The takeaway

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What happened

The Village At Grayhawk Owners Association filed a verified complaint against condominium owner Kathryn Marie Jones on February 25, 2016 (the caption reads “Alan Jones, et al.,” but the court later made clear that judgment would enter against Kathryn Jones personally, not against the KMJ Trust). The minute entries do not restate the complaint, but the early proceedings centered on the Association’s application for an order to show cause and on orders requiring Jones to make her garage accessible for a termite inspection and to sit for a deposition — steps the parties had agreed to while she was still represented by counsel. The court later characterized the suit as an action arising out of a contract between the parties. Jones counterclaimed; her amended counterclaims included federal and Arizona fair-housing claims (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(B) and A.R.S. § 41-1491.19(E)(2)) alleging the Association denied her a reasonable accommodation — having it pay for professional moving and temporary storage of her personal property — and her filings described sewage backing up into her unit’s bathrooms.

The first phase ended in default. After continuances, several stricken filings, and a May 2017 incident in which Jones’s husband confronted judicial staff at the courthouse (prompting an order that only Jones or a licensed attorney could contact the assigned division), Jones failed to appear at the June 28, 2017 evidentiary hearing on the Association’s order to show cause. Judge Aimee Anderson granted the Association’s request for sanctions, struck Jones’s answer and counterclaim, and allowed the Association to proceed by default. A Default Judgment and Injunction Order was signed on December 5, 2017. The July 2022 fee ruling recounts the backdrop: a stay request had been denied after Jones’s then-counsel (not named in the minutes) was disbarred, and the default judgment followed.

Jones appealed and won. Following the Arizona Court of Appeals’ memorandum decision of December 20, 2018, the superior court vacated the default judgment and injunction on January 30, 2019, and the mandate issued that month. After reassignments — Judge Cynthia Bailey disqualified herself and the presiding civil judge sent the case to Judge Theodore Campagnolo — the litigation restarted. In April 2020 the court found that Jones has disabilities entitling her to accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act and granted most of what she asked for: timely consideration of extension requests, breaks during proceedings, depositions capped at two hours and one per day, and illness-based rescheduling with medical documentation. What the court repeatedly refused — in June 2020 and again in October 2020 — were her requests for indefinite or permanent stays, which it held are not reasonable accommodations. Later rulings added double response time for her filings, 14-point-font filings with expanded page limits, and 14-point minute entries. In June 2021 the court denied her Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss, finding it had subject-matter jurisdiction.

On September 14, 2021 — the dispositive-motion deadline — the Association moved for summary judgment on its claims and on all of Jones’s counterclaims, and separately moved to preclude the expert testimony of Alan Jones, the defendant’s husband, a retired registered professional engineer proffered as a defense expert. Judge Alison Bachus, by then assigned to the case, vacated the November 2021 trial (resetting it to May 2023) because the motion could not be resolved in time, and heard oral argument in January 2022. At the summary-judgment argument the court gave Jones leave to file a written motion to strike the Association’s late reply.

The April 13, 2022 under-advisement ruling resolved the case. Applying the deadline rules strictly, the court granted both of Jones’s motions to strike: the Association’s reply in support of summary judgment and its late response to the first motion to strike were stricken and not considered. The court found Alan Jones’s expert disclosures deficient under Rule 26.1 — “devoid of the substance of Mr. Jones’ full opinions and the bases for those opinions” — but denied the motion to preclude as moot. On the main motion, the court held that Jones’s opposition failed to comply with Rule 56(c): there was no separate statement of facts, no memorandum of law, and only a 22-page handwritten narrative the court described as “meandering” and “challenging to distill to salient legal arguments,” with most factual assertions uncited and key attachments (such as settlement emails barred by Rule 408) inadmissible. Quoting Bloch v. Bentfield, the court held a self-represented party to the same standard as counsel, noted that Jones had shown in her own motions to strike that she could apply the rules precisely, and — in an abundance of caution — searched the record itself for evidence creating a genuine dispute, without success. Summary judgment was entered against Jones under Rule 56(e) on the Association’s claims and her counterclaims, and the court found the Association entitled to apply for fees because the action arose out of contract.

The endgame ran through the summer of 2022. Jones’s motion for reconsideration was denied in May. On July 25, 2022 the court ruled on the Association’s fee application under A.R.S. § 12-341.01, weighing the Associated Indemnity Corp. v. Warner factors: it found the litigation “could have been settled years ago,” that no extreme hardship was shown, and that the questions were neither novel nor complex — but it also policed the application hard, disallowing the fees incurred on the default-judgment phase that was reversed on appeal, the stricken reply, the lost motions to strike, and other entries. Of roughly $242,000 requested in fees and costs, the court awarded $150,000 in fees and $8,324.44 in costs, for a judgment of $158,324.44 plus interest at 6.75%. Final judgment with Rule 54(c) language was entered July 27, 2022. Jones sold the condominium in 2022 — the court held the sale did not moot the case — and post-judgment motions by Jones and her husband were left unaddressed once a notice of appeal was filed. The last collected minute entry, September 14, 2022, records that jurisdiction had passed to the Court of Appeals.

Procedural timeline

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