Tanglewood HOA v. Goode: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide

Posted on July 2, 2026 by [email protected]

Unopposed Summary Judgment | Redemption Period | CV2014-094502

This is a thin-record Maricopa County Superior Court HOA case. The collected minutes show scheduling orders, an unopposed summary-judgment ruling for Tanglewood HOA, and a later application to prevent waste before expiration of a redemption period. They do not provide the complaint, the requested judgment language, the amount at issue, or a written analysis of any HOA statute or CC&R provision, so this guide sticks to the procedural facts that appear in the minute entries.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Tanglewood HOA v. James E. Goode, Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2014-094502.

Download summary-judgment ruling

Scope note: This page covers Tanglewood HOA v. James E. Goode (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2014-094502) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, including the January 25, 2016 ruling granting the HOA’s unopposed summary-judgment motion and the September 1, 2017 order on the HOA’s redemption-period waste application; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the last collected minute entry is the September 1, 2017 order requiring a response to the application to prevent waste; the collected records do not include the proposed judgment, any final signed judgment, or any later ruling on that application. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

The court granted Tanglewood HOA summary judgment after the homeowner filed no response. The ruling relied on Rule 7.1(b), treated the unexplained nonresponse as consent to granting the motion, and separately stated that the HOA’s motion and the case record established entitlement to the relief sought as a matter of law. Because the collected minute entry does not identify the claim details or analyze an HOA statute or CC&R provision, the case is best read as a procedural example of unopposed summary judgment in a thin-record HOA matter, not as a substantive HOA-law ruling.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

Tanglewood HOA (Plaintiff)
Homeowners association that obtained the January 2016 unopposed summary-judgment ruling and later filed an application to prevent waste before expiration of the redemption period.
James Portman Webster (Counsel)
Counsel listed for Tanglewood HOA in the 2015 scheduling and trial-setting minute entries.
Lashawn D. Jenkins (Counsel)
Counsel listed for Tanglewood HOA in the September 2017 order on the application to prevent waste.

Respondent Side

James E. Goode (Defendant)
Homeowner defendant who appeared on his own behalf at the November 2015 status conference and did not file a response to the HOA’s summary-judgment motion by the time the January 2016 ruling issued.

Neutral Parties

Mark F. Aceto (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who issued the May 2015 scheduling order before reassignment.
Robert H. Oberbillig (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who set the bench trial and later granted the HOA’s unopposed motion for summary judgment.
Joshua D. Rogers (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who issued the September 2017 order requiring a response to the HOA’s application to prevent waste.

What happened

Tanglewood HOA sued James E. Goode in Maricopa County Superior Court. The collected minute entries do not include the complaint, the amount sought, or the specific covenants or statutes relied on. The May 19, 2015 scheduling order set discovery, disclosure, settlement-conference, dispositive-motion, and status-conference deadlines, and removed the case from the dismissal calendar.

At a November 23, 2015 telephonic status conference, counsel James Portman Webster appeared for the HOA and Goode appeared for himself. The court set a two-hour bench trial for March 3, 2016 and ordered a joint pretrial statement by February 25, 2016. The same minute entry also corrected Goode’s address in the court system; this public guide omits the address under the project’s privacy rule.

Before trial, the HOA moved for summary judgment. On January 25, 2016, Judge Robert H. Oberbillig ruled that Goode had failed to respond to the motion in any manner and that the response deadline under Rule 7.1(a) had expired. Citing Rule 7.1(b), the court found the unexplained inaction should be deemed consent to granting the motion.

The ruling did not stop at the nonresponse. It also stated that the HOA’s motion and the record established that Tanglewood HOA was entitled as a matter of law to the relief it sought. The court granted the summary-judgment motion, ordered the HOA’s counsel to submit an appropriate form of judgment and any fee-and-cost application by February 15, 2016, and vacated the March 2016 bench trial.

The last collected minute entry is from September 1, 2017. It says the court had before it Tanglewood HOA’s application to prevent waste prior to expiration of the redemption period. Judge Joshua D. Rogers ordered Goode to respond by September 11, 2017 and warned that if no response was filed, the application would be granted. The collected records do not show the final judgment terms or the final outcome of that application.

Video overview of the ruling

An AI-generated video overview of Tanglewood HOA v. Goode (CV2014-094502 (Maricopa County Superior Court)). Unopposed HOA summary judgment entered; later order addressed redemption-period waste. This plain-language summary was generated from the court’s filings; the court’s own ruling controls.

Listen: audio deep dive on the ruling

An AI-generated audio deep dive walking through the court’s reasoning and disposition in Tanglewood HOA v. Goode. Generated from the case filings; verify against the linked ruling below.

Audio overview generated with Google NotebookLM from the case’s court filings.

Procedural timeline

Step 2015-05-19 The court enters a scheduling order, sets discovery and motion deadlines, requires settlement efforts, and removes the case from the dismissal calendar.

Step 2015-11-23 At a telephonic status conference, the HOA appears through counsel and Goode appears pro per; the court sets a two-hour bench trial for March 3, 2016.

Step 2016-01-25 The court grants Tanglewood HOA’s unopposed motion for summary judgment, orders a proposed judgment and any fee application, and vacates trial.

Step 2017-09-01 The court orders Goode to respond to Tanglewood HOA’s application to prevent waste before expiration of the redemption period, warning that the application will be granted if no response is filed.

Complete uploaded source-document index

This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/tanglewood-hoa-v-goode/raw/: 4 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.

Source 1 2015-05-19

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2015-05-19_001_minute-entry.pdf

Source 2 2015-11-23

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2015-11-23_002_status-conference.pdf

Source 3 2016-01-25

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling granting Tanglewood HOA’s unopposed motion for summary judgment, ordering counsel to submit a proposed judgment and fee application, and vacating the scheduled bench trial.

Download source file

2016-01-25_003_ruling.pdf

Source 4 2017-09-01

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Order requiring James E. Goode to respond to Tanglewood HOA’s application to prevent waste before expiration of the redemption period or have the application granted.

Download source file

2017-09-01_004_ruling.pdf

FAQ

What did the court decide in the summary-judgment ruling?

The court granted Tanglewood HOA’s motion for summary judgment. It found that Goode had not responded by the Rule 7.1 deadline, treated that unexplained inaction as consent under Rule 7.1(b), and also stated that the HOA’s motion and the case record established entitlement to the relief sought as a matter of law.

Does the minute entry explain the underlying HOA dispute?

No. The collected minute entries do not include the complaint, the requested judgment terms, any assessment amount, or the CC&R provisions at issue. This page therefore does not add unsourced detail about the underlying claim.

Why is this still treated as an HOA case?

The named plaintiff is Tanglewood HOA, and the last collected order refers to an application to prevent waste before expiration of a redemption period. Those facts indicate an HOA enforcement or foreclosure posture, even though the written minutes do not provide the full claim details.

Was there a trial?

No trial appears in the collected records. The court set a bench trial for March 3, 2016, then vacated that trial after granting the HOA summary judgment on January 25, 2016.

What happened after the summary-judgment ruling?

The January 2016 ruling ordered the HOA’s counsel to submit a proposed judgment and any fee-and-cost application. The collected minutes do not include that judgment, but a September 2017 order later required Goode to respond to the HOA’s application to prevent waste before expiration of the redemption period.

Is this ruling precedent for other HOA disputes?

No. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This thin-record case is most useful as a procedural example: an unopposed summary-judgment motion can still require the court to determine that the moving party is entitled to judgment on the record.

Case Dossier

This generated dossier mirrors the structured data surfaced on the OAH/ADRE case pages. It is added from the curated court-case record and the custom page source package, while the hand-authored analysis below remains intact.

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	CV2014-094502 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	January 25, 2016
Judge / panel	Hon. Robert H. Oberbillig, Hon. Mark F. Aceto, Hon. Joshua D. Rogers
Parties	Tanglewood HOA (Plaintiff) v. James E. Goode (Defendant)
Topics	ProcedureForeclosureCC&RsLiens
Outcome / holding	The superior court granted Tanglewood HOA’s unopposed motion for summary judgment, finding that the homeowner’s failure to respond should be deemed consent under Rule 7.1(b) and that the HOA’s motion and the case record established entitlement to the relief sought as a matter of law.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	4 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	4 roadmap entries
Video overview	Tanglewood HOA v. Goode
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

Tanglewood HOA sued James E. Goode in Maricopa County Superior Court. The collected minute entries do not include the complaint or the requested judgment terms, but they show the court set the case for a bench trial and later granted the HOA’s unopposed motion for summary judgment after Goode filed no response. The court relied on Rule 7.1(b), found the nonresponse should be treated as consent, and also stated that the motion and record established the HOA’s entitlement to relief as a matter of law. A later order required Goode to respond to the HOA’s application to prevent waste before expiration of the redemption period.

Key Issues & Findings

The court’s written reasoning was procedural and brief. It noted that Goode, who was not represented by counsel, had failed to respond in any manner to Tanglewood HOA’s summary-judgment motion and that the response deadline under Rule 7.1(a) had expired. Under Rule 7.1(b), the court treated the unexplained nonresponse as consent to granting the motion.

The court also made the required merits statement: the HOA’s motion and the case record established that the HOA was entitled as a matter of law to the relief it was seeking. On that basis, the court granted summary judgment, ordered a proposed judgment and any fee-and-cost application, and vacated the scheduled bench trial. The collected records do not provide a substantive analysis of an HOA statute or CC&R provision.

Why It Matters

The case is a thin-record example of how an HOA can obtain summary judgment when the homeowner does not respond, but it should not be read as a substantive interpretation of Arizona HOA law. The ruling states both parts of the analysis: the nonresponse could be deemed consent under Rule 7.1(b), and the court still found the motion and record established entitlement to relief as a matter of law.

The later redemption-period waste order suggests a post-judgment enforcement or foreclosure posture, but the collected minutes do not include the final judgment or the details of the underlying claim. For readers, the useful lesson is procedural and practical rather than doctrinal.

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Maricopoly v. Tierra Santa Community Association: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide

Posted on July 2, 2026 by [email protected]

HOA Liens | Sheriff Sale | CV2020-013607

A purchaser alleged an HOA lien sale went forward after the lien was extinguished. The court let fraud-based claims survive summary judgment but rejected A.R.S. § 33-420 against the association’s law firm.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Maricopoly LLC v. Tierra Santa Community Association, Inc., et al., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2020-013607.

Download summary-judgment ruling

Scope note: This page covers Maricopoly LLC v. Tierra Santa Community Association, Inc., et al. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2020-013607) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, especially the February 7, 2022 under-advisement ruling on Maxwell & Morgan’s converted summary-judgment motion and the May 12, 2022 ruling on A.R.S. § 33-420 amendment; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the last collected minute entry is the June 7, 2022 order referring the case to a mandatory settlement conference and setting a March 27, 2023 pretrial or trial-setting conference. The collected records do not show a final judgment, settlement, trial, appeal, or dismissal after that order. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

A bidder normally takes only whatever title exists at a judicial sale, but the court held that caveat emptor does not shield alleged fraud. Taking Maricopoly’s facts as true for summary judgment, the court let claims proceed where the buyer alleged Tierra Santa’s law firm falsely confirmed the HOA lien was valid and allowed a sheriff’s sale to proceed after the lien had been extinguished.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

Maricopoly LLC (Plaintiff)
Purchaser at the sheriff’s sale who alleged the Tierra Santa HOA lien had already been extinguished and that the sale should not have gone forward.
Kyle A. Kinney (Counsel)
Counsel for Maricopoly in the minute entries.

Respondent Side

Tierra Santa Community Association, Inc. (Defendant)
Association whose foreclosure judgment and asserted continuing statutory lien formed the basis for the sheriff’s sale.
Maxwell & Morgan, P.C. (Defendant)
Law firm alleged to have represented Tierra Santa in the foreclosure matter and to have told Maricopoly’s agent that the HOA lien was valid; the court denied summary judgment on fraud-based allegations but later rejected A.R.S. § 33-420 against the firm.
Rod Sauaia (Defendant)
Listed in the early minute-entry captions and represented with Maxwell & Morgan at the August 13, 2021 oral argument.
Ember Ann Van Vranken (Counsel)
Counsel for Tierra Santa in the minute entries.
Edith I. Rudder (Counsel)
Counsel for Tierra Santa at the August 13, 2021 and December 9, 2021 oral arguments.
Chad M. Gallacher (Counsel)
Counsel for Maxwell & Morgan and Rod Sauaia at oral argument on the converted summary-judgment motion.
Sean P. Healy (Counsel)
Counsel listed for Maxwell & Morgan in the May 12, 2022 ruling.
Aaron C. Schepler (Counsel)
Counsel listed for Maxwell & Morgan in the May 12, 2022 ruling.

Neutral Parties

Hon. Pamela Gates (Judge)
Judge who issued the February 7, 2022 and May 12, 2022 rulings.

What happened

Maricopoly alleged that it bought at a March 7, 2019 sheriff’s sale based on a judgment in favor of Tierra Santa Community Association against a Scottsdale property. The court’s February 7, 2022 ruling states that Maricopoly’s agent investigated the sale, found a prior foreclosure, and saw documents creating ambiguity about whether Tierra Santa still had a valid lien to foreclose.

For purposes of the converted summary-judgment motion, the court took Maricopoly’s facts as true. On that assumed record, Maricopoly’s agent called Maxwell & Morgan, Tierra Santa’s lawyers, the day before the sale and asked whether the lien was valid. The ruling says the agent was told the lien was valid, but Maricopoly alleged that was false because Tierra Santa had entered a stipulated judgment agreeing the HOA lien would be extinguished if another entity obtained title, and Maxwell & Morgan knew that condition had occurred.

The court also treated as true, for that motion only, Maricopoly’s allegations that a lawyer for Tierra Santa appeared at the sale and allowed it to proceed, that Maricopoly was the winning bidder for $44,000, and that Maxwell & Morgan later threatened fees when Maricopoly tried to secure return of the payment. The court emphasized it was not finding those allegations true; it was applying the summary-judgment standard.

Maxwell & Morgan relied on caveat emptor, the rule that a judicial-sale bidder must determine title and takes only the execution debtor’s interest. The court held that caveat emptor did not bar the case at summary judgment because Arizona law recognizes a fraud exception. Since Maricopoly alleged a knowingly false statement about the lien and a sale based on an extinguished lien, the court found material factual disputes and denied summary dismissal.

The court allowed amendment of factual allegations and some counts, but rejected several proposed new theories. It denied negligent misrepresentation because the case could proceed only if Maxwell & Morgan knowingly misrepresented the lien rather than merely making a mistake. It denied wrongful foreclosure because the alleged facts did not involve a trustee, mortgage, note, or creditor-declared default. It also denied slander of title as insufficiently alleged.

On May 12, 2022, the court separately addressed A.R.S. § 33-420. It quoted the statute and held that liability applies to a person claiming an interest, lien, or encumbrance against real property. Because Maricopoly alleged Maxwell & Morgan was the law firm representing the client who claimed an interest, not a claimant itself, the court denied leave to add the § 33-420 claim against Maxwell & Morgan while granting leave to amend in part.

Procedural timeline

Step 2021-04-12 The court takes no action on Maricopoly’s application for default against Maxwell & Morgan and directs default-judgment materials to the commissioner process.

Step 2021-04-21 The court takes no action on Maricopoly’s application for default against Tierra Santa and gives the same default-judgment process direction.

Step 2021-08-13 The court grants Maricopoly limited Rule 56(d) discovery and allows the deposition of Austin Slade before response to the converted summary-judgment motion.

Step 2021-12-09 The court hears oral argument on Maxwell & Morgan’s converted summary-judgment motion and Maricopoly’s motion for leave to amend, then takes both under advisement.

Step 2022-02-07 The court denies Maxwell & Morgan’s converted summary-judgment motion and grants Maricopoly leave to amend only in part.

Step 2022-05-12 The court denies leave to add an A.R.S. § 33-420 claim against Maxwell & Morgan because the law firm did not itself claim an interest in the property.

Step 2022-06-07 The court refers the parties to a mandatory settlement conference and sets a March 27, 2023 pretrial or trial-setting conference.

Complete uploaded source-document index

This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/maricopoly-v-tierra-santa-community-association/raw/: 9 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.

Source 1 2021-04-12

Default Judgment

Type: Decision or judgment

Shows the filer trying to move the case forward because the opposing party had not timely appeared.

Download source file

2021-04-12_001_default-judgment.pdf

Source 2 2021-04-21

Default Judgment

Type: Decision or judgment

Shows the filer trying to move the case forward because the opposing party had not timely appeared.

Download source file

2021-04-21_002_default-judgment.pdf

Source 3 2021-07-29

Oral Argument Set

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2021-07-29_003_oral-argument-set.pdf

Source 4 2021-08-13

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Oral-argument minute entry granting Maricopoly limited Rule 56(d) discovery by allowing the deposition of Austin Slade before response to the converted summary-judgment motion.

Download source file

2021-08-13_004_oral-argument.pdf

Source 5 2021-11-10

Oral Argument Set

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2021-11-10_005_oral-argument-set.pdf

Source 6 2021-12-09

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Oral-argument minute entry taking Maxwell & Morgan’s converted summary-judgment motion and Maricopoly’s motion for leave to amend under advisement after argument.

Download source file

2021-12-09_006_oral-argument.pdf

Source 7 2022-02-07

Under Advisement Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Under-advisement ruling denying Maxwell & Morgan’s motion to dismiss converted to summary judgment, granting Maricopoly leave to amend in part, and denying proposed negligent-misrepresentation, wrongful-foreclosure, and slander-of-title amendments as futile.

Download source file

2022-02-07_007_under-advisement-ruling.pdf

Source 8 2022-05-12

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling granting Maricopoly leave to amend in part but denying leave to add an A.R.S. § 33-420 claim against Maxwell & Morgan because the firm did not itself claim an interest, lien, or encumbrance against the property.

Download source file

2022-05-12_008_ruling.pdf

Source 9 2022-06-07

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Scheduling minute entry referring the parties to a mandatory settlement conference and setting a March 27, 2023 pretrial conference or trial-setting conference.

Download source file

2022-06-07_009_status-conference.pdf

FAQ

Why did the court deny summary judgment?

The court took Maricopoly’s factual allegations as true for the converted summary-judgment motion and found a genuine dispute about whether Maxwell & Morgan knowingly misrepresented that the HOA lien was valid and allowed a sheriff’s sale to proceed after the lien had been extinguished.

What did caveat emptor mean in this case?

Caveat emptor meant that a bidder at a judicial sale normally must determine title and takes only whatever interest the execution debtor has. The court held that this rule did not end the case because Arizona law recognizes a fraud exception.

Did the court find that Maxwell & Morgan committed fraud?

No. The court expressly said it was taking Maricopoly’s allegations as true only for purposes of deciding the converted summary-judgment motion. The ruling decided that the allegations created material factual disputes, not that they were proven.

What happened to the proposed wrongful-foreclosure claim?

The court denied leave to add wrongful foreclosure as futile because the alleged facts did not involve a trustee, recorded mortgage, note, or creditor wrongfully declaring default under a note.

Why did the A.R.S. § 33-420 claim fail against the law firm?

The court held that § 33-420 applies to a person claiming an interest, lien, or encumbrance against real property. Maricopoly alleged Maxwell & Morgan represented the client who claimed the interest, not that the firm itself claimed the lien.

Is this ruling precedential?

No. It is a Maricopa County Superior Court ruling, so it binds only the parties. It is still useful as an example of how one trial court handled an alleged HOA lien sale after the lien had been extinguished.

Case Dossier

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	CV2020-013607 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	February 7, 2022
Judge / panel	Hon. Pamela Gates
Parties	Maricopoly LLC (Plaintiff) v. Tierra Santa Community Association, Inc., Maxwell & Morgan, P.C. and Rod Sauaia (Defendants)
Governing law	A.R.S. § 33-420
Topics	ForeclosureLiensCC&RsAttorney FeesProcedure
Outcome / holding	The court denied Maxwell & Morgan’s motion to dismiss converted to summary judgment because, taking Maricopoly’s facts as true, the fraud exception to caveat emptor could apply to allegations that the firm falsely confirmed a valid HOA lien and allowed a sheriff’s sale to proceed after the lien had been extinguished. The court also denied leave to add negligent-misrepresentation, wrongful-foreclosure, and slander-of-title claims, and later denied leave to add an A.R.S. § 33-420 claim against Maxwell & Morgan while allowing amendment in part.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	9 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	7 roadmap entries
Video overview	No video embed currently configured
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

A purchaser at a sheriff’s sale sued Tierra Santa Community Association and its collection law firm after buying at a sale based on an HOA foreclosure lien that the plaintiff alleged had already been extinguished. The court denied the defense summary-judgment motion on fraud-based allegations, allowed some amendment, denied negligent-misrepresentation, wrongful-foreclosure, and slander-of-title amendments as futile, and later held that A.R.S. § 33-420 did not provide a claim against the law firm because the firm did not itself claim an interest in the property.

Key Issues & Findings

The February 7, 2022 ruling treated the Rule 12(b)(6) motion as a summary-judgment motion and therefore took Maricopoly’s factual allegations as true for that motion only. On that assumed record, Maricopoly’s agent investigated a sheriff’s sale based on a Tierra Santa foreclosure judgment, discovered a prior foreclosure and a stipulated judgment that allegedly extinguished the HOA lien if another entity obtained title, and called Maxwell & Morgan to ask whether the lien remained valid.

The court reasoned that ordinary caveat emptor principles make a judicial-sale bidder responsible for checking title, but that Arizona law recognizes a fraud exception. Because Maricopoly alleged that Maxwell & Morgan knowingly gave false information that the lien remained valid and then allowed the sale to proceed, the court found material factual disputes and denied summary dismissal.

The court separated that fraud theory from proposed new claims. It denied negligent misrepresentation because no claim existed if Maxwell & Morgan was merely mistaken, denied wrongful foreclosure because the alleged facts did not involve a trustee, mortgage, note, or similar foreclosure structure, and denied slander of title as insufficiently pleaded. In the later A.R.S. § 33-420 ruling, the court held the statute did not create a claim against Maxwell & Morgan because the law firm represented a claimant but did not itself claim an interest, lien, or encumbrance against the property.

Why It Matters

The ruling is useful for HOA lien and foreclosure disputes because it shows that caveat emptor may not end the case when a purchaser alleges fraud in an HOA sheriff’s sale based on an extinguished lien. It also draws a line between an association that claims a lien and a law firm representing that association for purposes of A.R.S. § 33-420.

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Kuhn v. Southern Village Estates Condominium Association: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide

Posted on July 2, 2026 by [email protected]

Assessment Collection | Water Shutoff | CV2012-018443

The court refused to decide on summary judgment whether water shutoff was a reasonable collection rule, but dismissed the FDCPA claim against the management company.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Andrew Kuhn v. Southern Village Estates Condominium Association, et al., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2012-018443.

Download FDCPA summary-judgment ruling

Scope note: This page covers Andrew Kuhn v. Southern Village Estates Condominium Association, et al. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2012-018443) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, especially the July 2, 2014 ruling on water shutoff and the November 25, 2014 summary-judgment ruling on the FDCPA claim; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the last collected minute entry is the March 19, 2015 order dismissing the entire action with prejudice after the parties filed a stipulation to dismiss. The water-shutoff issue was not finally decided on summary judgment; it was left for the factfinder before the later settlement and stipulated dismissal. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

A condominium association may have authority under A.R.S. § 33-1242 to adopt reasonable rules, but this court would not decide as a matter of law that a water-shutoff assessment-collection rule was valid or invalid when the Declaration and Bylaws were silent. Separately, the manager was not an FDCPA debt collector where it had responsibility for regular assessment collection before the owner’s account became delinquent.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

Andrew Kuhn (Plaintiff)
Southern Village Estates condominium owner who challenged water shutoff or restriction and brought an FDCPA claim against Pride.
Jonathan A. Dessaules (Counsel)
Counsel for Kuhn in the minute entries.

Respondent Side

Southern Village Estates Condominium Association (Defendant)
Condominium association that obtained a judgment for unpaid and accruing assessments and used water shutoff or restriction as part of collection efforts.
Pride Asset Management, Inc. (Defendant)
Property-management company retained by the association to manage the development and collect maintenance assessments and related charges from members.
Nikita V. Patel (Counsel)
Counsel for Southern Village Estates Condominium Association and Pride in many of the minute entries.
Diana J. Elston (Counsel)
Counsel appearing for Pride at the November 13, 2014 pretrial/status conference.

Neutral Parties

Hon. J. Richard Gama (Judge)
Judge who issued the water-shutoff, discovery-sanctions, fee, and FDCPA rulings.

What happened

Andrew Kuhn owned a condominium unit at Southern Village Estates and was a member of the condominium association. The July 2, 2014 ruling states that he failed to pay past assessments, and the association obtained a judgment against him for all past-due and accruing assessments. The association retained Pride Asset Management for collection efforts.

The association paid a utility for water delivered to each condominium unit from monthly assessments. When Kuhn did not pay, defendants either shut off or significantly restricted water flow to his unit. Kuhn said the action made his home uninhabitable and argued that the association had no express statutory or governing-document authority to use water shutoff as a collection remedy.

Defendants relied on A.R.S. § 33-1242 and a rule adopted by the association’s board. The court noted defendants conceded that the Declaration did not expressly authorize water shutoff and that no statute expressly authorized it. The rule itself stated that the association had the right to turn off water to a unit for nonpayment of monthly assessment.

The court denied both sides summary judgment. It agreed that the association had authority to adopt rules if the rules were reasonable, but it held that reasonableness was a fact question on this record. The key issue was whether the rule bore a relationship to the health, happiness, and enjoyment of life of the unit owners, or instead was arbitrary or capricious.

The case also included a separate FDCPA claim against Pride. The November 25, 2014 ruling states that Pride became the HOA’s managing agent on July 1, 2008, that Kuhn did not become delinquent until 2010, and that the challenged collection activity occurred in 2012. Because Pride was responsible for collecting assessments before the debt went into default, the court held Pride fell within the statutory exception to the FDCPA definition of debt collector and granted Pride summary judgment.

Earlier discovery rulings also mattered procedurally. The court sanctioned Pride for failing to provide a knowledgeable Rule 30(b)(6) witness, compelled a new deposition, and awarded Kuhn $4,500 in fees and $12 in costs. The case later settled, Pride withdrew a proposed form of judgment, and the court dismissed the action with prejudice on March 19, 2015.

Video overview of the ruling

An AI-generated video overview of Andrew Kuhn v. Southern Village Estates Condominium Association (CV2012-018443 (Maricopa County Superior Court)). Water shutoff collection rule went to factfinder; Pride was not an FDCPA debt collector for pre-default HOA dues. This plain-language summary was generated from the court’s filings; the court’s own ruling controls.

Listen: audio deep dive on the ruling

An AI-generated audio deep dive walking through the court’s reasoning and disposition in Andrew Kuhn v. Southern Village Estates Condominium Association. Generated from the case filings; verify against the linked ruling below.

Audio overview generated with Google NotebookLM from the case’s court filings.

Procedural timeline

Step 2013-01-11 The court restrains Southern Village Estates from turning off Kuhn’s water and orders the water turned back on pending an evidentiary hearing after counsel avowed that fees had been paid.

Step 2013-07-29 The court grants Rule 37 sanctions in part, compels Pride to provide an adequate Rule 30(b)(6) witness, and awards costs and reasonable attorney fees for the motion.

Step 2013-08-22 The court denies defendants’ motion for reconsideration of the July 29, 2013 discovery-sanctions ruling.

Step 2014-06-17 The court awards Kuhn $4,500 in fees and $12 in costs as Rule 37 sanctions, reducing the requested amount as duplicative and excessive.

Step 2014-07-02 The court denies both sides summary judgment on whether the association’s water-shutoff rule was lawful and reasonable.

Step 2014-11-25 The court grants Pride summary judgment and dismisses the FDCPA claim because Pride handled assessment collection before the debt went into default.

Step 2015-03-19 After settlement, the court dismisses the entire action with prejudice, with each party bearing its own fees and costs.

Complete uploaded source-document index

This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/kuhn-v-southern-village-estates-condominium-association/raw/: 21 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.

Source 1 2013-01-11

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Preliminary-restraint minute entry ordering Southern Village Estates not to turn off Kuhn’s water and ordering the water turned back on pending the evidentiary hearing after counsel avowed that fees had been paid.

Download source file

2013-01-11_001_ruling.pdf

Source 2 2013-02-04

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2013-02-04_002_status-conference.pdf

Source 3 2013-03-13

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2013-03-13_003_status-conference.pdf

Source 4 2013-04-10

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2013-04-10_004_status-conference.pdf

Source 5 2013-07-12

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2013-07-12_005_status-conference.pdf

Source 6 2013-07-29

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Discovery-sanctions ruling granting Kuhn relief in part, compelling Pride to provide an adequate Rule 30(b)(6) witness, and awarding costs and reasonable attorney fees for the motion.

Download source file

2013-07-29_006_ruling.pdf

Source 7 2013-08-20

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2013-08-20_007_minute-entry.pdf

Source 8 2013-08-22

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying defendants’ motion for reconsideration of the July 29, 2013 Rule 30(b)(6) discovery-sanctions order.

Download source file

2013-08-22_008_ruling.pdf

Source 9 2013-09-19

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2013-09-19_009_minute-entry.pdf

Source 10 2013-10-15

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2013-10-15_010_minute-entry.pdf

Source 11 2013-11-19

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2013-11-19_011_minute-entry.pdf

Source 12 2014-05-15

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2014-05-15_012_minute-entry.pdf

Source 13 2014-06-17

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Fee ruling awarding Kuhn $4,500 in attorney fees and $12 in costs as Rule 37 sanctions while reducing the requested fees as duplicative and excessive.

Download source file

2014-06-17_013_ruling.pdf

Source 14 2014-07-02

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying both Kuhn’s and defendants’ summary-judgment motions on whether the association’s water-shutoff rule was lawful and reasonable under A.R.S. § 33-1242 and the governing documents.

Download source file

2014-07-02_014_ruling.pdf

Source 15 2014-09-08

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2014-09-08_015_status-conference.pdf

Source 16 2014-09-23

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2014-09-23_016_minute-entry.pdf

Source 17 2014-11-13

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2014-11-13_017_status-conference.pdf

Source 18 2014-11-25

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling granting Pride Asset Management summary judgment and dismissing Kuhn’s FDCPA claim because Pride collected assessments before Kuhn’s assessments became overdue.

Download source file

2014-11-25_018_ruling.pdf

Source 19 2015-02-23

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2015-02-23_019_minute-entry.pdf

Source 20 2015-03-04

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2015-03-04_020_minute-entry.pdf

Source 21 2015-03-19

Judgment Entered

Type: Decision or judgment

Dismissal order dismissing the entire action with prejudice after the parties filed a stipulation to dismiss following settlement.

Download source file

2015-03-19_021_judgment-entered.pdf

FAQ

Did the court decide the association could shut off water for unpaid assessments?

No. The court denied both sides summary judgment. It held that whether the water-shutoff rule was reasonable under the circumstances was a factual issue for the factfinder.

What role did A.R.S. § 33-1242 play?

Defendants relied on A.R.S. § 33-1242 as authority for the association to adopt rules. The court agreed an association may adopt reasonable rules, but said the reasonableness of this water-shutoff rule could not be decided as a matter of law on summary judgment.

Why did Pride win summary judgment on the FDCPA claim?

The court found that Pride was responsible for collecting monthly assessments before Kuhn’s assessments became overdue. Under the FDCPA exception discussed in the ruling, Pride was not a debt collector for that debt because the debt was not in default when Pride obtained collection responsibility.

Did the governing documents expressly authorize water shutoff?

The court stated that the parties agreed the Declaration and Bylaws did not expressly provide a right to shut off water as a way to collect unpaid assessments.

What discovery sanction did the court impose?

The court found Pride failed to provide a knowledgeable Rule 30(b)(6) corporate witness, ordered a new deposition, and later awarded Kuhn $4,500 in attorney fees and $12 in costs as Rule 37 sanctions.

Is this ruling precedential?

No. It is a Maricopa County Superior Court ruling, so it binds only the parties. It is still useful as an example of one trial court’s analysis of condominium water shutoff, assessment collection, and FDCPA manager liability.

Case Dossier

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	CV2012-018443 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	November 25, 2014
Judge / panel	Hon. J. Richard Gama
Parties	Andrew Kuhn (Plaintiff) v. Southern Village Estates Condominium Association and Pride Asset Management, Inc. (Defendants)
Governing law	A.R.S. § 33-1242 15 U.S.C. § 1692a
Topics	AssessmentsFDCPACC&RsProcedure
Outcome / holding	The court held that neither side was entitled to summary judgment on the water-shutoff issue because the association could adopt reasonable rules under A.R.S. § 33-1242, but whether this rule reasonably related to the health, happiness, and enjoyment of the unit owners presented a fact question. The court later held that Pride was not an FDCPA debt collector because it obtained responsibility for collecting the assessments before Kuhn’s assessments became overdue.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	21 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	7 roadmap entries
Video overview	Andrew Kuhn v. Southern Village Estates Condominium Association
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

A condominium owner challenged Southern Village Estates’ use of water shutoff or restriction to collect unpaid assessments and asserted an FDCPA claim against Pride Asset Management. The court denied both sides summary judgment on whether the association’s water-restriction rule was reasonable under A.R.S. § 33-1242 and the governing documents, but later granted Pride summary judgment on the FDCPA claim because Pride was responsible for collecting assessments before the owner’s account went into default.

Key Issues & Findings

On the water-shutoff motions, the court began with undisputed facts: Kuhn owned a condominium unit, was a member of the association, failed to pay past assessments, and the association obtained a judgment for unpaid and accruing assessments. The association and Pride then used water shutoff or water restriction as a collection method, and Kuhn argued that neither Arizona statute nor the governing documents expressly authorized that remedy.

The court agreed with the association that A.R.S. § 33-1242 gave the association authority to promulgate reasonable rules, but it did not treat that authority as unlimited. Because the Declaration and Bylaws did not expressly provide a water-shutoff remedy, and because the rule’s reasonableness depended on whether it related to the general welfare of condominium residents, the court found a factual dispute and denied summary judgment to both sides.

On the FDCPA claim, the court focused on Pride’s timing and role. Pride was the association’s property manager and was responsible for collecting monthly assessments beginning July 1, 2008; Kuhn did not become delinquent until 2010; and the challenged collection activity occurred in 2012. Because the FDCPA excludes collectors whose collection activity concerns debt that was not in default when obtained, the court granted Pride summary judgment and dismissed the FDCPA claim.

Why It Matters

The case is useful for Arizona condominium readers because it shows one trial court refusing to decide on summary judgment whether an association may restrict water service as an assessment-collection rule when the declaration and bylaws are silent. It also shows how a management company may defeat an FDCPA claim when it was already responsible for assessment collection before the owner’s account went into default.

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Abodeely v. Oasis Association: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide

Posted on July 2, 2026 by [email protected]

HOA Fines | A.R.S. § 33-1803 | CV2020-001329

The court let fine and notice claims proceed where the record left questions about whether Oasis began fining before the homeowner’s statutory response period expired.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Marybeth Abodeely v. The Oasis Association, et al., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2020-001329.

Download summary-judgment ruling

Scope note: This page covers Marybeth Abodeely v. The Oasis Association, et al. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2020-001329) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, especially the June 30, 2021 under-advisement ruling on cross-motions for summary judgment; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the last collected minute entry is the May 23, 2023 ruling extending the time for Abodeely to submit a motion to enforce the settlement agreement through June 16, 2023. The collected records also show that the parties reported an official settlement reached on September 1, 2022, but funding and a Medicare consent issue remained unresolved at the May 5, 2023 status conference. Any later enforcement, dismissal, judgment, or appeal history is outside these records. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

When an Arizona HOA fine dispute turns on A.R.S. § 33-1803, timing matters. The court denied Oasis summary judgment because the record left genuine disputes about which violation notices were at issue, whether the statute was violated, and whether it was reasonable to begin imposing fines 14 days after the first notice while the homeowner still had 7 days left in the statutory response period.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

Marybeth Abodeely (Plaintiff)
Homeowner who challenged Oasis violation notices and fines, sought declaratory and injunctive relief, and opposed Oasis’s summary-judgment motion.
Mark W. Horne (Counsel)
Counsel for Abodeely at the June 21, 2021 oral argument and listed in the June 30, 2021 ruling.
F. Robert Connelly II (Counsel)
Appeared for Abodeely on behalf of Jonathan A. Dessaules at the May 5, 2023 status conference.

Respondent Side

The Oasis Association (Defendant)
Homeowners association for the condominium complex; obtained summary judgment on dog-related issues but not on the remaining fine and violation-notice issues.
The Management Trust, Inc. (Defendant)
Management company hired by Oasis to manage the condominium complex; dismissed on June 8, 2020 because the complaint did not allege direct duties or conduct outside the agency role.
Sadie Marsh and Gregory Marsh (Defendants)
Dismissed by notice before the June 30, 2021 summary-judgment ruling; the remaining ruling discussed Oasis’s handling of the Marsh dog issue.
Jeremy C. Johnson (Counsel)
Counsel for Oasis and The Management Trust in the case-party data and later status-conference minute entries.
Evann M. Waschuk (Counsel)
Counsel who argued for Oasis at the June 21, 2021 summary-judgment oral argument.

Neutral Parties

Hon. Danielle J. Viola (Judge)
Judge who dismissed The Management Trust and issued the June 30, 2021 summary-judgment ruling and July 22, 2021 reconsideration ruling.
Hon. Sara J. Agne (Judge)
Judge who handled later settlement-status proceedings and granted the May 23, 2023 extension related to any motion to enforce settlement.

What happened

Marybeth Abodeely owned an Oasis condominium. The June 30, 2021 ruling states that The Oasis Association was the homeowners association for the condominium complex and that The Management Trust was hired by Oasis to manage it. The court described the governing documents as including Oasis’s CC&Rs and House Rules.

The dispute began with May 2018 notices directing Abodeely to clean up her patio and remove empty planters from common areas. The ruling quoted House Rules limiting porch areas to appropriate furniture and small potted plants, requiring unsightly items to be removed on HOA request, and restricting visible textile items. It also quoted CC&R section 15.2, which restricted what could be stored, placed, erected, hung, or permitted on patios, balconies, common elements, exterior building areas, windows, and outside doors except for customary patio furniture and potted plants.

Abodeely did not comply with the request to remove the empty planters, and Oasis began fining her on June 8, 2018. She hired counsel to dispute the fines, and counsel exchanged letters about the fines and policies. Earlier in the case, the court dismissed The Management Trust because Abodeely had not alleged that the manager owed statutory or common-law duties to her or acted outside its agency role for Oasis. The Marsh defendants also had been dismissed before the summary-judgment ruling.

Abodeely moved for partial summary judgment on a claimed breach of statutory and common-law duties, declaratory relief, and an injunction. She argued that Oasis had failed to enforce the CC&Rs against the Marsh dog, sent successive and harassing violation notices, photographed her property, and adopted arbitrary rules targeted at her. The court denied her motion, finding it rested on conclusory statements and did not show an absence of disputed facts.

Oasis also moved for summary judgment. The court granted Oasis summary judgment on the dog-related portions of the statutory-duty, injunction, and declaratory-judgment claims because Oasis showed that it had to make reasonable accommodations to its no-pet policy and could not enforce that policy against the Marsh dog. But the court denied Oasis summary judgment on the remaining violation-notice and fine issues. It found genuine disputes or an unclear record about which notices were at issue, whether Oasis violated A.R.S. § 33-1803, and whether it was reasonable to start fines 14 days after the first notice while Abodeely still had 7 days to respond.

Oasis later moved for reconsideration on damages. On July 22, 2021, the court denied reconsideration and clarified that it had not concluded Abodeely would recover emotional damages; it had only concluded that it could not rule out such damages on the record. Later entries show the parties reported an official settlement reached on September 1, 2022, with funding and Medicare consent issues still being discussed in May 2023, and a May 23, 2023 order extended the time for any motion to enforce settlement.

Video overview of the ruling

An AI-generated video overview of Marybeth Abodeely v. The Oasis Association (CV2020-001329 (Maricopa County Superior Court)). Fine claims survived where Oasis may have fined before the A.R.S. § 33-1803 response period expired. This plain-language summary was generated from the court’s filings; the court’s own ruling controls.

Listen: audio deep dive on the ruling

An AI-generated audio deep dive walking through the court’s reasoning and disposition in Marybeth Abodeely v. The Oasis Association. Generated from the case filings; verify against the linked ruling below.

Audio overview generated with Google NotebookLM from the case’s court filings.

Procedural timeline

Step 2020-06-08 The court grants The Management Trust’s motion to dismiss because the complaint did not allege direct duties or conduct outside its agency role.

Step 2021-05-10 The court sets oral argument on Abodeely’s partial summary-judgment motion and Oasis’s summary-judgment motion.

Step 2021-06-21 The court hears oral argument from Abodeely’s counsel and Oasis’s counsel and takes both summary-judgment motions under advisement.

Step 2021-06-30 The court denies Abodeely’s partial summary-judgment motion, grants Oasis summary judgment on dog-related issues, and denies Oasis summary judgment on the remaining fine and notice issues.

Step 2021-07-22 The court denies Oasis’s motion for reconsideration and clarifies that it had not decided Abodeely was entitled to emotional damages.

Step 2023-05-05 At a status conference, the parties report a September 1, 2022 settlement, and the court orders Abodeely to sign a Medicare consent form by May 12, 2023.

Step 2023-05-23 The court grants an extension through June 16, 2023 for Abodeely to submit a motion to enforce settlement if needed.

Complete uploaded source-document index

This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/abodeely-v-oasis-association/raw/: 17 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.

Source 1 2020-05-29

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2020-05-29_001_status-conference.pdf

Source 2 2020-06-08

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling granting The Management Trust, Inc.’s motion to dismiss because the complaint did not allege that the manager owed Abodeely statutory or common-law duties or acted outside its agency role for the association.

Download source file

2020-06-08_002_ruling.pdf

Source 3 2020-12-07

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2020-12-07_003_status-conference.pdf

Source 4 2021-05-10

Oral Argument Set

Type: Court/source PDF

Oral-argument setting order setting Abodeely’s partial summary-judgment motion and Oasis’s summary-judgment motion for June 21, 2021 argument.

Download source file

2021-05-10_004_oral-argument-set.pdf

Source 5 2021-06-21

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Oral-argument minute entry taking Abodeely’s partial summary-judgment motion and Oasis’s summary-judgment motion under advisement after argument by both sides.

Download source file

2021-06-21_005_oral-argument.pdf

Source 6 2021-06-30

Under Advisement Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Under-advisement ruling denying Abodeely’s partial summary-judgment motion and granting Oasis summary judgment only on dog-related issues while denying summary judgment on the disputed fine, notice, declaratory, injunction, and emotional-damages issues.

Download source file

2021-06-30_006_under-advisement-ruling.pdf

Source 7 2021-07-07

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2021-07-07_007_status-conference.pdf

Source 8 2021-07-22

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Oasis’s motion for reconsideration and clarifying that the court had not found Abodeely entitled to emotional damages, only that it could not rule them out on the record.

Download source file

2021-07-22_008_ruling.pdf

Source 9 2021-08-09

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2021-08-09_009_status-conference.pdf

Source 10 2022-03-14

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2022-03-14_010_status-conference.pdf

Source 11 2022-03-14

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2022-03-14_011_status-conference.pdf

Source 12 2022-05-10

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2022-05-10_012_status-conference.pdf

Source 13 2022-06-03

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2022-06-03_013_status-conference.pdf

Source 14 2022-07-05

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2022-07-05_014_minute-entry.pdf

Source 15 2023-04-27

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2023-04-27_015_status-conference.pdf

Source 16 2023-05-05

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Status-conference minute entry recording that the parties reported a September 1, 2022 settlement, ordering Abodeely to sign a Medicare consent form, and setting a deadline for any motion to enforce settlement.

Download source file

2023-05-05_016_status-conference.pdf

Source 17 2023-05-23

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling granting Abodeely more time, through June 16, 2023, to submit a motion to enforce the settlement agreement if needed.

Download source file

2023-05-23_017_ruling.pdf

FAQ

What part of A.R.S. § 33-1803 mattered in this ruling?

The court focused on the homeowner’s ability to respond in writing within 21 calendar days after a written violation notice and the association’s response obligations. The court found a jury question about whether it was reasonable for Oasis to impose a fine after 14 days when Abodeely still had 7 days left to respond under the statute.

Did the homeowner win summary judgment?

No. The court denied Abodeely’s partial summary-judgment motion because her arguments about unfair treatment, harassment, targeted rules, and dog-related enforcement relied on conclusory statements and did not eliminate disputed facts.

Did Oasis win summary judgment?

Only in part. Oasis won summary judgment on the claims tied to the Marsh dog, but it did not win summary judgment on the remaining violation-notice, fine, declaratory, injunction, and emotional-damages issues.

Why was The Management Trust dismissed?

The court dismissed The Management Trust because Abodeely had not alleged that the management company owed her statutory or common-law duties or that it acted outside the course and scope of its agency with Oasis.

Did the court decide emotional-distress damages were available?

The court did not decide that Abodeely was entitled to emotional damages. It denied Oasis’s request to rule them out because disputed facts remained and the record was unclear, then later clarified the same point when denying reconsideration.

Is this ruling precedential?

No. It is a Maricopa County Superior Court ruling, so it binds only the parties. It is still useful as an example of how one trial court analyzed HOA fines, CC&Rs, House Rules, and A.R.S. § 33-1803 notice timing.

Case Dossier

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	CV2020-001329 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	June 30, 2021
Judge / panel	Hon. Danielle J. Viola, Hon. Sara J. Agne
Parties	Marybeth Abodeely (Plaintiff) v. The Oasis Association, The Management Trust, Inc., Sadie Marsh and Gregory Marsh (Defendants)
Governing law	A.R.S. § 33-1803
Topics	FinesCC&RsSelective EnforcementCovenantsProcedure
Outcome / holding	The court held that The Management Trust was dismissed because the complaint did not allege that it owed statutory or common-law duties to Abodeely or acted outside its agency role for Oasis. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court denied Abodeely’s partial motion, granted Oasis summary judgment on claims tied to the Marsh dog, and denied Oasis summary judgment on the remaining fine and violation-notice issues because disputed facts or an unclear record remained under A.R.S. § 33-1803 and the governing documents.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	17 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	7 roadmap entries
Video overview	Marybeth Abodeely v. The Oasis Association
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

A homeowner challenged fines and violation notices issued by The Oasis Association after patio and common-area disputes, and also challenged the association’s treatment of a neighbor’s companion or service dog. The court dismissed The Management Trust early, denied the homeowner’s partial summary-judgment motion, and granted Oasis summary judgment only on the dog-related portions of the case while leaving disputes over fines, violation notices, and emotional-distress damages for further proceedings.

Key Issues & Findings

The June 30, 2021 ruling treated the patio and common-area dispute as a record-specific enforcement case under the Oasis CC&Rs, House Rules, and A.R.S. § 33-1803. The court noted that Oasis’s first notice gave Abodeely an opportunity to respond, but it also found a triable question about the reasonableness of imposing a fine 14 days after the initial notice when she still had 7 days to respond under the statute.

The court rejected Abodeely’s request for affirmative summary judgment because her motion relied on conclusory statements about unfair treatment, harassment, selective enforcement, and rules allegedly targeted at her. The court also found that Oasis had addressed the Marsh dog issue and that the dog-related allegations did not support judgment in Abodeely’s favor.

For Oasis’s motion, the court separated the dog issue from the fines and notices. It granted Oasis summary judgment on claims based on the Marsh dog because Oasis showed that it had to make reasonable accommodations to its no-pet policy. It denied summary judgment on the remaining notice, fine, declaratory, injunction, and emotional-distress issues because the record left genuine disputes about which notices were at issue, whether § 33-1803 was violated, and whether fines began too soon.

Why It Matters

This ruling is useful for Arizona HOA readers because it shows how one superior-court judge analyzed the 21-day written-response process in A.R.S. § 33-1803 when an association begins fining a homeowner. It also separates a manager’s agency role from direct liability and shows how pet-accommodation issues may be resolved apart from an owner’s separate fine and selective-enforcement claims.

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AAM v. Board of Legal Document Preparers: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide

Posted on July 2, 2026 by [email protected]

HOA Liens | Legal Document Preparers | LC2012-000317

The court held that a homeowners association may authorize a legal document preparer to sign an HOA lien as corporate agent without that act becoming the unauthorized practice of law.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: AAM, LLC v. Board of Legal Document Preparers, et al., Maricopa County Superior Court No. LC2012-000317.

Download ruling

Scope note: This page covers AAM, LLC v. Board of Legal Document Preparers, et al. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. LC2012-000317) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, especially the August 20, 2012 ruling granting special-action relief; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the last collected minute entry is the October 26, 2012 judgment-related entry stating that the court modified and signed judgment directing the Board to modify its order to conform to the ruling. Any later administrative compliance, appeal, or refund dispute is outside these records. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

The court treated signing an HOA lien as an authorized corporate-agent act, not the practice of law. Because a homeowners association can act through agents, the court saw no reason why the association could authorize a legal document preparer to sign the lien when any other duly authorized agent could do the same.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

AAM, LLC (Plaintiff/Appellant)
Community-management company that brought the special action challenging the Board’s ruling on legal-document-preparer authority to sign HOA liens.
Brandon A. Hale (Counsel)
Counsel for AAM at the order-to-show-cause hearing and oral argument.
Ronda R. Fisk (Counsel)
Counsel for AAM at the August 9, 2012 oral argument.

Respondent Side

Board of Legal Document Preparers (Defendant/Appellee)
Administrative board whose order was challenged; the superior court directed the Board to modify its order to conform to the court’s ruling.
Les Krambeal (Defendant/Appellee)
Named appellee in the special-action proceeding.
Charles A. Grube (Counsel)
Counsel for the Board and appellees in the minute entries.

Neutral Parties

Hon. Mark H. Brain (Judge)
Judge who heard argument, granted special-action relief, and later modified and signed judgment.

What happened

AAM brought a special action after the Board of Legal Document Preparers disagreed with a retired judge’s decision about HOA lien paperwork. The court framed the issue as a discrete legal question: whether a legal document preparer may sign a lien it prepared on behalf of a homeowners association.

The court explained that Rule 31 of the Arizona Supreme Court Rules defines the practice of law and prohibits unauthorized practice subject to exemptions. It also considered section 7-208 of the Arizona Code of Judicial Administration, which governs legal-document-preparer activities.

The Board’s position was that the legal document preparer could not sign the lien. The superior court disagreed. It reasoned that corporations can act only through agents and generally may appoint and retain agents as they choose. The court found no persuasive explanation for treating the mere signing of a lien as the practice of law when similar corporate-agent signatures on checks, contracts, deeds, and other binding documents would not be treated that way.

The court also noted that a UPL advisory opinion recognized that a duly authorized agent can sign a lien. In the court’s view, it made no sense to allow a homeowners association to appoint a random agent to sign liens but forbid it from appointing a legal document preparer to do the same thing.

On August 20, 2012, the court granted AAM’s claim for relief and directed AAM to lodge a form of judgment. On October 26, 2012, the court stated that it had modified and signed the judgment to direct the Board to modify its order to conform to the ruling. The court struck AAM’s requested refund language because the requested refunds were outside the pleadings and evidence presented.

Video overview of the ruling

An AI-generated video overview of AAM, LLC v. Board of Legal Document Preparers (LC2012-000317 (Maricopa County Superior Court)). AAM won a special action allowing an authorized legal document preparer to sign an HOA lien as agent. This plain-language summary was generated from the court’s filings; the court’s own ruling controls.

Listen: audio deep dive on the ruling

An AI-generated audio deep dive walking through the court’s reasoning and disposition in AAM, LLC v. Board of Legal Document Preparers. Generated from the case filings; verify against the linked ruling below.

Audio overview generated with Google NotebookLM from the case’s court filings.

Procedural timeline

Step 2012-06-14 The court holds an order-to-show-cause hearing, sets briefing deadlines, and sets oral argument on AAM’s special-action application.

Step 2012-08-09 The court hears oral argument on AAM’s special-action application and takes the matter under advisement.

Step 2012-08-20 The court grants AAM’s claim for relief, holding that an authorized legal document preparer may sign an HOA lien as agent.

Step 2012-10-26 The court modifies and signs judgment directing the Board to modify its order to conform to the ruling and strikes refund language that was outside the pleadings and evidence.

Complete uploaded source-document index

This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/aam-v-board-of-legal-document-preparers/raw/: 4 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.

Source 1 2012-06-14

Oral Argument Set

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2012-06-14_001_oral-argument-set.pdf

Source 2 2012-08-09

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Oral-argument minute entry taking AAM’s special-action application under advisement after argument on whether a legal document preparer could sign an HOA lien.

Download source file

2012-08-09_002_oral-argument.pdf

Source 3 2012-08-20

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling granting AAM’s special-action claim for relief and holding that an authorized legal document preparer may sign a homeowners-association lien as corporate agent without practicing law.

Download source file

2012-08-20_003_ruling.pdf

Source 4 2012-10-26

Judgment Entered

Type: Decision or judgment

Judgment-related minute entry explaining that the court modified and signed judgment directing the Board to modify its order to conform to the court’s lien-signing ruling.

Download source file

2012-10-26_004_judgment-entered.pdf

FAQ

What was the legal question in this case?

The court described the question as whether a legal document preparer may sign a lien it prepared on behalf of a homeowners association.

What did the Board of Legal Document Preparers decide before the special action?

The minute entry states that a retired judge had answered yes, but the Board overruled that decision and said no. AAM then sought special-action relief in superior court.

Why did the court rule for AAM?

The court reasoned that corporations act through agents, that merely signing a lien as an authorized agent is not the practice of law, and that neither Rule 31 nor the legal-document-preparer rules prohibited the practice.

Did the court say legal document preparers may practice law for HOAs?

No. The ruling was narrower. It held that signing a lien as an authorized corporate agent was not the practice of law; it did not authorize legal document preparers to represent associations in legal proceedings.

What happened in the judgment entry?

The court modified and signed judgment directing the Board to modify its order to conform to the ruling. It struck AAM’s requested refund language because those refund amounts were outside the pleadings and evidence.

Is this ruling precedential?

No. It is a Maricopa County Superior Court special-action ruling, so it binds only the parties. It is still useful as an example of how one superior-court judge analyzed HOA lien signing by a legal document preparer.

Case Dossier

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	LC2012-000317 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	August 20, 2012
Judge / panel	Hon. Mark H. Brain
Parties	AAM, LLC (Plaintiff) v. Board of Legal Document Preparers and Les Krambeal (Defendants)
Topics	LiensAdmin. AppealsProcedureNonprofit Corporation
Outcome / holding	The court held that a legal document preparer may sign a homeowners-association lien as a duly authorized agent of the corporate association. It concluded that merely signing a lien to be filed with a recorder is not the practice of law under Rule 31 and that the Board of Legal Document Preparers was wrong to overrule the retired judge’s contrary decision.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	4 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	4 roadmap entries
Video overview	AAM, LLC v. Board of Legal Document Preparers
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

AAM brought a special action challenging the Board of Legal Document Preparers’ decision that a legal document preparer could not sign a lien prepared on behalf of a homeowners association. The superior court granted relief, holding that merely signing a lien as an authorized corporate agent is not the practice of law, and later directed the Board to modify its order to conform to that ruling.

Key Issues & Findings

The court framed the special action as a pure legal question: whether a legal document preparer may sign a lien it prepared on behalf of a homeowners association. It reviewed Rule 31 of the Arizona Supreme Court Rules and section 7-208 of the Arizona Code of Judicial Administration, which define and regulate the practice of law and permitted legal-document-preparer activities.

The court reasoned that corporations can act only through agents and generally may appoint agents as they choose. It found that the Board had not explained how merely signing a lien for recording could be the practice of law without sweeping in ordinary corporate-agent acts such as signing checks, contracts, deeds, or other documents that bind a corporation.

The ruling also noted that a UPL advisory opinion itself recognized that a duly authorized agent can sign a lien. Because nothing in Rule 31 or the legal-document-preparer rules prohibited an authorized legal document preparer from signing the HOA lien as agent, the court granted AAM’s claim for relief.

Why It Matters

This case matters for HOA lien administration because it treats lien signing as an authorized corporate-agent act rather than unauthorized practice of law when performed by a legal document preparer acting for an association. It is useful for understanding one superior-court special-action ruling about the line between HOA lien paperwork and legal practice regulation.

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Peshek v. Anasazi Village Condominiums: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide

Posted on July 2, 2026 by [email protected]

Board Recall | A.R.S. § 33-1243(H) | CV2017-056168

A condominium board member removed by homeowners challenged the recall process. The court held the association and manager complied with A.R.S. § 33-1243(H) and the Declaration, and that a board seat was not a contractual benefit protected by the Declaration.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Robert Peshek v. Anasazi Village Condominiums Homeowners Association, Inc., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2017-056168.

Download summary-judgment ruling

Scope note: This page covers Robert Peshek v. Anasazi Village Condominiums Homeowners Association, Inc., et al. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2017-056168) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, especially the August 20, 2018 order granting defendants’ motion for summary judgment; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the last collected minute entry is the August 20, 2018 summary-judgment ruling, which ordered defendants to submit a form of judgment by September 25, 2018. Any later judgment, appeal, settlement, or collection history is outside these records. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

For a condominium board recall, the court focused on compliance with A.R.S. § 33-1243(H) and the Declaration: a sufficient petition, written notice of the special meeting, a quorum, an opportunity to be heard, and a majority vote of those voting. Because the defendants showed that process was followed and the plaintiff offered only unsupported assertions of irregularities, the court granted summary judgment to the association, AAM, and Jensen on all claims.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

Robert Peshek (Plaintiff)
Former Anasazi Village board member removed by homeowners at a May 25, 2016 special meeting; challenged the recall process and asserted claims against the association, AAM, and Jensen.
Justin R. Cooley (Counsel)
Counsel for Peshek at the August 17, 2018 oral argument.

Respondent Side

Anasazi Village Condominiums Homeowners Association, Inc. (Defendant)
Condominium association whose homeowners voted to remove Peshek from the board; prevailed on summary judgment.
AAM, LLC (Defendant)
Community-management company whose representative received the recall petition, assessed that it had more than 100 signers, and later gave Peshek notice of his removal; prevailed on summary judgment.
Paul Jensen (Defendant)
Individual defendant whom Peshek identified as the catalyst for the recall; the court held motive was not material because the statute and Declaration allowed removal with or without cause if procedure was followed.
Emily H. Mann (Counsel)
Counsel for Anasazi, Jensen, and AAM at the August 17, 2018 oral argument.
Troy B. Stratman (Counsel)
Counsel listed for Anasazi, Jensen, and AAM in the case-party data and earlier minute entries.

Neutral Parties

Hon. Bruce R. Cohen (Judge)
Judge who heard oral argument and issued the August 20, 2018 summary-judgment ruling.

What happened

Robert Peshek served on the board of the Anasazi Village condominium association from 2014 until May 2016. According to the court’s summary-judgment findings, homeowners removed him from the board on or about May 25, 2016, and he sued Anasazi, Paul Jensen, and AAM alleging that the removal was improper.

The court found that a recall action began when homeowner Michael McGrane submitted a petition to AAM representative Wayne Yurk on or about May 2, 2016. Yurk assessed that the petition had more than 100 signers. The board then called a special meeting of members and sent a May 9, 2016 letter to homeowners with notice of the May 25 meeting, the location, the time, the subject matter, and an absentee ballot.

Peshek actually received the notice and ballot on or before May 18, 2016. He mailed in a ballot voting against his own removal, and the ballot was received by the board or AAM on May 24, the day before the special meeting. At the May 25 meeting, the board found a quorum, members were given an opportunity to be heard, Peshek did not appear, and more than 50% of those eligible to vote under the quorum voted to remove him. Wayne Yurk then gave Peshek notice that he had been removed.

The August 20, 2018 ruling treated the breach-of-contract and state-law claims together because both depended on the recall procedure. The court quoted A.R.S. § 33-1243(H), including the petition threshold, special meeting, quorum, and majority-vote requirements, and found the Declaration allowed removal of a board member with or without cause while incorporating that statutory procedure. On that record, the court held the defendants had shown no genuine dispute that all statutory and Declaration requirements were met.

Peshek’s response did not create a triable factual issue. The court said he asserted possible irregularities in petition signatures, notice, and the opportunity to be heard, but offered no admissible or reliable evidence to support those claims or counter the defendants’ showing. It also held that even if Jensen initiated the recall or had an improper motive, that did not matter because the governing law required only proper procedure, which was followed.

The court also rejected good-faith-and-fair-dealing and tortious-interference theories. Under the Declaration, Peshek had rights such as undisturbed property use, common-area maintenance, and enforcement of behaviors affecting value, but he had no contractual right to be on the board. The court found no supported damages from removal from an uncompensated board position and no admissible evidence that defendants caused him to lose expected benefits under the Declaration. Summary judgment was granted in full.

Video overview of the ruling

An AI-generated video overview of Robert Peshek v. Anasazi Village Condominiums Homeowners Association, Inc. (CV2017-056168 (Maricopa County Superior Court)). Condo board recall upheld where the association followed A.R.S. § 33-1243(H) and the Declaration. This plain-language summary was generated from the court’s filings; the court’s own ruling controls.

Listen: audio deep dive on the ruling

An AI-generated audio deep dive walking through the court’s reasoning and disposition in Robert Peshek v. Anasazi Village Condominiums Homeowners Association, Inc.. Generated from the case filings; verify against the linked ruling below.

Audio overview generated with Google NotebookLM from the case’s court filings.

Procedural timeline

Step 2017-12-20 The court transfers the case to compulsory arbitration.

Step 2018-04-13 A telephonic status conference is held on Peshek’s Rule 56(d) request related to summary judgment.

Step 2018-05-17 The court sets oral argument on defendants’ January 31, 2018 motion for summary judgment.

Step 2018-06-26 The court waives compulsory arbitration by stipulation and refers the case for a mandatory settlement conference.

Step 2018-08-16 The court grants the parties’ emergency stipulation allowing telephonic appearance at the summary-judgment oral argument.

Step 2018-08-17 Oral argument is held on defendants’ summary-judgment motion; Peshek appears by counsel, defendants appear by counsel, and the matter is taken under advisement.

Step 2018-08-20 The court grants summary judgment in full to Anasazi, Jensen, and AAM on all claims.

Complete uploaded source-document index

This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/peshek-v-anasazi-village-condominiums-homeowners-association/raw/: 13 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.

Source 1 2017-12-20

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2017-12-20_001_ruling.pdf

Source 2 2018-01-16

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2018-01-16_002_ruling.pdf

Source 3 2018-01-16

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2018-01-16_003_ruling.pdf

Source 4 2018-02-20

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2018-02-20_004_ruling.pdf

Source 5 2018-04-05

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2018-04-05_005_ruling.pdf

Source 6 2018-04-11

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2018-04-11_006_ruling.pdf

Source 7 2018-04-13

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2018-04-13_007_ruling.pdf

Source 8 2018-04-13

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2018-04-13_008_status-conference.pdf

Source 9 2018-05-17

Oral Argument Set

Type: Court/source PDF

Oral-argument setting order placing defendants’ summary-judgment motion for hearing after briefing on the motion was complete.

Download source file

2018-05-17_009_oral-argument-set.pdf

Source 10 2018-06-26

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling waiving compulsory arbitration by stipulation and referring the matter to a mandatory settlement conference.

Download source file

2018-06-26_010_ruling.pdf

Source 11 2018-08-16

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling granting the parties’ emergency stipulation allowing telephonic appearance at the August 17, 2018 summary-judgment oral argument.

Download source file

2018-08-16_011_ruling.pdf

Source 12 2018-08-17

Under Advisement Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Oral-argument minute entry taking defendants’ summary-judgment motion under advisement after argument from Peshek’s counsel and defense counsel.

Download source file

2018-08-17_012_under-advisement-ruling.pdf

Source 13 2018-08-20

Under Advisement Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Under-advisement ruling granting summary judgment in its entirety to Anasazi, Paul Jensen, and AAM on all claims arising from Peshek’s removal from the board.

Download source file

2018-08-20_013_under-advisement-ruling.pdf

FAQ

What statute did the court apply to the board recall?

The court applied A.R.S. § 33-1243(H), the condominium statute governing removal of board members by unit owners. The ruling quoted the provisions for petition threshold, special meeting notice, quorum, and majority vote.

Why did the recall procedure survive summary judgment?

The defendants showed that a homeowner submitted a petition, AAM assessed more than 100 signers, written notice and ballots were sent, Peshek received notice and voted, a quorum was present, members could be heard, and more than 50% of eligible voters under the quorum voted to remove him. Peshek did not provide admissible evidence creating a genuine dispute on those facts.

Did the court require cause to remove a board member?

No. The court found that both A.R.S. § 33-1243(H) and the Declaration allowed a board member to be removed with or without cause. Even a claimed improper motive by another board member was not material if the required procedure was followed.

Was serving on the board treated as a contractual right?

No. The court held that the Declaration gave Peshek rights such as property use and common-area maintenance, but did not give him a contractual right to serve on the board.

What happened to the good-faith and tortious-interference claims?

They failed on summary judgment. The court found no material fact showing that removal from the board denied Peshek benefits under the Declaration, no supported improper interference, and no supported damages from losing an uncompensated board position.

Is this ruling precedential?

No. It is a Maricopa County Superior Court ruling, so it binds only the parties. It is still useful as an example of how one trial court analyzed a condominium board recall under A.R.S. § 33-1243(H) and a declaration.

Case Dossier

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	CV2017-056168 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	August 20, 2018
Judge / panel	Hon. Bruce R. Cohen, Hon. Susan M. Brnovich
Parties	Robert Peshek (Plaintiff, former board member) v. Anasazi Village Condominiums Homeowners Association, Inc., Paul Jensen, and AAM, LLC (Defendants)
Governing law	A.R.S. § 33-1243(H)
Topics	Board GovernanceElectionsCC&RsGood Faith & Fair Dealing
Outcome / holding	The superior court granted summary judgment to Anasazi, Paul Jensen, and AAM on all claims, holding that Peshek’s removal from the condominium association board complied with A.R.S. § 33-1243(H) and the Declaration, that a board seat was not a contractual right under the Declaration, and that Peshek did not present admissible evidence creating a triable issue on breach of contract, good faith and fair dealing, or tortious interference.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	13 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	7 roadmap entries
Video overview	Robert Peshek v. Anasazi Village Condominiums Homeowners Association, Inc.
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

Robert Peshek, a former Anasazi Village board member, sued Anasazi Village Condominiums Homeowners Association, Paul Jensen, and AAM, LLC after homeowners removed him from the board at a May 25, 2016 special meeting. The court granted the defendants summary judgment on every claim. It found that a homeowner submitted a recall petition to AAM’s representative, the board called and noticed a special meeting, Peshek received the notice and absentee ballot, Peshek voted against his removal, a quorum was present, members had an opportunity to be heard, and more than 50% of eligible voters under the quorum voted to remove him. The court held that the procedure complied with A.R.S. § 33-1243(H) and the condominium Declaration, that the Declaration did not give Peshek a contractual right to stay on the board, and that he produced no admissible evidence of irregularities, breach, tortious interference, or damages.

Key Issues & Findings

The court began with the recall process. It found that Michael McGrane submitted a recall petition to AAM representative Wayne Yurk on or about May 2, 2016, that Yurk assessed more than 100 signatures, and that the board called a special meeting. A May 9 letter to all homeowners gave the meeting date, location, time, and subject matter and included an absentee ballot. Peshek actually received the notice and ballot before the meeting, returned a ballot voting against his own removal, and did not appear at the May 25 meeting. The court found that a quorum existed, members had an equal opportunity to be heard, and more than 50% of eligible voters under the quorum voted to remove him.

On the governing law, the court quoted and applied A.R.S. § 33-1243(H), including the requirements for a petition, notice, special meeting timing, quorum, and majority vote. It also found that the Declaration allowed a board member to be removed with or without cause and incorporated the statute’s removal procedure. Because the defendants had shown compliance with both the statute and Declaration, the burden shifted to Peshek to produce evidence of a genuine factual dispute. The court found he had not done so: he raised alleged irregularities about petition signatures, notice, and the opportunity to be heard, but offered no admissible or reliable evidence to counter the defendants’ showing.

The remaining claims failed for the same reason. The court found no material issue showing breach of contract by Jensen or the association; even if Jensen had initiated the recall for an improper motive, the statute and Declaration required only that the proper procedure be followed. The good-faith-and-fair-dealing claim failed because the Declaration gave Peshek rights such as property use and common-area maintenance, but not a contractual right to serve on the board. The tortious-interference claim failed because the defendants showed no breach, no improper interference, and no supported damages from removal from an uncompensated board position.

Why It Matters

This is a useful Arizona condominium governance ruling because it applies the board-removal provisions of A.R.S. § 33-1243(H) to a contested recall. The court treated procedure as the decisive issue: petition threshold, written notice, special meeting, quorum, opportunity to be heard, and majority vote. It did not require cause for removal because both the statute and the Declaration allowed removal with or without cause.

The ruling also shows the limits of turning a board recall into damages litigation. A homeowner may disagree with recall politics or suspect bad motives, but at summary judgment the homeowner must produce admissible evidence of a procedural violation, breach, improper interference, and damages. Here the court held that service on the board was not a contractual right and was not compensated, so removal from the board did not itself show loss of benefits under the Declaration. As a superior-court decision it binds only the parties and is not precedent.

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Lakewood Community Association v. Stephen Edwards: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide

Posted on July 2, 2026 by [email protected]

Procedure | CC&Rs | Vexatious-litigant findings | CV2017-003266

A Lakewood CC&R wall dispute produced years of follow-on litigation. The superior court dismissed Stephen Edwards’s counterclaims against the association, later recommended prefiling restrictions under A.R.S. § 12-3201, and left Lakewood’s fee and lien enforcement largely intact.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: The Lakewood Community Association v. Stephen S. Edwards et al., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2017-003266.

Download vexatious-litigant ruling

Scope note: This page covers The Lakewood Community Association v. Stephen S. Edwards et al. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2017-003266) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, especially the January 4, 2018 under-advisement ruling dismissing counterclaims, the December 12, 2018 vexatious-litigant recommendation, and the later fee, lien, motion-to-quash, and dismissal rulings; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the last collected minute entry is the October 4, 2019 order dismissing any unadjudicated claims and parties without prejudice for lack of prosecution. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

Once an HOA dispute has already produced a judgment, repeated collateral attacks and unsupported filings can become the main legal issue. Here the superior court dismissed Edwards’s counterclaims against Lakewood and others, denied his summary-judgment request, later recommended vexatious-litigant restrictions under A.R.S. § 12-3201, awarded Lakewood additional fees and costs, rejected a motion to extinguish the lien, and denied a motion to quash because Edwards had not made timely objections or sought a stay.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

The Lakewood Community Association (Plaintiff / Counterdefendant)
Homeowners association that brought the enforcement action, obtained dismissal of Edwards’s counterclaims, moved for vexatious-litigant relief, and later received additional attorneys’ fees and costs.
Quinten T. Cupps (Counsel / Third-party defendant)
Listed in the case-party data as counsel for Lakewood and later as a counterclaim or third-party target; his September 2018 summary-judgment motion was granted.
David Lunn (Counterdefendant)
Lakewood-related counterdefendant who joined Lakewood in the vexatious-litigant motion and related discovery-limit requests.
Michael R. Perry (Counsel)
Counsel listed in minute entries for David Lunn and present for Lakewood/Lunn at the September 28, 2018 evidentiary hearing.
John L. Condrey (Counsel)
Counsel listed for Quinten Cupps in the minute entries.

Respondent Side

Stephen S. Edwards (Defendant / Counterclaimant)
Self-represented litigant whose counterclaims and repeated motions were mostly denied or dismissed; the December 2018 ruling recommended that he and entities he solely owned or controlled be subject to prior-leave filing restrictions.
Property-holding LLC (Defendant)
LLC described in the December 2018 findings as owning Edwards’s residence; exact residential-address naming is omitted here for privacy.

Neutral Parties

Hon. Hugh Hegyi (Judge)
Judge who issued the January 2018 under-advisement ruling and the December 2018 vexatious-litigant recommendation.
Hon. Colleen L. French (Judge)
Judge who entered later rulings on fees, reconsideration, new trial, and the motion to extinguish lien.
Hon. Danielle J. Viola (Judge)
Judge who denied the 2019 motion to quash and dismissed remaining unadjudicated claims and parties for lack of prosecution.

What happened

Lakewood Community Association filed this Maricopa County Superior Court case in 2017. The December 12, 2018 findings explain the background: in a 2014 Lakewood case, the association had brought an action to require removal of a wall that the court found violated the community’s conditions, covenants, and restrictions. A permanent injunction ordered removal and awarded the association its fees and costs. The current case was described in the same findings as an action to enforce orders entered in that earlier case.

Stephen Edwards responded with counterclaims and cross-claims against Lakewood, attorney Quinten Cupps, association members, neighbors, and others. The January 4, 2018 under-advisement ruling resolved many of those claims. The court granted Lakewood’s motion to dismiss Edwards’s counter-complaint, relying on Lakewood’s res judicata and immunity arguments and on a prior 2016 order in another Edwards v. Lakewood case. It also denied Edwards’s own motion for summary judgment, finding it unsupported by evidence and legally insufficient.

The court then turned to the litigation conduct itself. Lakewood and David Lunn were granted permission to file a vexatious-litigant motion, and the court set an evidentiary hearing. The May 24, 2018 status-conference ruling limited discovery to that issue and denied requests for Lakewood billing records, board-member depositions, and videotaped interviews. At the September 28, 2018 evidentiary hearing, the court received Lakewood and Lunn’s exhibits and evidence, noted that Edwards had not appeared despite notice, and took proposed findings under advisement.

Judge Hegyi’s December 12, 2018 minute entry applied A.R.S. § 12-3201. The court found that Edwards had been a party to forty-one civil cases in Maricopa County Superior Court, that the court’s record did not show a single successful claim among the adjudicated matters, and that the Lakewood-related filings arose from the earlier CC&R-wall dispute. The court concluded that Edwards had consistently filed or defended actions for harassment, repeatedly sought relief already denied, advanced claims without substantial justification, and expanded or delayed proceedings.

The court recommended that Edwards, plus entities he solely owned or controlled, be declared vexatious litigants and be prohibited from filing new pleadings, motions, or other documents without prior leave. Later rulings denied reconsideration and new-trial requests, granted Lakewood $12,406.00 in additional attorneys’ fees and $71.64 in costs, denied Edwards’s motion to extinguish the lien, and denied his July 2019 motion to quash after finding he had not objected to the proposed judgment form or sought a stay. On October 4, 2019, Judge Viola dismissed any remaining unadjudicated claims and parties without prejudice for lack of prosecution.

Video overview of the ruling

An AI-generated video overview of The Lakewood Community Association v. Stephen S. Edwards et al. (CV2017-003266 (Maricopa County Superior Court)). Court recommended vexatious-litigant limits after repeated filings from a CC&R wall dispute. This plain-language summary was generated from the court’s filings; the court’s own ruling controls.

Listen: audio deep dive on the ruling

An AI-generated audio deep dive walking through the court’s reasoning and disposition in The Lakewood Community Association v. Stephen S. Edwards et al.. Generated from the case filings; verify against the linked ruling below.

Audio overview generated with Google NotebookLM from the case’s court filings.

Procedural timeline

Step 2017-06-30 The court denies Lakewood’s motion for alternative service because it did not show that serving Edwards would properly serve the property-holding LLC.

Step 2017-08-29 The court orders that no party may file a new motion without leave because multiple motions are already pending.

Step 2018-01-04 Under-advisement ruling: Lakewood’s motion to dismiss Edwards’s counter-complaint is granted, Edwards’s summary-judgment motion is denied, and multiple related motions are resolved.

Step 2018-02-23 The court allows Lakewood and David Lunn to file a motion to declare Edwards a vexatious litigant, while denying permission for an overlength motion.

Step 2018-05-22 Oral argument results in a one-day evidentiary hearing being set on the vexatious-litigant motion.

Step 2018-05-24 The court limits discovery for the vexatious-litigant hearing and denies Edwards’s requests for billing records, board-member depositions, and videotaped interviews.

Step 2018-09-17 The court grants Quinten Cupps’s summary-judgment motion and request for judicial notice.

Step 2018-09-28 Evidentiary hearing: Lakewood and David Lunn present exhibits and evidence; Edwards does not appear; proposed findings are due by October 12.

Step 2018-12-12 The court recommends that Edwards and entities he solely owned or controlled be declared vexatious litigants under A.R.S. § 12-3201.

Step 2019-01-02 The court grants Lakewood’s fee application and awards $12,406.00 in attorneys’ fees and $71.64 in costs in addition to amounts previously awarded.

Step 2019-02-12 The court denies Edwards’s motion to extinguish lien.

Step 2019-08-09 The court denies Edwards’s motion to quash, finding he waived objections related to the judgment and sheriff’s sale by not objecting or seeking a stay.

Step 2019-10-04 The court dismisses any unadjudicated claims and parties without prejudice for lack of prosecution.

Complete uploaded source-document index

This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/lakewood-community-association-v-property-holding-llc/raw/: 63 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.

Source 1 2017-06-01

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2017-06-01_001_ruling.pdf

Source 2 2017-06-09

Default Judgment

Type: Decision or judgment

Shows the filer trying to move the case forward because the opposing party had not timely appeared.

Download source file

2017-06-09_002_default-judgment.pdf

Source 3 2017-06-30

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Lakewood’s motion for alternative service because it did not provide evidence that service on Edwards would constitute proper service on the property-holding LLC.

Download source file

2017-06-30_003_ruling.pdf

Source 4 2017-07-31

Oral Argument Set

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2017-07-31_004_oral-argument-set.pdf

Source 5 2017-08-23

Oral Argument Set

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2017-08-23_005_oral-argument-set.pdf

Source 6 2017-08-23

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2017-08-23_006_ruling.pdf

Source 7 2017-08-24

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2017-08-24_007_ruling.pdf

Source 8 2017-08-25

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2017-08-25_008_ruling.pdf

Source 9 2017-08-29

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling prohibiting any party from filing a new motion without leave of court after the docket accumulated multiple pending motions.

Download source file

2017-08-29_009_ruling.pdf

Source 10 2017-09-15

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s emergency motion to vacate oral argument because he raised merits arguments rather than valid cause to vacate the hearing.

Download source file

2017-09-15_010_ruling.pdf

Source 11 2017-09-22

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2017-09-22_011_ruling.pdf

Source 12 2017-10-27

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2017-10-27_012_oral-argument.pdf

Source 13 2017-10-31

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s motion seeking prosecution of attorney Quinten Cupps for alleged misconduct because good cause did not appear.

Download source file

2017-10-31_013_ruling.pdf

Source 14 2017-11-28

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling striking several combined pleadings without prejudice and ordering parties not to combine multiple pleadings in one document.

Download source file

2017-11-28_014_ruling.pdf

Source 15 2017-11-29

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s emergency telephonic-conference request because good cause did not appear.

Download source file

2017-11-29_015_ruling.pdf

Source 16 2017-12-01

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Status-conference minute entry granting dismissal of the FedEx third-party complaint, allowing refiling of previously stricken motions, and directing any vexatious-litigant motion to the applicable administrative orders.

Download source file

2017-12-01_016_oral-argument.pdf

Source 17 2017-12-21

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s renewed Rule 12(f) motion and warning again that the court would not consider multiple motions combined in a single document.

Download source file

2017-12-21_017_ruling.pdf

Source 18 2018-01-04

Under Advisement Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Under-advisement ruling granting Lakewood’s motion to dismiss Edwards’s counter-complaint, denying Edwards’s summary-judgment motion, denying consolidation with the closed 2014 case, and resolving multiple related dismissal and discovery motions.

Download source file

2018-01-04_018_under-advisement-ruling.pdf

Source 19 2018-01-17

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s motions for expedited judgment, to strike Lakewood’s pleadings, and to pursue alleged misconduct by attorney Quinten Cupps.

Download source file

2018-01-17_019_ruling.pdf

Source 20 2018-01-24

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s motion to vacate the January 4, 2018 under-advisement ruling.

Download source file

2018-01-24_020_ruling.pdf

Source 21 2018-02-21

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s amended motion to strike Lakewood’s pleadings and his request for judgment against Lakewood, association members, and Quinten Cupps.

Download source file

2018-02-21_021_ruling.pdf

Source 22 2018-02-22

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s motion to dismiss Lakewood’s complaint after Lakewood responded and no reply was received.

Download source file

2018-02-22_022_ruling.pdf

Source 23 2018-02-23

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Lakewood and David Lunn’s page-limit request but allowing a simple list of actions and motions to be attached to a vexatious-litigant motion.

Download source file

2018-02-23_023_ruling.pdf

Source 24 2018-02-23

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling granting Lakewood and David Lunn permission to file a motion to declare Edwards a vexatious litigant while denying permission to file an overlength motion.

Download source file

2018-02-23_024_ruling.pdf

Source 25 2018-03-14

Default Judgment

Type: Decision or judgment

Shows the filer trying to move the case forward because the opposing party had not timely appeared.

Download source file

2018-03-14_025_default-judgment.pdf

Source 26 2018-04-17

Default Judgment

Type: Decision or judgment

Shows the filer trying to move the case forward because the opposing party had not timely appeared.

Download source file

2018-04-17_026_default-judgment.pdf

Source 27 2018-05-08

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s notice of change of judge as a matter of right.

Download source file

2018-05-08_027_ruling.pdf

Source 28 2018-05-11

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling striking two filings that improperly combined multiple motions and allowing Edwards to file a new response to Lakewood’s fee application.

Download source file

2018-05-11_028_ruling.pdf

Source 29 2018-05-14

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2018-05-14_029_oral-argument.pdf

Source 30 2018-05-14

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2018-05-14_030_ruling.pdf

Source 31 2018-05-22

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Oral-argument minute entry setting a one-day evidentiary hearing on Lakewood and David Lunn’s motion to declare Edwards a vexatious litigant.

Download source file

2018-05-22_031_oral-argument.pdf

Source 32 2018-05-24

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Status-conference ruling limiting discovery for the vexatious-litigant evidentiary hearing and denying Edwards’s requests for billing records, board-member depositions, and videotaped interviews.

Download source file

2018-05-24_032_status-conference.pdf

Source 33 2018-05-31

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2018-05-31_033_ruling.pdf

Source 34 2018-06-01

Judgment Entered

Type: Decision or judgment

Ruling denying the property-holding LLC’s motion to vacate because Edwards had no standing, no judgment had been entered against him or the LLC by that court, and Edwards could not represent the LLC as a nonlawyer.

Download source file

2018-06-01_034_judgment-entered.pdf

Source 35 2018-06-25

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Status-conference ruling denying Edwards’s telephonic-appearance and continuance requests while allowing reasonable disability accommodations other than telephonic appearance.

Download source file

2018-06-25_035_status-conference.pdf

Source 36 2018-07-03

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s request for expedited consideration of a special-action motion to compel testimony and continue the vexatious-litigant hearing.

Download source file

2018-07-03_036_ruling.pdf

Source 37 2018-07-11

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2018-07-11_037_ruling.pdf

Source 38 2018-07-27

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s motion for sanctions because good cause did not appear.

Download source file

2018-07-27_038_ruling.pdf

Source 39 2018-08-15

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s motion to compel Cupps’s testimony and continue the vexatious-litigant hearing for failure to comply with Rule 7.1(a) and the discovery prerequisites.

Download source file

2018-08-15_039_ruling.pdf

Source 40 2018-08-15

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s sanctions request for lack of good cause and failure to comply with Rule 7.1(a).

Download source file

2018-08-15_040_ruling.pdf

Source 41 2018-09-11

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s motion to reconsider without prejudice because the court did not understand the requested relief or reasons for it.

Download source file

2018-09-11_041_ruling.pdf

Source 42 2018-09-17

Judgment Entered

Type: Decision or judgment

Ruling granting Quinten Cupps’s motion for summary judgment and request for judicial notice after no discernible response was filed.

Download source file

2018-09-17_042_judgment-entered.pdf

Source 43 2018-09-17

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Quinten Cupps’s motion for summary disposition of his summary-judgment motion.

Download source file

2018-09-17_043_ruling.pdf

Source 44 2018-09-25

Default Judgment

Type: Decision or judgment

Civil presiding-judge ruling denying Edwards’s request for a change of judge and taking no further action on his special-action pleading.

Download source file

2018-09-25_044_default-judgment.pdf

Source 45 2018-09-28

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Evidentiary-hearing minute entry receiving Lakewood and David Lunn’s evidence on the vexatious-litigant motion, denying Edwards’s same-day telephonic request, and taking findings under advisement.

Download source file

2018-09-28_045_ruling.pdf

Source 46 2018-11-14

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying as unnecessary Lakewood, David Lunn, and Quinten Cupps’s motions to strike Edwards’s notice of appeal because the evidentiary hearing had already occurred.

Download source file

2018-11-14_046_ruling.pdf

Source 47 2018-11-27

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying without prejudice Edwards’s special-action motion to strike responses, vacate the vexatious-litigant hearing, seek sanctions, and quash the Lakewood judgment because the court did not understand the requested relief or reasons.

Download source file

2018-11-27_047_ruling.pdf

Source 48 2018-11-28

Under Advisement Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2018-11-28_048_under-advisement-ruling.pdf

Source 49 2018-11-28

Judgment Entered

Type: Decision or judgment

Decision document; read it to understand the controlling result before moving to later filings.

Download source file

2018-11-28_049_judgment-entered.pdf

Source 50 2018-11-29

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Civil presiding-judge ruling denying Edwards’s Rule 42.2 change-of-judge request and returning the case to Judge Hegyi.

Download source file

2018-11-29_050_ruling.pdf

Source 51 2018-11-29

Judgment Entered

Type: Decision or judgment

Ruling denying Edwards’s motion to strike for failure to state legal authority for the requested relief under Rule 7.1(a).

Download source file

2018-11-29_051_judgment-entered.pdf

Source 52 2018-12-12

Under Advisement Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Under-advisement ruling recommending that Edwards and entities he solely owned or controlled be declared vexatious litigants and be required to obtain prior leave before filing new papers.

Download source file

2018-12-12_052_under-advisement-ruling.pdf

Source 53 2018-12-17

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s request to change venue to Pima County on the merits and for failure to properly serve the motion.

Download source file

2018-12-17_053_ruling.pdf

Source 54 2018-12-29

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s special-action motion for change of venue or reassignment because good cause did not appear.

Download source file

2018-12-29_054_ruling.pdf

Source 55 2018-12-31

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s motion to strike because good cause did not appear.

Download source file

2018-12-31_055_ruling.pdf

Source 56 2019-01-02

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling granting Lakewood’s fee application and awarding $12,406.00 in attorneys’ fees and $71.64 in costs in addition to amounts previously awarded.

Download source file

2019-01-02_056_ruling.pdf

Source 57 2019-01-07

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s request to reconsider the December 12, 2018 vexatious-litigant recommendation.

Download source file

2019-01-07_057_ruling.pdf

Source 58 2019-02-06

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s Rule 59 motion for new trial.

Download source file

2019-02-06_058_ruling.pdf

Source 59 2019-02-12

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Edwards’s motion to extinguish lien after considering Lakewood’s response and treating Edwards’s sanctions motion as his reply.

Download source file

2019-02-12_059_ruling.pdf

Source 60 2019-06-13

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Minute entry identifying motions filed during the appeal stay and explaining that no action was taken because the appeal had been filed and no further relief was requested during the revested-jurisdiction period.

Download source file

2019-06-13_060_minute-entry.pdf

Source 61 2019-07-19

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling granting counsel’s application for leave to file pleadings and motions for Edwards without altering existing vexatious-litigant administrative-order requirements.

Download source file

2019-07-19_061_ruling.pdf

Source 62 2019-08-09

Judgment Entered

Type: Decision or judgment

Ruling denying Edwards’s motion to quash because he had not objected to the proposed judgment form, had not sought a stay, and waived his objection to the judgment resulting in the sheriff’s sale.

Download source file

2019-08-09_062_judgment-entered.pdf

Source 63 2019-10-04

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling dismissing any unadjudicated claims and parties without prejudice for lack of prosecution after no required action was taken by the dismissal-calendar deadline.

Download source file

2019-10-04_063_ruling.pdf

FAQ

Did this case decide a new HOA covenant rule?

No. The December 2018 ruling describes the earlier Lakewood case as involving a wall built in violation of the community’s CC&Rs, but this 2017 case mainly resolved counterclaims, repeated motions, vexatious-litigant findings, fee issues, and lien-related enforcement. It is therefore marked standard, not must-read.

What happened to Edwards’s counterclaims against Lakewood?

The January 4, 2018 under-advisement ruling granted Lakewood’s motion to dismiss the counter-complaint. The court relied on the reasons in Lakewood’s motion and reply, including res judicata and immunity arguments, and also treated Edwards’s failure to respond directly to those arguments as consent to granting the motion.

Why did the court recommend a vexatious-litigant designation?

The court applied A.R.S. § 12-3201 and found a pattern of filings made for harassment, repeated requests for relief already denied, claims and defenses without substantial justification, and conduct that expanded or delayed proceedings. The recommendation applied to Edwards and entities he solely owned or controlled.

Did Lakewood receive attorneys’ fees?

Yes. On January 2, 2019, the court granted Lakewood’s fee application and awarded $12,406.00 in attorneys’ fees plus $71.64 in costs, in addition to amounts previously awarded in the matter.

What happened to the lien and sheriff-sale challenge?

The court denied the motion to extinguish lien on February 12, 2019. On August 9, 2019, it denied Edwards’s motion to quash, finding he did not object to the proposed judgment form, did not seek a stay, and waived the relevant objection to the validity of the judgment resulting in the sheriff’s sale.

How did the case end in the collected record?

The last collected minute entry is dated October 4, 2019. It states that, under the court’s earlier dismissal-calendar order, any remaining unadjudicated claims and parties were dismissed without prejudice for lack of prosecution.

Case Dossier

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	CV2017-003266 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	December 12, 2018
Judge / panel	Hon. Hugh Hegyi, Hon. Colleen L. French, Hon. Danielle J. Viola
Parties	The Lakewood Community Association (Plaintiff / Cross-defendant) v. Stephen S. Edwards, a property-holding LLC, and other defendants and counterclaim parties
Governing law	A.R.S. § 12-3201
Topics	ProcedureCC&RsCovenantsLiensAttorney Fees
Outcome / holding	The superior court dismissed Edwards’s counterclaims against Lakewood and others, denied his summary-judgment and repeated procedural motions, recommended a vexatious-litigant designation under A.R.S. § 12-3201 after finding a pattern of harassment, repetitive filings, meritless claims, and delay, and later left Lakewood’s fee award and lien-related enforcement in place.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	63 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	13 roadmap entries
Video overview	The Lakewood Community Association v. Stephen S. Edwards et al.
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

Lakewood Community Association sued to enforce orders from an earlier community-association case involving a wall that the court said violated the community’s covenants, conditions, and restrictions. Stephen S. Edwards responded with counterclaims and cross-claims against the association, its attorney Quinten Cupps, a board member, neighbors, and others. In January 2018, Judge Hugh Hegyi granted the association’s motion to dismiss Edwards’s counter-complaint, denied Edwards’s summary-judgment request, and dismissed multiple claims or parties while allowing a fraud claim against Cupps to continue at that stage. After a later evidentiary hearing, the court entered detailed findings under A.R.S. § 12-3201 and recommended that Edwards and entities he owned or controlled be treated as vexatious litigants who could not file new papers without prior leave. The court later awarded Lakewood additional attorneys’ fees and costs, denied Edwards’s motion to extinguish the lien, denied his motion to quash after finding he waived objections tied to the sheriff’s sale, and dismissed remaining unadjudicated claims for lack of prosecution.

Key Issues & Findings

In the January 4, 2018 under-advisement ruling, the court held that Lakewood’s motion to dismiss Edwards’s counter-complaint should be granted for the reasons stated in Lakewood’s motion and reply, including res judicata, absolute-immunity arguments, and the prior 2016 order in an Edwards v. Lakewood case directing him to stop filing repetitious complaints. The court also treated Edwards’s failure to respond specifically to Lakewood’s arguments as consent to granting the motion. The same ruling denied Edwards’s motion for summary judgment because it was unsupported by evidence and failed as a matter of law, while dismissing or narrowing claims against several other counterclaim defendants.

The December 12, 2018 minute entry applied A.R.S. § 12-3201. Judge Hegyi found that Lakewood’s 2014 case had sought removal of a wall built in violation of the community’s CC&Rs, that the resulting injunction and fee award led to repeated later filings, and that the present case included claims against Lakewood, Cupps, association members, and others related to that original litigation. The court found a history of unsuccessful and repetitive litigation, a pattern of using filings to harass and increase opponents’ costs, and conduct meeting the statute’s categories for vexatious conduct.

The court therefore recommended that the civil presiding judge declare Edwards a vexatious litigant and require prior leave before he or entities he solely owned or controlled could file new papers. Follow-on rulings awarded Lakewood $12,406.00 in attorneys’ fees and $71.64 in costs in addition to amounts previously awarded, denied a motion to extinguish the lien, and denied a motion to quash after concluding Edwards had not objected to the proposed judgment form or sought a stay and had waived the relevant objection.

Why It Matters

This case is useful for homeowners and associations because it shows how an HOA dispute can become mostly procedural after the merits are already decided. The court’s December 2018 findings did not create new CC&R law; instead, they used a prior CC&R-wall injunction, repeated related litigation, and ongoing filings as the factual setting for a vexatious-litigant recommendation under A.R.S. § 12-3201.

For associations, the ruling illustrates the kind of record a court may examine when an association seeks filing restrictions against a self-represented litigant: prior related cases, repeated requests for the same relief, litigation conduct that expands proceedings, and evidence offered at a noticed hearing. For homeowners, it is a warning that collateral attacks and unsupported motions can create fee, lien, and prefiling-order consequences even when the underlying HOA dispute began as a covenant-enforcement fight. As a superior-court ruling, it binds only the parties and is not precedent.

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Empire West Title Agency LLC v. Charles Hoskins: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide

Posted on July 2, 2026 by [email protected]

Liens & Trustee-Sale Proceeds | A.R.S. § 33-812(g) | CV2011-053961

In this Maricopa County Superior Court proceeding, two homeowners associations and American Savings Life Insurance Company competed for release of proceeds. The court ordered specific payments to Westwind Homeowners Association and Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association before the remaining balance went to American Savings.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Empire West Title Agency LLC v. Charles Hoskins, Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2011-053961.

Download proceeds ruling

Scope note: This page covers Empire West Title Agency LLC v. Charles Hoskins (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2011-053961) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s filed minute entries, including the September 19, 2011 hearing-setting entry and the September 22, 2011 proceeds ruling; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the collected entries end with the September 22, 2011 order distributing proceeds. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

The court resolved competing applications for release of proceeds by ordering payment first to Westwind Homeowners Association, second to Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association, and then the remaining balance to American Savings Life Insurance Company. The ruling is narrow and procedural; it does not announce a broad HOA lien rule.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

Empire West Title Agency LLC (Plaintiff)
Title agency plaintiff listed in the case caption and party table.
Westwind Homeowners Association (Claimant)
Homeowners association claimant that applied for release of proceeds and received a $2,206.11 distribution.
Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association (Claimant)
Homeowners association claimant that objected to American Savings’ application, filed its own application, and received a $5,208.97 distribution.
Melissa A. Lovonier (Counsel)
Counsel who appeared for Westwind Homeowners Association and Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association at the September 22, 2011 hearing.

Respondent Side

Charles Hoskins (Defendant)
Defendant listed in the caption and party table; no appearance was made by him at the September 22, 2011 hearing.
American Savings Life Insurance Company (Claimant)
Claimant that applied for release of proceeds and received the remaining balance after the two homeowners-association distributions.
Gove L. Allen (Counsel)
Counsel who appeared for American Savings Life Insurance Company at the September 22, 2011 hearing.

Neutral Parties

Michael R. McVey (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who heard the competing applications and ordered the proceeds distribution.

What happened

Empire West Title Agency LLC filed this Maricopa County Superior Court case against Charles Hoskins. The collected minute entries are limited to competing applications for release of proceeds involving Westwind Homeowners Association, Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association, and American Savings Life Insurance Company.

On September 19, 2011, the court reviewed American Savings’ application for release of proceeds under A.R.S. § 33-812(g), Wigwam Creek’s objection to that application, Wigwam Creek’s own application for release of proceeds, and Westwind’s application for release of proceeds. The court set an in-person hearing for September 22, 2011.

At the September 22 hearing, Melissa A. Lovonier appeared for Wigwam Creek and Westwind, and Gove L. Allen appeared for American Savings. No other parties appeared. The court heard argument on the competing applications and took the matter under advisement.

Later that same minute entry, the court stated that it had considered the applications, oral argument, and Weaver v. Tri City Credit Bureau. It then directed the Maricopa County Treasurer to release $2,206.11 to Westwind Homeowners Association, $5,208.97 to Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association, and the remaining balance to American Savings Life Insurance Company.

The minute entries do not contain broader analysis of HOA assessment liens, CC&Rs, foreclosure priority, or association governance. This page therefore treats the case as a narrow example of homeowners associations participating as claimants in a proceeds-distribution proceeding.

Video overview of the ruling

An AI-generated video overview of Empire West Title Agency LLC v. Charles Hoskins (CV2011-053961 (Maricopa County Superior Court)). Two HOAs received priority distributions from trustee-sale proceeds before the remaining balance went to a lender. This plain-language summary was generated from the court’s filings; the court’s own ruling controls.

Listen: audio deep dive on the ruling

An AI-generated audio deep dive walking through the court’s reasoning and disposition in Empire West Title Agency LLC v. Charles Hoskins. Generated from the case filings; verify against the linked ruling below.

Audio overview generated with Google NotebookLM from the case’s court filings.

Procedural timeline

Step 2011-06-03 Westwind Homeowners Association files an application for release of proceeds.

Step 2011-06-08 American Savings Life Insurance Company files an application for release of proceeds under A.R.S. § 33-812(g).

Step 2011-07-21 Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association files its application for release of proceeds after objecting to American Savings’ application.

Step 2011-09-19 The court sets a September 22 hearing on the competing applications for release of proceeds.

Step 2011-09-22 After argument, the court orders the Maricopa County Treasurer to release $2,206.11 to Westwind, $5,208.97 to Wigwam Creek, and the balance to American Savings.

Complete uploaded source-document index

This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/empire-west-title-agency-v-charles-hoskins/raw/: 2 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.

Source 1 2011-09-19

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2011-09-19_001_minute-entry.pdf

Source 2 2011-09-22

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling directing the Maricopa County Treasurer to release $2,206.11 to Westwind Homeowners Association, $5,208.97 to Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association, and the remaining balance to American Savings Life Insurance Company.

Download source file

2011-09-22_002_ruling.pdf

FAQ

What was this case about?

The collected minute entries show competing applications for release of proceeds under A.R.S. § 33-812(g). Two homeowners associations and American Savings Life Insurance Company each sought money from the proceeds being held by the Maricopa County Treasurer.

Which homeowners associations received money?

Westwind Homeowners Association received $2,206.11, and Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association received $5,208.97.

Who received the remaining balance?

The court ordered the remaining balance paid to American Savings Life Insurance Company after the two homeowners associations received their specified distributions.

Did the court interpret the HOA CC&Rs?

No. The minute entries do not quote or analyze CC&Rs. The ruling resolves the distribution of proceeds among claimants; it does not decide an architectural-review, records, election, governance, or CC&R-interpretation dispute.

Is this a must-read HOA case?

No. It is a standard, narrow proceeds-distribution case. It is useful because it shows homeowners associations appearing as claimants, but the ruling does not provide broad analysis of HOA law.

Is this ruling precedent?

No. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page summarizes the public minute entries for educational use.

Case Dossier

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	CV2011-053961 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	September 22, 2011
Judge / panel	Hon. Michael R. McVey
Parties	Empire West Title Agency LLC (Plaintiff) v. Charles Hoskins (Defendant); Westwind Homeowners Association, Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association, and American Savings Life Insurance Company (Claimants)
Governing law	A.R.S. § 33-812(g)
Topics	LiensForeclosureAssessmentsProcedure
Outcome / holding	The superior court ordered trustee-sale proceeds distributed first to Westwind Homeowners Association in the amount of $2,206.11, second to Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association in the amount of $5,208.97, and then the balance to American Savings Life Insurance Company.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	2 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	5 roadmap entries
Video overview	Empire West Title Agency LLC v. Charles Hoskins
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

Empire West Title Agency LLC filed a Maricopa County Superior Court proceeding involving Charles Hoskins and competing applications for release of proceeds. Westwind Homeowners Association, Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association, and American Savings Life Insurance Company each sought proceeds under A.R.S. § 33-812(g). After a September 22, 2011 hearing, the court considered the applications, oral argument, and Weaver v. Tri City Credit Bureau, then directed the Maricopa County Treasurer to release $2,206.11 to Westwind Homeowners Association first, $5,208.97 to Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association second, and the remaining balance to American Savings Life Insurance Company.

Key Issues & Findings

The court had before it American Savings’ application for release of proceeds under A.R.S. § 33-812(g), Wigwam Creek North Phase 2B Homeowners Association’s objection to that application and its own application, and Westwind Homeowners Association’s application. It set a short in-person hearing on those competing applications and required counsel or parties to appear.

At the September 22, 2011 hearing, counsel appeared for Wigwam Creek and Westwind, and counsel appeared for American Savings. The court heard argument, took the matter under advisement, and later stated that it had considered the applications, the oral argument, and Weaver v. Tri City Credit Bureau. The resulting order gave the two homeowners associations priority distributions in specific dollar amounts before directing the remaining balance to American Savings.

Why It Matters

This is a narrow, routine proceeds-distribution ruling, but it shows homeowners associations participating as claimants in an A.R.S. § 33-812(g) excess-proceeds proceeding. The court did not publish a broad rule about HOA liens or assessment enforcement; it simply resolved the competing applications and ordered specific payments from the Maricopa County Treasurer.

For HOA readers, the practical takeaway is that association claims can appear in trustee-sale surplus litigation alongside lender or insurer claims, and the actual distribution order matters. As a superior-court minute-entry ruling, this binds only the parties and is not precedent.

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Ralph Bianco v. Terravita Country Club, Inc.: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide

Posted on July 2, 2026 by [email protected]

Common Area & Covenants | Terravita | CV2014-053595

In this Maricopa County Superior Court case, residents challenged Terravita Country Club and Terravita Community Association over proposed pickleball use of existing courts and asserted rights in Tract G. The court declined to oversee discussion-stage club decisions but allowed the association-related common-area and covenant-enforcement questions to survive summary judgment.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Ralph Bianco v. Terravita Country Club, Inc., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2014-053595.

Download summary-judgment ruling

Scope note: This page covers Ralph Bianco, et al. v. Terravita Country Club, Inc., et al. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2014-053595) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s filed minute entries, including the March 27, 2015 partial-dismissal ruling, the August 3, 2015 summary-judgment ruling, and the February 25, 2016 settlement/dismissal-calendar entry; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the last collected entry says the court received a notice of settlement, found pending motions moot, and placed the case on the dismissal calendar. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

The court would not oversee a private club’s discussion-stage decisions about proposed pickleball use of existing multi-use courts, but it also refused to grant the Community Association summary judgment where fact issues remained over whether Tract G was common area, whether the plaintiffs had use or voting rights over that area, and whether the association had covenant-enforcement obligations affecting those property rights.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

Ralph Bianco (Plaintiff)
Plaintiff in the Terravita court-use and Tract G dispute.
Wayne Holsinger (Plaintiff)
Plaintiff in the Terravita court-use and Tract G dispute.
Gary Nelson (Plaintiff)
Plaintiff in the Terravita court-use and Tract G dispute.
Erin Selene Iungerich (Counsel)
Counsel appearing for plaintiffs in the 2015 summary-judgment proceedings.
J. Roger Wood (Counsel)
Counsel appearing for plaintiffs at the January and July 2015 oral arguments.

Respondent Side

Terravita Country Club, Inc. (Defendant)
Country Club defendant whose partial motion to dismiss was granted as to several claims in March 2015.
Terravita Community Association, Inc. (Defendant)
Community association defendant whose summary-judgment motion was denied because fact issues remained over Tract G and covenant-enforcement obligations.
Joshua M. Bolen (Counsel)
Counsel appearing for Terravita Country Club, Inc.
Curtis S. Ekmark (Counsel)
Counsel appearing for Terravita Community Association, Inc.

Neutral Parties

Thomas L. LeClaire (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who issued the March 2015 partial-dismissal ruling.
Susan M. Brnovich (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who issued the August 2015 summary-judgment ruling and later scheduling/settlement entries.

What happened

Terravita residents sued Terravita Country Club, Inc. and Terravita Community Association, Inc. over disputes tied to proposed pickleball use of existing multi-use courts and asserted rights in Tract G. The minute entries show plaintiffs pressing claims against both the Country Club and the Community Association.

The first substantive ruling came after oral argument on Terravita Country Club’s partial motion to dismiss. Judge Thomas L. LeClaire granted the motion as to Counts II, IV, V, and VI of the verified first amended complaint. The court reasoned that the complaint was largely premature: the Country Club had not implemented permanent changes to the courts and had only appointed an ad hoc group to study whether pickleball courts should be incorporated with existing multi-use courts.

The court also drew a line around judicial oversight of private-entity decisions. It said the court does not sit as an overseer of private entities and would not adjudicate discussion-stage matters such as amenity details before a permanent action had been taken.

The Community Association did not get the same result on summary judgment. After July 31, 2015 argument, Judge Susan M. Brnovich denied Terravita Community Association’s motion for summary judgment. The court found genuine fact issues over whether Tract G was common area in Terravita Country Club and whether the plaintiffs had use rights over that area.

The August 2015 ruling also tied those factual disputes to association obligations. If plaintiffs had voting rights over changes in Tract G, the court said there was a legitimate question whether Terravita Community Association had an obligation to enforce covenants, conditions, or restrictions affecting their property rights.

Later entries show continued pleading and scheduling activity. The court denied a motion to strike defendants’ answers, denied reconsideration of an under-advisement ruling, granted plaintiffs leave to amend in December 2015, and then in February 2016 found all pending motions moot after receiving a notice of settlement.

Video overview of the ruling

An AI-generated video overview of Ralph Bianco v. Terravita Country Club, Inc. (CV2014-053595 (Maricopa County Superior Court)). Fact issues over Tract G use and covenant enforcement defeated the community association’s summary judgment. This plain-language summary was generated from the court’s filings; the court’s own ruling controls.

Listen: audio deep dive on the ruling

An AI-generated audio deep dive walking through the court’s reasoning and disposition in Ralph Bianco v. Terravita Country Club, Inc.. Generated from the case filings; verify against the linked ruling below.

Audio overview generated with Google NotebookLM from the case’s court filings.

Procedural timeline

Step 2014-07-14 The court grants plaintiffs’ Rule 41 voluntary dismissal of certain individual defendants.

Step 2015-01-27 The court hears oral argument on Terravita Country Club’s partial motion to dismiss and takes the matter under advisement.

Step 2015-03-27 Under-advisement ruling grants defendants’ partial motion to dismiss Counts II, IV, V, and VI as premature because the Country Club had taken no permanent action.

Step 2015-07-31 The court hears argument on Terravita Community Association’s summary-judgment motion and related motions.

Step 2015-08-03 Under-advisement ruling denies Terravita Community Association summary judgment because genuine fact issues remain over Tract G, use rights, voting rights, and covenant enforcement.

Step 2015-08-11 The court denies plaintiffs’ motion to strike defendants’ answers to the verified complaint.

Step 2015-11-12 The court denies plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration of an under-advisement ruling.

Step 2015-12-22 The court grants plaintiffs leave to amend and requires the amended complaint by December 30, 2015.

Step 2016-02-25 After receiving a notice of settlement, the court finds all pending motions moot, places the case on the dismissal calendar, and vacates the pretrial status conference.

Complete uploaded source-document index

This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/bianco-v-terravita-country-club/raw/: 21 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.

Source 1 2014-07-14

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2014-07-14_001_minute-entry.pdf

Source 2 2014-12-16

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2014-12-16_002_minute-entry.pdf

Source 3 2015-01-08

Oral Argument Set

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2015-01-08_003_oral-argument-set.pdf

Source 4 2015-01-27

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2015-01-27_004_oral-argument.pdf

Source 5 2015-03-05

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Order granting plaintiffs’ voluntary withdrawal of the second amended complaint.

Download source file

2015-03-05_005_minute-entry.pdf

Source 6 2015-03-27

Under Advisement Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Under-advisement ruling granting defendants’ partial motion to dismiss Counts II, IV, V, and VI because the Country Club had taken no permanent action and the dispute was premature.

Download source file

2015-03-27_006_under-advisement-ruling.pdf

Source 7 2015-04-21

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2015-04-21_007_minute-entry.pdf

Source 8 2015-04-29

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2015-04-29_008_minute-entry.pdf

Source 9 2015-05-01

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2015-05-01_009_minute-entry.pdf

Source 10 2015-06-30

Oral Argument Set

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2015-06-30_010_oral-argument-set.pdf

Source 11 2015-07-31

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2015-07-31_011_oral-argument.pdf

Source 12 2015-08-03

Under Advisement Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Under-advisement ruling denying Terravita Community Association summary judgment because fact issues remained over Tract G, use rights, voting rights, and covenant-enforcement obligations.

Download source file

2015-08-03_012_under-advisement-ruling.pdf

Source 13 2015-08-11

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying plaintiffs’ motion to strike defendants’ answers to the verified complaint.

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2015-08-11_013_minute-entry.pdf

Source 14 2015-10-19

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2015-10-19_014_minute-entry.pdf

Source 15 2015-10-29

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2015-10-29_015_minute-entry.pdf

Source 16 2015-11-12

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration of the under-advisement ruling.

Download source file

2015-11-12_016_minute-entry.pdf

Source 17 2015-11-17

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2015-11-17_017_status-conference.pdf

Source 18 2015-12-07

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2015-12-07_018_status-conference.pdf

Source 19 2015-12-21

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2015-12-21_019_status-conference.pdf

Source 20 2015-12-22

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Order granting plaintiffs leave to amend and requiring the amended complaint to be filed by December 30, 2015.

Download source file

2015-12-22_020_minute-entry.pdf

Source 21 2016-02-25

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Minute entry finding all pending motions moot after notice of settlement, placing the case on the dismissal calendar, and vacating the pretrial status conference.

Download source file

2016-02-25_021_status-conference.pdf

FAQ

Was this only a country-club case?

No. Terravita Country Club, Inc. was a defendant, but Terravita Community Association, Inc. was also a defendant, and the August 2015 ruling addressed common-area, use-right, voting-right, and covenant-enforcement questions involving the Community Association.

Why were several claims dismissed in March 2015?

The court found those claims largely premature. Terravita Country Club had not made permanent changes to the courts and had only appointed an ad hoc group to study whether pickleball courts should be incorporated with existing multi-use courts.

Why did the Community Association lose summary judgment?

The court found genuine issues of material fact over whether Tract G was common area, whether the plaintiffs had use rights over it, whether they had voting rights over changes to it, and whether the association had an obligation to enforce covenants, conditions, or restrictions affecting those property rights.

Did the court decide who ultimately controlled Tract G?

No. The August 2015 ruling denied summary judgment because fact issues remained. It did not make a final merits determination on Tract G ownership, use rights, voting rights, or covenant-enforcement duties.

How did the case end?

The collected minute entries end with a February 25, 2016 entry stating that the court received a notice of settlement, found all pending motions moot, placed the case on the dismissal calendar, and vacated a pretrial status conference.

Is this ruling precedent?

No. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This case is useful as a factual example of a common-area and covenant-enforcement dispute, but not as a published appellate rule.

Case Dossier

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	CV2014-053595 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	August 3, 2015
Judge / panel	Hon. Thomas L. LeClaire, Hon. Susan M. Brnovich
Parties	Ralph Bianco, Wayne Holsinger, Gary Nelson, Don Foster, Sally Foster, and John Walker (Plaintiffs) v. Terravita Country Club, Inc. and Terravita Community Association, Inc. (Defendants)
Topics	CC&RsCovenantsMembershipBoard GovernanceProcedure
Outcome / holding	The superior court granted Terravita Country Club’s partial motion to dismiss counts challenging discussion-stage club decisions, but later denied Terravita Community Association’s summary-judgment motion because genuine issues of material fact remained over Tract G, plaintiffs’ use and voting rights, and the association’s possible obligation to enforce covenants, conditions, or restrictions affecting those rights.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	21 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	9 roadmap entries
Video overview	Ralph Bianco v. Terravita Country Club, Inc.
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

Terravita members and residents sued Terravita Country Club, Inc. and Terravita Community Association, Inc. over proposed pickleball use of existing multi-use courts and alleged rights in Tract G. In March 2015, the court granted the Country Club’s partial motion to dismiss several counts, reasoning that the club had taken no permanent action and that courts do not sit as overseers of minor private-entity decisions still in discussion. In August 2015, the court denied Terravita Community Association’s summary-judgment motion because fact issues remained over whether Tract G was common area, whether the plaintiffs had use or voting rights over that area, and whether the association had an obligation to enforce covenants, conditions, or restrictions affecting those property rights. Later entries show amended-complaint practice and then a notice of settlement, with pending motions deemed moot and the case placed on the dismissal calendar.

Key Issues & Findings

On the Country Club motion, the court found the complaint largely premature. Terravita Country Club had not implemented permanent changes to the courts and had only appointed an ad hoc group to study whether pickleball courts should be incorporated with existing multi-use courts. The court stated that it does not sit as an overseer of private-entity activities and would not adjudicate discussion-stage decisions about minor club matters.

On the Community Association motion, the court applied the summary-judgment standard and found genuine issues of material fact. The unresolved questions included whether Tract G was common area in Terravita Country Club, whether the plaintiffs had use rights over that area, whether they had voting rights over changes in Tract G, and whether Terravita Community Association had an obligation to enforce covenants, conditions, or restrictions affecting their property rights.

Why It Matters

This case is useful because it separates two recurring HOA-adjacent problems. A private club’s tentative discussion of amenity changes may be too premature for court intervention, especially before any permanent action is taken. But where an association’s common-area, use-rights, voting-rights, or covenant-enforcement obligations are genuinely disputed, summary judgment may be inappropriate.

The ruling is not a final appellate rule. It is a superior-court case that settled later, and the main association ruling denied summary judgment because fact issues remained. That makes it a standard case rather than a must-read merits decision.

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Suzanne Sallus v. Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A.: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide

Posted on July 2, 2026 by [email protected]

Records & Fees | A.R.S. § 12-341.01 | CV2013-004301

In this Maricopa County Superior Court case, a POA document dispute survived an early motion to dismiss but did not produce a merits judgment for the owner. After related litigation and an appeal concluded, the owner moved to dismiss; the court dismissed the case with prejudice and awarded defendants fees and costs under A.R.S. § 12-341.01.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Suzanne Sallus v. Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2013-004301.

Download fee ruling

Scope note: This page covers Suzanne Sallus v. Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2013-004301) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA/POA case guide. It is built from the court’s filed minute entries, including the April 8, 2013 status-conference ruling, the August 15, 2014 under-advisement stay ruling, the July 7, 2016 dismissal entry, and the August 8, 2016 fee ruling; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the collected entries end with the August 8, 2016 fee-and-cost ruling. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

A POA document dispute can become fee-exposed even when it survives an early motion to dismiss. Here, the court denied the association’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion, but after the plaintiff reported receiving the documents at issue, the case was stayed pending related litigation, later dismissed with prejudice, and defendants were awarded $8,185.75 in attorneys’ fees and $351 in costs under A.R.S. § 12-341.01.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

Suzanne Sallus (Plaintiff)
Plaintiff in the POA document dispute. The minute entries show she initially appeared for herself and later appeared through counsel.
James Robert Eckley (Counsel)
Attorney listed for Sallus in the court minutes and party table.
John Duke Harris (Counsel)
Attorney who appeared for Sallus at the July 29, 2014 argument and whose appearance for James Eckley was noted at the July 7, 2016 status conference.

Respondent Side

Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A. (Defendant)
Property owners association defendant that opposed the document-related claims, obtained dismissal with prejudice, and received a fee-and-cost award.
Gary S. Layton (Defendant)
Defendant listed in the case-party table as self-represented.
Guy W. Bluff (Counsel)
Counsel for Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A. in the court minutes and party table.

Neutral Parties

Mark H. Brain (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who handled the early case, denied the motion to dismiss, denied the plaintiff’s judgment-on-the-pleadings motion, and issued the stay ruling.
Roger E. Brodman (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who handled the 2016 status conference, dismissal with prejudice, and fee ruling.

What happened

Suzanne Sallus filed this Maricopa County Superior Court case against Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A. and Gary S. Layton in January 2013. The minute entries identify a document dispute connected to LC2013-000042, which the superior court described as the case that gave rise to this litigation.

The association moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). On March 15, 2013, Judge Mark H. Brain denied the motion because it referred to matters outside the pleadings and because the complaint stated a claim for relief if its material allegations were true.

At an April 8, 2013 telephonic hearing, Sallus told the court she had received the documents at issue. The court denied her motion for entry of judgment on the pleadings, denied her application for fees and verified statement of costs as premature, and stayed the case pending resolution of LC2013-000042.

The case remained tied to that related matter. After status conferences and settlement-conference scheduling, Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A. moved to stay proceedings during the appeal. Judge Brain granted the stay in an August 15, 2014 under-advisement ruling, explaining that the viability of the superior-court case hinged on the related appeal and that a brief trial might be needed to decide whether Sallus received the documents before filing suit.

The case returned to court in June and July 2016 after the court of appeals decision. At the July 7, 2016 status conference, counsel for Sallus orally moved to dismiss the matter with each side bearing its own fees and costs. Counsel for the POA objected. The court dismissed the case with prejudice but reserved the remaining issue of defendants’ attorneys’ fees and costs.

On August 8, 2016, Judge Brodman ruled on the fee request. Applying A.R.S. § 12-341.01 and the Associated Indemnity factors, the court found defendants’ efforts were necessary, defendants prevailed on all relief sought, and the litigation was not reasonable or necessary. It awarded $8,185.75 in attorneys’ fees, $351 in costs, and denied defendants’ motion to strike.

Procedural timeline

Step 2013-01-25 Sallus files the superior-court case against Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A. and Gary S. Layton.

Step 2013-03-15 The court denies the POA’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss because the complaint states a claim if its material allegations are true.

Step 2013-04-08 After Sallus reports that she has received the documents at issue, the court denies her judgment-on-the-pleadings motion, denies her fee application as premature, and stays the case pending LC2013-000042.

Step 2014-01-23 The court discusses case status after the special-action matter and refers the parties to a settlement conference.

Step 2014-07-29 The court hears argument on the POA’s motion to stay proceedings during appeal and takes the motion under advisement.

Step 2014-08-15 Under-advisement ruling grants the POA’s motion to stay proceedings during the appeal in the related case.

Step 2016-06-14 After the court of appeals decision, the court sets a July 2016 status conference to determine the case’s status.

Step 2016-07-07 The court dismisses the case with prejudice by stipulation, leaving defendants’ attorneys’ fees and costs for later determination.

Step 2016-08-08 The court awards defendants $8,185.75 in attorneys’ fees and $351 in costs, and denies defendants’ motion to strike.

Complete uploaded source-document index

This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/sallus-v-sunrise-desert-vistas-poa/raw/: 16 PDFs. Files are ordered by the date/sequence embedded in the normalized filename; AI-generated review materials are labeled separately and should not be treated as court filings.

Source 1 2013-03-15

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Minute entry denying Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A.’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss because the complaint stated a claim if its material allegations were true.

Download source file

2013-03-15_001_minute-entry.pdf

Source 2 2013-03-21

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2013-03-21_002_status-conference.pdf

Source 3 2013-04-08

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling denying Sallus’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and fee application as premature after she reported receiving the documents at issue, and staying the case pending LC2013-000042.

Download source file

2013-04-08_003_ruling.pdf

Source 4 2013-06-04

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2013-06-04_004_minute-entry.pdf

Source 5 2013-10-04

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2013-10-04_005_status-conference.pdf

Source 6 2013-12-11

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2013-12-11_006_status-conference.pdf

Source 7 2014-01-23

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2014-01-23_007_status-conference.pdf

Source 8 2014-03-06

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

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2014-03-06_008_status-conference.pdf

Source 9 2014-04-15

Minute Entry

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2014-04-15_009_minute-entry.pdf

Source 10 2014-07-02

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

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2014-07-02_010_status-conference.pdf

Source 11 2014-07-16

Oral Argument Set

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

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2014-07-16_011_oral-argument-set.pdf

Source 12 2014-07-29

Oral Argument

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

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2014-07-29_012_oral-argument.pdf

Source 13 2014-08-15

Under Advisement Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Under-advisement ruling granting the association’s motion to stay proceedings during the appeal in LC2013-000042 because this case’s viability hinged on that outcome.

Download source file

2014-08-15_013_under-advisement-ruling.pdf

Source 14 2016-06-14

Status Conference

Type: Court/source PDF

Uploaded source file in the case record; read it in sequence with the surrounding filings to follow the procedure.

Download source file

2016-06-14_014_status-conference.pdf

Source 15 2016-07-07

Judgment Entered

Type: Decision or judgment

Minute entry dismissing Sallus’s case with prejudice by stipulation while reserving defendants’ request for attorneys’ fees and costs.

Download source file

2016-07-07_015_judgment-entered.pdf

Source 16 2016-08-08

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling awarding defendants $8,185.75 in attorneys’ fees and $351 in costs and denying defendants’ motion to strike.

Download source file

2016-08-08_016_ruling.pdf

FAQ

Was this a merits ruling on Arizona HOA records statutes?

No. The minute entries identify a dispute over documents, but the court did not issue a broad Title 33 records-access interpretation. It denied early motions, stayed the case pending a related matter, later dismissed the case with prejudice by stipulation, and then decided fees and costs.

Why did the plaintiff not receive judgment on the pleadings?

At the April 8, 2013 hearing, Sallus told the court she had received the documents at issue. The court denied her motion for entry of judgment on the pleadings and denied her fee request as premature, then stayed the superior-court case pending LC2013-000042.

Why was the case stayed?

The August 15, 2014 under-advisement ruling says the viability of this case hinged on LC2013-000042, which was on appeal. The court also noted that a brief trial might be needed to determine whether Sallus had received the documents before she filed suit, which would affect her fee claim.

How did the case end?

At the July 7, 2016 status conference, counsel for Sallus orally moved to dismiss the case with each party bearing its own fees and costs. The POA objected. The court dismissed the case with prejudice and reserved defendants’ fee-and-cost request.

Why did defendants receive attorneys’ fees?

The court applied A.R.S. § 12-341.01 and the Associated Indemnity factors. It found defendants prevailed on all relief sought, their defense efforts were necessary, the claims were not meritorious, and the litigation was an overly aggressive response to a small-dollar dispute.

Is this decision binding on other Arizona HOA disputes?

No. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This case is most useful as a fee-risk example for association document disputes, not as a published rule on records access.

Case Dossier

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	CV2013-004301 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	August 8, 2016
Judge / panel	Hon. Mark H. Brain, Hon. Roger E. Brodman
Parties	Suzanne Sallus (Plaintiff) v. Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A. and Gary S. Layton (Defendants)
Governing law	A.R.S. § 12-341.01
Topics	Records RequestsProcedureAttorney FeesBoard Governance
Outcome / holding	The superior court ultimately dismissed the plaintiff’s case with prejudice by stipulation and awarded defendants $8,185.75 in attorneys’ fees plus $351 in costs, finding under A.R.S. § 12-341.01 and the Associated Indemnity factors that defendants prevailed on all relief sought, that the plaintiff’s claims were not meritorious, and that the litigation was an overly aggressive response to a $550 dispute.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	16 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	9 roadmap entries
Video overview	No video embed currently configured
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

Suzanne Sallus sued Sunrise Desert Vistas P.O.A. in Maricopa County Superior Court after a related limited-jurisdiction case, with the minute entries identifying the dispute as involving documents at issue between Sallus and the property owners association. Early in the case, the court denied the association’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion because the complaint stated a claim if its material allegations were true, but it also denied Sallus’s motion for judgment on the pleadings and her fee request as premature after she told the court she had received the documents at issue. The superior court stayed the case while LC2013-000042 and its appeal proceeded, later granted the association’s motion to stay proceedings during appeal, and after the appellate decision the plaintiff moved to dismiss. On July 7, 2016, the case was dismissed with prejudice by stipulation, leaving only the association’s fee-and-cost request. On August 8, 2016, the court awarded defendants $8,185.75 in attorneys’ fees and $351 in costs under A.R.S. § 12-341.01.

Key Issues & Findings

The court first let the case survive a motion to dismiss because the complaint stated a claim for relief if its material allegations were true, but the same early status conference record cut against immediate judgment for the plaintiff: Sallus told the court she had received the documents at issue, so the court denied her motion for judgment on the pleadings, denied her fee application as premature, and stayed the superior-court action pending the related LC2013-000042 matter.

When the association later asked to stay the case during the appeal in the related case, Judge Mark H. Brain granted the request. The under-advisement ruling explained that the viability of the superior-court case depended on the outcome of LC2013-000042, and that a brief trial might be needed to determine whether Sallus had received the documents before filing suit, which would affect her fee claim. The court concluded that waiting for the appeal was the best use of resources.

After the appellate decision, Judge Roger E. Brodman held a status conference at which plaintiff’s counsel orally moved to dismiss the case, each side to bear its own fees and costs. The association objected, and the court dismissed the case with prejudice while reserving the association’s fee-and-cost application. In the later fee ruling, the court found defendants were the successful parties in a contested action arising out of contract, that the plaintiff’s claims were not meritorious, and that the fee award would not discourage tenable claims because this litigation was unreasonable and unnecessary.

Why It Matters

This is a cautionary superior-court example for small-dollar POA document disputes. The minute entries show that even where an owner survives an initial Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a case can become fee-exposed if the documents at issue have already been received and the remaining litigation depends on another case or appeal.

The decision is also useful because it separates the merits posture from the fee posture. The court did not publish broad Title 33 analysis or create precedent on association records rights; instead, after a stipulated dismissal with prejudice, it applied A.R.S. § 12-341.01 and the Associated Indemnity factors to award fees to the association side. As a superior-court ruling, it binds only the parties.

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