Clifton LLC v. Dewey Tadlock ( 2013 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-1458
CLIFTON LLC,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
DEWEY W. TADLOCK,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
South Carolina, at Florence. R. Bryan Harwell, District Judge.
(4:11-cv-01234-RBH)
Argued: February 1, 2013 Decided: March 1, 2013
Before WILKINSON and FLOYD, Circuit Judges, and Joseph R.
GOODWIN, United States District Judge for the Southern District
of West Virginia, sitting by designation.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Troy Jahleel Kenaz Lambert, ALTER & BARBARO, Brooklyn,
New York, for Appellant. Wallace H. Jordan, Jr., WALLACE H.
JORDAN, JR., PC, Florence, South Carolina, for Appellee. ON
BRIEF: Bernard Mitchel Alter, ALTER & BARBARO, Brooklyn, New
York, for Appellant. John L. Schurlknight, SCHURLKNIGHT &
RIVERS, Florence, South Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
This diversity action governed by South Carolina law
stems from a series of lease agreements with options to purchase
property in South Carolina. The parties to the agreements were
Charlie Alston, a member of plaintiff Clifton LLC, and defendant
Dewey W. Tadlock. Alston has since passed away, and the
administratrix of his estate filed this suit.
According to the complaint, an oral modification to
the agreement required Alston to purchase a fire insurance
policy naming Tadlock the owner of the premises, the proceeds of
which were to be used for rehabilitation in the event of a fire.
The plaintiff asserts that a fire occurred and that Tadlock
received $300,000 in insurance proceeds but did not rehabilitate
the property. The complaint seeks specific performance of the
alleged oral modification such that the defendant will
rehabilitate the property himself or, alternatively, seeks an
amount essentially equal to the insurance proceeds (in a variety
of forms) such that the plaintiff can restore the premises.
The complaint was filed on May 23, 2011. On March 26,
2012, the district court granted the defendant’s motion for
summary judgment, dismissing the case with prejudice. The court
held that the three-year statute of limitations for general
contract claims, S.C. Code § 15-3-530(1), barred the action --
whether the statute began to run on the date of the fire, May
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24, 2005, as suggested by the defendant, or sometime after title
to the property was transferred, in December 2005, as argued by
the plaintiff. On the strength of abundant South Carolina
precedent, the district court rejected the plaintiff’s arguments
for applying a different statute of limitations -- specifically,
the twenty-year statute governing “an action upon a sealed
instrument,” S.C. Code § 15-3-520(b), or the ten-year statute
pertaining to “an action founded upon a title to real property
or to rents or services out of the same,” S.C. Code § 15-3-350.
This court reviews the grant of summary judgment de
novo, “viewing the facts and the reasonable inferences drawn
therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving
party.” Emmett v. Johnson, 532 F.3d 291, 297 (4th Cir. 2008).
Having carefully examined the briefs, the record, and the
decision below, we find no error. We accordingly affirm the
judgment on the reasoning of the district court. See Clifton,
LLC v. Tadlock, No. 4:11-cv-01234-RBH, 2012 WL 909826 (D.S.C.
Mar. 16, 2012).
AFFIRMED
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