The plaintiff C sought to recover damages from the defendants, O and N,
for slander of title in connection with certain property that she had
inherited from E. In 1984, O purchased lot 15 from H and W, who had
inherited the land from the estate of their father, K. K also had owned
two adjacent parcels to the east of lot 15, lots 19 and 23, however, he
sold lot 23 to E and her husband, and he divided lot 19, which was
located in between lots 15 and 23, along the ridgeline of a building on
the property and quitclaimed the eastern part to E. A partnership that
K and E had formed operated a business out of the building on lot 19.
When K divided lot 19, he also executed a will by which he left his
interests in the partnership to E and lot 15, as well as the residue and
remainder of his estate, to H and W. Following K’s death, his will was
admitted to probate and an executor was appointed, who initially issued
two certificates of title for lot 19, stating his opinion that E had owned
both lot 19 west and lot 19 east, but later included lot 19 west as part
of K’s estate. The executor never closed the estate. From the time he
purchased lot 15 until some point in 2003, O believed that E owned all
of lot 19. In 2003, however, a surveyor advised him that nothing existed
in the town’s land records to prove E’s ownership of lot 19 west, and
O hired N to investigate. N discovered that lot 19 west remained in K’s
open estate, opined that it should have been devised to H and W as part
of the residue of K’s estate, and drafted a quitclaim deed for W to sign
that conveyed to O whatever interests she had in lot 19 west. The signed
deed was recorded in the land records on April 28, 2005, along with a
survey. Thereafter, E died testate, leaving lot 23 and her interests in the
partnership to C. In 2008, N filed a motion for a hearing in the Probate
Court on behalf of O to determine who was entitled to lot 19 west. The
Probate Court denied the motion, and N filed an appeal on behalf of O
and W with the trial court, which remanded the matter to the Probate
Court for a hearing. Concomitant with the appeal, N recorded a notice
of lis pendens on the land records. Following a hearing held in 2011,
the Probate Court issued a decision, concluding that lot 19 west belonged
to the partnership and that K intended to transfer his interests therein
to E as a partnership asset. N then filed an appeal with the trial court
on behalf of O, W and the successors in interest to H and her estate,
and recorded a second notice of lis pendens. Thereafter, the appeal was
withdrawn and releases of the notices of lis pendens were recorded
pursuant to an agreement reached by the parties, and, in 2013, C com-
menced the present action against the defendants for slander of title.
Subsequently, the defendants filed separate motions for summary judg-
ment, arguing that the statute of limitations had passed and that the
alleged wrongful conduct was absolutely privileged. The trial court
denied the motions, and the defendants thereafter filed a joint motion
to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, which the trial court
granted. From the judgment rendered thereon, C appealed to this
court. Held:
1. The trial court had subject matter jurisdiction over C’s slander of title
claims, as C had standing to bring those claims and the defendants’
actions and statements in preparing and recording the quitclaim deed
and survey were not absolutely privileged: C, as a specific devisee of
E, had a salable interest in lot 19 west that was adversely affected by
the defendants’ preparation and recording of the deed and survey, as
the law giving rise to the tort of slander of title clearly contemplates a
wider range of interests sufficiently cognizable to confer standing, E
took title, albeit contested, in lot 19 west immediately upon K’s demise
and C produced evidence of a potential sale and the difficulty she had
in effecting that sale because of the challenged actions; moreover, the
preparation and recording of the deed and survey were too remote in
time from the probate action to be related thereto and too dissimilar
in nature to the kinds of statements the doctrine of absolute immunity
was meant to protect as privileged, as the evidence indicated that the
defendants failed to obtain a deed from both H and W, which suggested
that they were less concerned about actually obtaining title to lot 19
west than with challenging C’s title, that the defendants’ actions were
undertaken approximately five years prior to the bringing of the probate
action and that the deed and survey were recorded for the purpose of
obtaining O’s standing for some nebulous action that had yet to coalesce
until E had died, and although our state statutes expressly permit the
use of notices of lis pendens in the manner they were used in this case,
our statutes specifically discourage the abuse of the land records for
purposes of slandering title, and given the defendants’ admissions that
the purpose of the deed and survey was to confer on O the ability to
call into legal question the validity of E’s title after she died, these
actions were distinct from the preparation and recording of the notices
of lis pendens related to a specific judicial proceeding.
2. The trial court should have granted the defendants’ motions for summary
judgment because C’s slander of title claims were time barred under
the applicable three year statute of limitations (§ 52-577): pursuant to
§ 52-577, the limitations period began to run, as a matter of law, upon
the recording of the quitclaim deed and survey on April 28, 2005, which,
under the statute, was the occurrence of the act complained of, and,
therefore, because C challenged the dismissal of her claims only on the
basis of the preparation and recording of the deed and survey, and
because the recording thereof was a single occurrence completed some
eight years before the commencement of the present action, C’s claims
were untimely; moreover, there was no merit to C’s claim that equity
demanded that this court recognize the defendants’ actions to be a
continuing course of conduct such that the limitations period was tolled
until the release of the notices of lis pendens, as O’s failure to withdraw
the deed and survey was not a continuing breach of a continuing duty
because there clearly was no special relationship between the parties
and there was no later wrongful conduct related to the alleged prior
wrongful acts.
Argued May 24—officially released October 23, 2018 Procedural History