Shoen v. Zacarias
| Decision Date | 04 April 2019 |
| Docket Number | B284374 |
| Citation | 245 Cal.Rptr.3d 683,33 Cal.App.5th 1112 |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | Lilli SHOEN, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. Juliet ZACARIAS, Defendant and Respondent. |
Schorr Law, Zachary D. Schorr, and Stephanie C. Goldstein, Los Angeles, for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Ervin Cohen & Jessup, and Allan B. Cooper, Beverly Hills, for Defendant and Respondent.
When a landowner grants someone permission to use her land, she generally retains the right to revoke that license at any time. ( Emerson v. Bergin (1888) 76 Cal. 197, 201, 18 P. 264.) The landowner may nevertheless be estopped from revoking that license—and the license will accordingly become irrevocable for "so long a time as the nature of it calls for"—if the person using the land has "expended money[ ] or its equivalent in labor" improving the land "in the execution of the license." ( Cooke v. Ramponi (1952) 38 Cal.2d 282, 286, 239 P.2d 638 ( Cooke ); Stoner v. Zucker (1906) 148 Cal. 516, 520, 83 P. 808 ( Stoner ).) Critically, however, the expenditure of money or labor can make a license irrevocable only if that expenditure is " ‘substantial,’ " "considerable" or "great." ( Richardson v. Franc (2015) 233 Cal.App.4th 744, 756, 182 Cal.Rptr.3d 853 ( Richardson ); Dinsmore v. Renfroe (1924) 66 Cal.App. 207, 211-212, 225 P. 886 ( Dinsmore ); Stepp v. Williams (1921) 52 Cal.App. 237, 240, 257, 198 P. 661 ( Stepp ).) Here, we conclude that the trial court’s grant of an irrevocable license was an abuse of discretion because the court construed the "substantial expenditure" requirement too permissively and used the wrong legal standard in declaring the license to be forever irrevocable. For these reasons, we reverse the grant of the irrevocable license and remand for further proceedings on the private nuisance claim.
Lilli Shoen (Shoen) and Juliet Zacarias (Zacarias) are neighbors whose backyards consist primarily of steep upward hillsides. At the top of Zacarias’s hillside and midway up Shoen’s is a flat patch of ground. The property line zigzags through this flat patch. Of this patch, 490 square feet are on Shoen’s side of the line; the remainder is on Zacarias’s.
Before either Shoen or Zacarias bought their parcels, someone had leveled out the flat patch, poured three concrete "meditation pads," and placed ornamental gravel on the patch. The prior owner of Zacarias’s parcel had also installed steps made of railroad ties leading all the way up to the flat patch, while the prior owner of Shoen’s parcel had installed railroad-tie steps leading two-thirds of the way to the flat patch but stopping about 20 to 30 feet shy of the patch.
Zacarias bought her parcel in 2003. She mistakenly believed that the entire flat patch was on her land. Over the next two years, she (1) brought in contractors to grade the patch to make it flatter, (2) removed stacks of bamboo and cleared overgrown brush from the patch, (3) installed new ornamental gravel, (4) planted a low, 18-inch-tall hedge and built a foot-tall wooden fence around the perimeter of the patch, (5) populated the patch with a 10 foot-by-10 foot cloth cabana, a chaise lounge, a table and chairs, none of which is affixed to the ground and each of which remains movable, (6) installed underground electrical conduit from her house to the patch, and (7) installed sprinklers and then replaced them with a drip system in order to water the hedges on the patch. Each of these improvements was made in 2003, 2004 or the early part of 2005.
1. Zacarias learns she does not own the entire patch
In October 2005, the prior owner of Shoen’s land did a survey of his property line and discovered that 490 square feet of the flat patch belonged to him ("the disputed area"). The prior owner shared this discovery with Zacarias, but told her she could continue to use the entire flat patch. The prior owner told Zacarias that his willingness to let her keep her furniture in the disputed area lasted only as long as he owned the property, and Zacarias understood as much.
2. The Shoen family buys the property and allows Zacarias’s use of the disputed area to continue
In 2006, the Shoen family trust acquired the parcel now owned by Shoen. At that time, the prior owner disclosed Zacarias’s encroachment of the flat patch. Both Shoen and her father admitted knowing that the disputed area was on their land. From that time until April 2011, and in an effort to be a "good neighbor," neither the trustees of the Shoen family trust nor Shoen (who was living on the property) told Zacarias to stop using the disputed area.
In the latter part of 2011 and the early part of 2012, Shoen acquired the property from the Shoen family trust. In a series of letters sent first by Shoen’s father in April 2011, then Shoen in April 2012, then Shoen’s attorney in May 2012, the authors asked Zacarias to vacate the disputed area because Shoen desired to landscape the area. Zacarias ignored all of the letters.
3. Zacarias’s work on the disputed area between 2006 and 2011-2012
During the period between the Shoen family trust acquiring the disputed area and its (and Shoen’s) letters asking Zacarias to stop using that area, Zacarias spent time and money to keep the entire flat patch usable. In particular, she (1) kept the trees near the patch trimmed, (2) cleared the brush on her hillside every year, (3) replaced the plants comprising the low ficus hedge when it died, (4) watered the hedges, (5) sometimes used the cabana’s lighting or other electricity, and (6) re-upholstered the top of the cabana and the furniture. Zacarias paid the gardener who trimmed the trees $ 130 per month for the upkeep of her entire parcel of land. She paid laborers $ 700 per year to clear the brush on all of her land. The new ficus hedge cost $ 2,350 to replace ($ 2,000 for the plants and $ 350 in labor). Zacarias’s average monthly electric and water bill for her house, swimming pool and entire yard was $ 1,200.
In June 2012, Shoen sued Zacarias for damages, injunctive and declaratory relief on theories of (1) trespass, (2) nuisance, (3) ejectment, and (4) negligence. Zacarias answered and counter-sued for damages and injunctive relief on theories of (1) prescriptive easement, (2) equitable easement and (3) nuisance based on Shoen’s placement of two video cameras on Shoen’s property that overlooked the disputed area as well as portions of the flat patch on Zacarias’s property.
Pursuant to the parties’ stipulation, the case went to trial solely on the existence of an equitable easement. The trial court granted Zacarias an equitable easement over the disputed area, but we reversed after concluding that Zacarias had not proven that the hardship she would experience in moving her portable patio furniture was "greatly disproportionate" to the hardship on Shoen in losing use of her own property. ( Shoen v. Zacarias (2015) 237 Cal.App.4th 16, 17-18, 187 Cal.Rptr.3d 560 ) ( Shoen I .)
On remand, Zacarias asserted that she had an irrevocable license to use the disputed area based on Shoen’s acquiescence to her use of the disputed area. Pursuant to stipulation, the case went to bifurcated trial, first on the issue of whether Zacarias’s license to use the disputed area should be deemed irrevocable and, if so, second on the issue of whether Shoen’s continued use of cameras to view that area would constitute a private nuisance.
During the bifurcated trial on the existence of an irrevocable license, the trial court did a site visit to the flat patch, heard testimony from Shoen, Zacarias and the former owner of Shoen’s property, and admitted the prior testimony of Shoen’s father. During her testimony, Zacarias "estimate[d]" that from 2003 onward she spent "[a]t least" $ 15,000 to $ 25,000 "to improve [and] maintain" the disputed area." This amount included $ 8,638.55 for the cabana and other portable furniture on the flat patch. It also included a portion of her monthly gardening, electrical and water bills that Zacarias calculated by dividing the square footage of her entire property (6,928) by the square footage of the disputed area (490).
The trial court ruled that Zacarias should be awarded an exclusive irrevocable license to use the disputed area and that this license would last forever, even after Zacarias sold the property. Although acknowledging that "some significant portion of" Zacarias’s estimate of the $ 15,000 to $ 25,000 "was spent before " Shoen acquiesced to Zacarias’s use of the disputed area, the court nonetheless concluded that Zacarias had "spent substantial sums and physical labor for ... landscaping, maintenance and care of the [d]isputed [a]rea" during the "six and possibly seven years" that Zacarias had used it with Shoen’s acquiescence. The court further ruled that "the equities" "favor[ed]" granting the license not only to Zacarias but also in perpetuity to her successors-in-interest because the disputed area was "accessible from the Zacarias property" but did not "appear" to "provide any benefit to the Shoen property" because it was not viably accessible from that property. The court lastly ruled that this permanent license would also be exclusive due to the physical layout of the parcels and the parties’ bad relationship.
Following further briefing, the court ruled that Shoen’s two video cameras amounted to a private nuisance because they "constitute[d] a substantial and unreasonable interference with Zacarias’s right to the use and enjoyment of" both the disputed area and the other portion of the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Gamerberg v. 3000 E. 11th St., LLC
...to repeatedly do acts upon the land’ ‘with full knowledge of the facts’ and without objecting)." ( Shoen v. Zacarias (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 1112, 1119, 245 Cal.Rptr.3d 683 ( Shoen ).) Unlike covenants that run with the land, such as easements, a license is a personal right and confers no int......
-
Medipro Med. Staffing LLC v. Certified Nursing Registry, Inc.
...was no evidence—let alone the substantial evidence necessary to sustain a proper exercise of discretion ( Shoen v. Zacarias (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 1112, 1118, 245 Cal.Rptr.3d 683 )—that Certified or Sy had engaged in obfuscation or other obstreperous conduct to the degree that the other coll......
-
DeBevoise v. Robinson
...any subsidiary factual findings for substantial evidence and any subsidiary legal questions de novo." (Shoen v. Zacarias (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 1112, 1118 (Shoen II).) Here, the DeBevoises installed the new underground drainage pipe across a portion of the Point that exited into a culvert. A......
-
Leroy C. v. Sarah T.
... ... )), and review ... any subsidiary factual findings for substantial evidence and ... any subsidiary legal questions de novo ( Shoen v ... Zacarias (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 1112, 1118-1119). In ... light of the public policy favoring "continuity and ... stability ... ...
-
Real Estate Case Update
...Id. at 428.213. Noronha v. Stewart, 199 Cal. App. 3d 485 (1988).214. Gamerberg, 44 Cal. App. 5th at 428.215. Shoen v. Zacarias, 33 Cal. App. 5th 1112, 1119 (2019).216. Richardson v. Franc, 233 Cal. App. 4th 744, 758-59 (2015) (license "merely makes lawful an act that otherwise would constit......