, Riley already owned the Small Section by adverse possession. That means when Bay Pride took title to the Subject Property, it did not include the Small Section.

Riley Awarded Default Judgment Against Benjamin Taylor’s Heirs on His Small Section Claim

As noted above, Riley and Bay Pride joined the unknown heirs to Benjamin Taylor as defendants and, with the court’s permission, served them by publication. None responded, prompting Riley and Bay Pride to request an order of default, which the court granted. Riley subsequently moved for a default judgment against the Benjamin Taylor heirs on the Small Section claim, which the court (Alban, J.) also granted. With that ruling, Riley successfully resolved his Small Section claim.

Or so he thought.

Riley and Bay Pride Awarded Summary Judgment on the Association’s Prescriptive Easement Counterclaim

[1] Riley and Bay Pride separately moved for summary judgment on the Association’s counterclaim for a prescriptive easement. They focused on the Association’s failure to demonstrate the elements of adversity and uninterrupted use for 20 years.⁵ They contended that the Large Section was not used by community members, other than the Joneses, until 2003 when "Hurricane Isabel dumped sand and storm debris from the Chesapeake onto the Subject Property." They claimed that before then, the Subject Property "was in a natural state, marshy in areas and overgrown with cattails and phragmites." Further, because the Association filed its counterclaim on May 14, 2020, they claimed that the Association’s continuous use was fewer than 20 years. And they relied on correspondence establishing that the Association sought and received permission from Bay Pride and its...