Robert L. Follis, Georgia K. Follis v. State Armory Building Commission ( 2015 )

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2014).
STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A14-2198
Robert L. Follis,
Appellant,
Georgia K. Follis,
Appellant,
vs.
State Armory Building Commission,
Respondent.
Filed December 7, 2015
Affirmed
Halbrooks, Judge
Todd County District Court
File No. 77-CV-13-848
Robert and Georgia Follis, Motley, Minnesota (pro se appellants)
Lori Swanson, Attorney General, Erik M. Johnson, Assistant Attorney General, St. Paul,
Minnesota (for respondent)
Considered and decided by Hooten, Presiding Judge; Halbrooks, Judge; and
Worke, Judge.
UNPUBLISHED OPINION
HALBROOKS, Judge
Appellants, pro se, challenge the district court’s grant of partial summary
judgment to respondent. Appellants argue that the district court erred by not giving them
an opportunity to present evidence of their damages and that the district court did not
treat appellants appropriately as pro se litigants. We affirm.
FACTS
In 2002, appellant Robert Follis entered into a contract for deed with the state to
purchase a former Minnesota Army National Guard armory building. The contract
required Follis to make a down payment of $5,000 and five annual payments of $8,900
plus interest. The contract also required Follis to pay all property taxes. Follis provided
the down payment, but he failed to make the annual payments due in 2003, 2004, and
2005. He also failed to pay the property taxes. Because of Follis’s default, the state
served him with a notice of cancellation on March 22, 2006. The notice advised Follis
that if he did not pay the amount due or secure a court order suspending termination, the
contract for deed would be terminated.
Follis responded to the notice of cancellation by filing a petition to enjoin the
termination of the contract for deed on May 22, 2006. The district court denied Follis’s
petition, and Follis appealed. On December 11, 2007, this court affirmed the district
court’s denial of Follis’s petition.
In early 2008, the state brought an eviction action against Follis. The district court
entered a judgment of eviction in March 2008. Follis appealed the eviction judgment to
this court, and his appeal was dismissed as untimely on May 13, 2008.
On May 16, 2008, appellants Robert and Georgia Follis filed a federal lawsuit
against the state seeking to prevent the state from evicting them from the armory. The
federal district court ruled against the Follises on September 4, 2008. The Follises
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appealed, and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the federal district court on
June 24, 2009.
Although they did not prevail in any of their lawsuits, the Follises were successful
in delaying their eviction from the armory for more than three years. The Follises were
finally evicted from the armory on July 16, 2009. Over the next 60 days, the Follises
were given access to the armory to remove their personal property. The State
Quartermaster for the Minnesota National Guard unlocked the armory for the Follises
each day that they wanted to remove their property. In his affidavit, the quartermaster
noted the unsanitary conditions he witnessed in the armory. According to the
quartermaster, “Large amounts of animal feces were located throughout the whole
complex. . . . The smell of musty, rotting food and animal urine was so strong it was
difficult to stay in the building for any length of time.” He also stated that he “never saw
anything in the armory that appeared to have any resale value.” The Follises hauled away
approximately 30 truckloads of personal property from the armory during the 60-day
period. After the 60 days, the Follises still had property remaining in the armory but
were not allowed to access it.
The Follises filed the complaint in this case in 2013, alleging that respondent State
Armory Building Commission (SABC) unlawfully denied them access to their property
that was still left in the armory. The Follises sought $3,000,000 in damages and
$250,000 in “punitive damages for pain and suffering.”
The SABC served the Follises with interrogatories that asked them, among other
questions, to “identify any evidence that supports the amount of your claimed damages.”
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The Follises never responded to the interrogatories. The SABC also served the Follises
with a request for production of documents. Among the requested documents were “[a]ll
documents that support any allegation by you that you are entitled to recover any amount
of damages in this lawsuit” and “[a]ll documents that support any allegation by you as to
the value of the personal property that you allege you have been deprived of.” The
Follises never responded to the request for production of documents.
The SABC moved for summary judgment. The Follises did not respond to the
motion before the summary-judgment hearing. At the summary-judgment hearing, the
Follises requested time to respond to the motion in writing, and the district court gave
them two weeks to file a written argument. The Follises subsequently filed a
memorandum in opposition to summary judgment. In their memorandum, they made
general assertions but still did not offer any evidence regarding the value of their property
in the armory.
The district court granted the SABC’s motion for summary judgment in part and
denied it in part. The district court concluded that since the Follises had not offered any
evidence concerning the value of their property remaining in the armory, they could not
survive summary judgment on their claim for actual damages under Minn. Stat.
§ 504B.231 (2014) because damages were an essential element of that claim. But the
district court ruled that the SABC was not entitled to summary judgment on the claim for
the statutory penalty of $500 under section 504B.231 because the Follises did not need to
prove actual damages in order to recover $500 under the statute. Because the SABC
never denied the allegation that it had not completed an inventory of the Follises’
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property required by Minn. Stat. § 504B.365, subd. 3(d) (2014), the district court
concluded that there was a genuine issue of material fact about the inventory requirement.
At a pretrial hearing, the SABC stipulated that it had not completed the required
inventory of the Follises’ property left in the armory. Because the SABC violated the
statute, the district court entered judgment in favor of the Follises for the statutory
penalty of $500. The Follises now appeal the summary-judgment dismissal of their claim
for actual damages.
DECISION
I.
The Follises argue that the district court erred by granting partial summary
judgment in favor of the SABC on the issue of actual damages. On appeal from
summary judgment, we review de novo whether a genuine issue of material fact exists
and whether the district court erred in its application of the law. STAR Ctrs., Inc. v.
Faegre & Benson, L.L.P., 644 N.W.2d 72, 76-77 (Minn. 2002). “We view the evidence
in the light most favorable to the party against whom summary judgment was granted.”
Id. Summary judgment is granted when “the pleadings, depositions, answers to
interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that
there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that either party is entitled to a
judgment as a matter of law.” Minn. R. Civ. P. 56.03.
A. Genuine Issue of Material Fact
“The party opposing summary judgment may not establish genuine issues of
material fact by relying upon unverified and conclusory allegations, or postulated
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evidence that might be developed at trial, or metaphysical doubt about the facts.” Dyrdal
v. Golden Nuggets, Inc., 689 N.W.2d 779, 783 (Minn. 2004). “[W]hen the nonmoving
party bears the burden of proof on an element essential to the nonmoving party’s case, the
nonmoving party must make a showing sufficient to establish that essential element.”
DLH, Inc. v. Russ, 566 N.W.2d 60, 71 (Minn. 1997).
The Follises offered no evidence of their actual damages other than conclusory
allegations in their complaint and memorandum opposing summary judgment. They
failed to answer any interrogatories about their damages. They did not respond to the
request for production of documents. They did not offer evidence to rebut the
quartermaster’s claims about the unsanitary conditions of the armory, and they offered no
evidence to contradict his statement that nothing in the armory had any resale value. The
Follises had the burden of proof on the element of their damages. Since they offered no
evidence to show that their property remaining in the armory had any value, they did not
make a showing sufficient to establish that element.
Without citing to the record or any legal authority, the Follises argue that the
district court erred by not giving them “an opportunity to present the true value of the
property to the court.” The Follises actually had multiple opportunities to present
evidence of the value of their property. They could have done so if they had answered
the SABC’s interrogatories; they could have done so if they had responded to the request
for production of documents; and they could have done so in responding to the motion
for summary judgment. The district court was correct to conclude that there was no
genuine issue of material fact regarding the value of the Follises’ property.
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B. Application of the Law
Minn. Stat. § 504B.365 (2014) governs eviction procedures. Because the Follises’
property remained in the armory after they were evicted, the relevant part of the statute
provides:
If the defendant’s personal property is to be stored on the
premises, the officer shall enter the premises, breaking in if
necessary, and the plaintiff may remove the defendant’s
personal property. Section 504B.271 applies to personal
property removed under this paragraph. The plaintiff must
prepare an inventory and mail a copy of the inventory to the
defendant’s last known address or, if the defendant has
provided a different address, to the address provided.
Minn. Stat. § 504B.365, subd. 3(d).
Minn. Stat. § 504B.271 (2014) refers to a tenant’s personal property remaining in
the premises. “If a tenant abandons rented premises, the landlord may take possession of
the tenant’s personal property remaining on the premises, and shall store and care for the
property.” Minn. Stat. § 504B.271, subd. 1(a). “The landlord may sell or otherwise
dispose of the property 28 days after the landlord receives actual notice of the
abandonment, or 28 days after it reasonably appears to the landlord that the tenant has
abandoned the premises, whichever occurs last.” Id., subd. 1(b). In 2009, when the
Follises were evicted, the period of time under this statute was 60 days. Id., subd. 1
(2008). This section applies to contract-for-deed cancellations. Id., subd. 4 (2014).
Abandoned property traditionally means property that is voluntarily surrendered.
Black’s Law Dictionary 1411 (10th ed. 2014). The district court concluded that
abandoned property under section 504B.271 does not have its traditional meaning. The
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district court reasoned that property left behind after an eviction is considered abandoned
under the statute because the word abandonment refers to “an event, the occasion when
departure from the premises actually occurs.” We agree with the district court’s
interpretation of section 504B.271. Section 504B.271 is incorporated into section
504B.365, which deals with eviction procedures. A tenant surrenders the premises
involuntarily when evicted. If the term abandon in the statute had its traditional meaning,
a landlord could not dispose of an evicted tenant’s property left in the premises because
the tenant would not have voluntarily surrendered the premises. Such an interpretation
would improperly render a section of the Minnesota Statutes superfluous. See Allan v.
R.D. Offutt Co., 869 N.W.2d 31, 33 (Minn. 2015). The SABC was therefore free to
dispose of the Follises’ property 60 days after they were evicted. The district court
properly applied the law when it ruled that the SABC had complied with section
504B.271 by allowing the Follises 60 days to access their remaining property in the
armory after they had been evicted.
A landlord who removes a tenant’s property in violation of section 504B.365 is
guilty of an unlawful ouster under section 504B.231. Minn. Stat. § 504B.365, subd. 5.
Because the SABC did not complete an inventory of the Follises’ property required by
section 504B.365, subdivision 3(d), the SABC violated section 504B.365 and was
therefore guilty of an unlawful ouster under section 504B.231.
Minn. Stat. § 504B.231 addresses what damages a tenant may recover for an
unlawful ouster. The tenant may recover treble damages or $500, whichever is greater.
Minn. Stat. § 504B.231(a). Because there is no genuine issue of material fact concerning
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the Follises’ actual damages, their only remedy is the $500 statutory penalty. The district
court did not err in applying the law. Summary judgment was appropriate.
II.
The Follises allege that the district court did not treat them appropriately as pro se
litigants. Without citing any legal authority, the Follises contend that the district court
should have “assisted” them with their case. The Follises’ contention is wrong. District
courts have “a duty to ensure fairness to a pro se litigant by allowing reasonable
accommodation so long as there is no prejudice to the adverse party.” Kasson State Bank
v. Haugen, 410 N.W.2d 392, 395 (Minn. App. 1987). Although courts may make some
accommodation to ensure fairness to a pro se party, “this court has repeatedly emphasized
that pro se litigants are generally held to the same standards as attorneys and must
comply with court rules.” Fizgerald v. Fitzgerald, 629 N.W.2d 115, 119 (Minn. App.
2001).
The record here demonstrates that the district court properly accommodated the
Follises. The Follises appeared at the summary-judgment hearing without filing any
response to the summary-judgment motion. They asked the district court for time to
respond in writing to the motion, and the district court gave them two weeks. Transcripts
of the hearings demonstrate that the district court was extremely patient with the Follises
and gave them ample opportunity to be heard. This claim is without merit.
Affirmed.
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