by John J. Tollefsen | Jun 23, 2015 | Blog, Insurance, Real Estate WA
QUEEN ANNE PARK HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, a Washington non-profit corporation, v. STATE FARM FIRE AND CASUALTY COMPANY, a foreign insurance company, June 18 2015 Copy of Case 2015-Queen-Anne-Park-v-State-Farm The Washington Supreme Court held that collapse means substantial impairment of structural integrity. The dissent argued collapse means “collapse”. Part or all of the building fell down. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asked the court to decide this question: What does “collapse” mean under Washington law in an insurance policy that insures “accidental direct physical loss involving collapse,” subject to the policy’s terms, conditions, exclusions, and other provisions, but does not define “collapse,” except to state that “collapse does not include settling, cracking, shrinking, bulging or expansion?” The insured building was found to have “hidden decay” that had substantially impaired the walls’ ability to resist lateral loads according to the owner’s inspector. Hidden decay that caused a collapse was expressly covered by the policy. “Construction of an insurance policy is a question of law for the courts, the policy is construed as a whole, and the policy ‘should be given a fair, reasonable, and sensible construction as would be given to the contract by the average person purchasing insurance.”‘1Queen City Farms, Inc. v. Cent. Nat’l Ins. Co. of Omaha, 126 Wn.2d 50, 65, 882 P.2d 703 (1994) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Grange Ins. Co. v. Brosseau, 113 Wn.2d 91, 95,776 P.2d 123 (1989) ). The court held that “collapse” is ambiguous because it is subject to more than one reasonable interpretation. In this case there were two conflicting rules of interpretation: 1) plain meaning versus 2) favor the insured if...
by Justin Tollefsen | Jun 9, 2015 | Attorneys, Blog, Business Law, Real Estate WA, Tollefsen Law, Washingon State
Merry v Nationstar –Wn App 324745-III Background to Deed of Trust In 2007, Sharon Weirich borrowed $205,440 from Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. and executed a Deed of Trust on her real property as security. The deed identified Countrywide as the lender, Landsafe Title of Washington as the Trustee, and the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) as “a separate corporation that is acting solely as a nominee for Lender and Lender’s successors and assigns.” In Bain v. Metropolitan Mortgage Group, 175 Wn.2d 83, 93, 285 P.3d 34 (2012), the Supreme Court of Washington held that the MERS registry’s business practices in creating and transferring beneficial interests with regard to mortgages conflict with the requirements of Washington’s Deed of Trust Act. Beginning in 2011 MERS made a number of assignments and changes in ownership of the note, beneficiary, and trustee using the business practices found to conflict with the Deed of Trust Act. Following these changes, in October 2012, Northwest Trustee Services, Inc. served Mrs. Weirich with a notice of default on behalf of Bank of America. The same month Ms. Weirich executed a deed of trust to Thomas Merry. This deed of trust secured payment of a $68,000 promissory note. Ms. Weirich also executed a power of attorney and an assignment of legal claims to Mr. Merry. In December 2012, Ms. Weirich received a notice of trustee’s sale informing her that her property would be sold on April 19, 2013 to satisfy her promissory note she originally gave to Countrywide. However, property was not sold on April 19, 2013 and no sale was rescheduled within the 120-day window...
by John J. Tollefsen | Mar 5, 2015 | Blog, Business Law, Business Torts WA, Real Estate WA
McKown v Simon Property Group, Supreme Court of Washington, March 5, 2015 Decision: 050405-McKnown-v-Simon-Properties After 40 years of practicing U.S. law, I have grown to appreciate the gift we received from our colonizing parent, the common law. The civil law systems suffer from the same rigidity that all statutes impose: one size fits all. The legislature drafts a statute as a solution to a perceived problem not understanding how it might be unjust in a different fact situation. The common law can smooth out these injustices by providing court-made law which reacts to the facts and needs of justice in a particular case. The negatives of the common law system that has decisions made by juries include unpredictability and indefensible awards. The common law has invented tools to minimize the negatives. One of those tools is “foreseeability”. It allows a court to claim that no one could have foreseen the harm so the defendant is not liable. Foreseeability is often the only legal barrier protecting a business from liability. Unfortunately it has proven to be a two-edged sword. The limits of foreseeably was highlighted in McKown v Simon Property Group. On Sunday, November 20, 2005, Dominick S. Maldonado walked into the Tacoma Mall and opened fire on shoppers and mall employees, injuring seven people. Maldonado wore a dark trench coat concealing a MAK-90 rifle and an Intratec Tec-9 pistol, and carried a guitar case filled with ammunition. McKown, an employee at one of the retail stores, tried to stop Maldonado, but was shot and wounded. Simon Property Group owned the Tacoma Mall. Under Washington Law, the Tacoma Mall is liable to McKown...
by Justin Tollefsen | Mar 4, 2015 | Attorneys, Blog, Civil Litigation, Real Estate WA, Trusts and Estates WA, Washingon State
What do you do when a seller fails to reconvey the title to property following payment of the loan, then dies? Failure to reconvey puts a cloud on the title that must be quieted. However, a quiet title action can be a drawn out and expensive matter. Is there a way to obtain a quiet title without a quiet title action? Failure to Reconvey Recently, a client called in a panic on a Friday afternoon. She was selling her home and it was closing day of her sale. The former owner had failed to reconvey the property and then died. The old title company’s solution to the failure to reconvey fell through. The new title company had just informed my client that they would not issue a title insurance policy without a hold-back of hundreds of thousands of dollars. They also said that she needed a quiet title, that this would require a quiet title action, which would take six to nine months, and the costs would be her responsibility. However, the sale could not close without the title insurance policy. My client obtained an extension of the closing date, granted the buyers a rental agreement at no cost to them while she worked to enable the sale to close. However, she was frustrated, angry, and afraid she was about to have no house, no money, months of litigation she could ill afford, and all the liability of having renters with no money for the rent. My client had purchased the home with seller financing nineteen years earlier on a five year Note backed by a Deed of Trust....
by John J. Tollefsen | Sep 20, 2014 | Blog, Real Estate WA
Frias v Asset Foreclosure Services, No 89343-8 (WSC-September 18, 2014) Decision: 140918-Frias-v-Asset-Foreclosure The defendant allegedly violated the Deed of Trusts Act (DTA) but did not complete the foreclosure. The majority held there was no implied right of action under the DTA if there was no improper foreclosure. The plaintiff had a potential CPA claim for damage to business or property. Under the CPA, there is no right to other damages like mental distress. Test for implying a statutory cause of action in Washington State The dissent argued for an implied cause of action under the DTA. The dissent stated the law of implied statutory causes of action as follows: The legislature may implicitly or explicitly create a cause of action. See Ducote v. Dep’t of Soc. & Health Servs , 167 Wn.2d 697, 702-03, 222 P.3d 785 (2009). Whether a statute creates a cause of action is a matter of statutory construction. Transamerica Mortg. Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U.S. 11 , 15, 100 S. Ct. 242, 62 L. Ed. 2d 146 (1979). As in most matters of statutory construction, our ultimate goal is to determine the intent of the legislature. See id. at 15-16. If the legislature does not expressly create a cause of action, our court utilizes a three-part test to determine the legislature’s intent. Bennett v. Hardy, 113 Wn.2d 912, 920-21 , 784 P.2d 1258 (1990). We determine whether the plaintiff is “within the class for whose ‘especial’ benefit the statute was enacted”; whether “legislative intent, explicitly or implicitly, supports creating or denying a remedy”; and “whether implying a remedy is consistent with the underlying purpose...
by John J. Tollefsen | Sep 19, 2014 | Blog, Contracts, Contracts WA, Real Estate WA
Washington State Law – Principles of Contract Interpretation Viking Bank v. Firgrove Commons 3, LLC, 2014 Wash. App. LEXIS 2277 (Division II, Wash. Ct. App.Sept. 16, 2014) Decision: 140916-II-Viking-Bank-v-Firgrove The court refused to imply a promise to pay management fees into the triple net provision of a commercial lease. These facts are unusual because standard commercial leases specifically list management fees in the description of costs passed on to tenants. This case is useful for the following statement of the principles of contract interpretation applicable to Washington State: “The primary objective in contract interpretation is to ascertain the mutual intent of the parties at the time they executed the contract. Int’l Marine Underwriters v. ABCD Marine, LLC, 179 Wn.2d 274, 282, 313 P.3d 395 (2013). Washington follows the “objective manifestation theory” of contract interpretation, under which the focus is on the reasonable meaning of the contract language to determine the parties’ intent. Hearst Commc’ns, Inc. v. Seattle Times Co., 154 Wn.2d 493, 503, 115 P.3d 262 (2005). “We generally give words in a contract their ordinary, usual, and popular meaning unless the entirety of the agreement clearly demonstrates a contrary intent.” Hearst, 154 Wn.2d at 504. And we view the contract as a whole, interpreting particular language in the context of other contract provisions. See Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., 142 Wn.2d 654, 669-70, 15 P.3d 115 (2000). “To assist in determining the meaning of contract language, we also apply the “context rule” adopted in Berg, 115 Wn.2d at 666-69. This rule allows examination of the context surrounding a contract’s execution, including the consideration of extrinsic evidence...
