Covenant Enforcement & Attorneys’ Fees | CC&R §§ 4.3, 12.1 | CV2013-003636
In this Maricopa County Superior Court case, an office condominium association sued a unit owner that admittedly-then-disputedly installed a door along a common wall without board approval. The court held the association could sue under the CC&Rs’ enforcement clause, but granted the unit owner summary judgment because the association never timely disclosed damages and the requested injunction — moving a door at roughly $245,000 and closing a medical facility for months — failed the hardship-balancing element of specific performance. The declaration’s prevailing-party fee clause then required the association to pay the owner’s attorneys’ fees.
Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Chauncey Ranch Office Condominium Association v. North Scottsdale Pain Center, LLC, Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2013-003636.
Scope note: This page covers Chauncey Ranch Office Condominium Association v. North Scottsdale Pain Center, LLC (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2013-003636) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, including the September 26, 2014 under-advisement ruling denying the association’s summary-judgment motion, the April 14, 2015 under-advisement ruling granting the unit owner summary judgment, and the July 28, 2015 attorneys’-fees ruling; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the collected minute entries end with the July 28, 2015 ruling awarding the unit owner attorneys’ fees and entering judgment — no appeal or later activity appears in the collected entries, so any subsequent developments are not reflected here. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.
The takeaway
An association can win the framing of a covenant-enforcement case and still lose it. The court held early on that the CC&Rs’ § 12.1 enforcement clause authorized the association to sue over a door installed along a common wall without the board approval required by § 4.3, and that the declaration’s Article 11 dispute-resolution process did not apply. But at summary judgment the association’s breach-of-contract claim failed because it never timely disclosed any computation of damages, and its injunction claim failed because no reasonable factfinder could conclude that the benefit of relocating the door outweighed the hardship — an undisputed expense of approximately $245,000 and months of closure of a medical facility. The same § 12.1 that authorized the suit also entitled the prevailing party to all attorneys’ fees, so the court was required to award the unit owner its fees: $276,666.14, plus costs and expert-witness costs.
Case Participants
Petitioner Side
- Chauncey Ranch Office Condominium Association (Plaintiff)
Office condominium association that filed suit in April 2013 to compel a unit owner to comply with CC&R § 4.3 after the owner installed a door along a common-element wall; its claims for breach of contract and injunctive relief were resolved against it at summary judgment. - Quinten T. Cupps (Counsel)
Counsel of record for the association in the case’s early phase (minute-entry captions from April 2013 through March 2014). - Augustus H. Shaw IV (Counsel)
Counsel for the association from the June 2013 order-to-show-cause hearing through the summary-judgment phase, including the February 2014 and August 2014 oral arguments. - Lydia Peirce Linsmeier (Counsel)
Counsel for the association at the August 2014 summary-judgment argument, the January 2015 emergency protective-order hearing, and the April 2015 summary-judgment argument. - Curtis Ekmark (Counsel)
Listed as the association’s attorney in the court’s case-party records; he does not appear in the collected minute entries.
Respondent Side
- North Scottsdale Pain Center, LLC (Defendant)
Unit owner and medical facility that installed the door at issue; contested whether it had obtained permission, won summary judgment on both of the association’s claims, and was awarded $276,666.14 in attorneys’ fees plus costs as the prevailing party. - Joe Rosas (Third-Party Defendant)
Named as a third-party defendant on North Scottsdale Pain Center’s third-party complaint; the association applied for entry of default against the third-party defendants in September 2013, and the third-party complaint was dismissed without prejudice by stipulation in June 2014. The court’s case-party records list him as self-represented. - Dina Rosas (Third-Party Defendant)
Named as a third-party defendant on North Scottsdale Pain Center’s third-party complaint, dismissed without prejudice by stipulation in June 2014. - D. Rosas Interior Architecture Design Group (Third-Party Defendant)
Design firm named as a third-party defendant on North Scottsdale Pain Center’s third-party complaint, dismissed without prejudice by stipulation in June 2014. - Mark D. Goldman (Counsel)
Listed on the defense side of the caption in the May 28, 2013 minute entry. - Scott H. Zwillinger (Counsel)
Counsel for North Scottsdale Pain Center from mid-2013, including the June 2013 order-to-show-cause hearing and the February 2014 oral argument; his application to withdraw was denied as moot in April 2014. - Clifford Frisbie (Counsel)
Counsel appearing for North Scottsdale Pain Center at the June 20, 2013 order-to-show-cause return hearing. - John A. Buric (Counsel)
Counsel for North Scottsdale Pain Center from spring 2014 through judgment, including the August 2014 and April 2015 summary-judgment arguments. - Peter J. Foster (Counsel)
Counsel for North Scottsdale Pain Center at the January 2015 emergency hearing and the April 2015 summary-judgment argument; listed on the defense side of minute-entry captions beginning April 2014.
Neutral Parties
- Lisa Daniel Flores (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who presided over the case from 2013 into mid-2014 and denied the unit owner’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in February 2014. - Patricia Ann Starr (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who presided from mid-2014, issued the September 2014 and April 2015 under-advisement rulings, and entered the July 2015 fee award and judgment.
What happened
Chauncey Ranch Office Condominium is an office condominium community governed by recorded CC&Rs. In a complaint filed April 18, 2013, the association sued unit owner North Scottsdale Pain Center, LLC (NSPC), a medical facility, alleging breach of contract and seeking an injunction requiring NSPC to bring its property into compliance with the CC&Rs. The dispute centered on a door NSPC installed along a common-element wall. CC&R § 4.3 requires the prior written consent of the association’s board before a unit owner alters a perimeter or party wall or makes any structural alteration within a unit. The court signed an order to show cause in April 2013 directing NSPC to explain why a permanent injunction should not issue, and after a June 2013 return hearing the case was set for an evidentiary hearing.
NSPC brought a third-party complaint against Joe Rosas, Dina Rosas, and D. Rosas Interior Architecture Design Group; the association applied for entry of default against those third-party defendants in September 2013, and the third-party complaint was later dismissed without prejudice by stipulation in June 2014. NSPC also moved for judgment on the pleadings in November 2013, arguing the case belonged in the CC&Rs’ Article 11 “Dispute Resolution” process. Judge Lisa Daniel Flores denied that motion in February 2014, finding that Article 11 does not apply where a defendant “admittedly installed a door along a common wall without Association approval,” that § 12.1 of the CC&Rs “clearly authorizes the Association to file a suit at law or in equity to enjoin a violation of, or compel compliance with, the CC&R’s,” and rejecting NSPC’s effort to recast the dispute as a design-defect claim.
The association moved for summary judgment in March 2014, arguing NSPC was bound by “judicial admissions” — statements in its initial disclosure statement and in the judgment-on-the-pleadings briefing that it had not sought approval before installing the door. In a September 26, 2014 under-advisement ruling, Judge Patricia Ann Starr denied the motion. The court held that a Rule 12(c) motion is not a “pleading” and a disclosure statement is not a judicial admission, that NSPC had moved to amend its answer and had retracted the earlier statements, and that whether NSPC obtained approval to relocate the door was a genuine issue of material fact. The court also granted NSPC leave to amend its answer.
NSPC then filed its own motion for summary judgment in October 2014. While it was pending, a side dispute erupted: NSPC had posted deposition transcripts of Renee Hanson and Gladys Effio, described in the minutes as part of the association, on a website it set up. After an emergency hearing in January 2015, the court ordered the depositions not be re-posted pending a final ruling, and it ultimately granted the association a protective order to the extent that any depositions posted to the website had to be redacted of personally identifying information, citing the deponents’ privacy, safety, and financial welfare. The court denied the association’s separate motion to suppress the Hanson deposition transcript.
In the dispositive under-advisement ruling filed April 14, 2015, the court granted NSPC summary judgment on both claims. On breach of contract, the association had to prove damages, but the deadline to disclose a computation of damages had “come and gone” — and the “nominal damages” theory it raised for the first time at oral argument, based on the tax value of the “stolen” portion of the common elements, was “neither timely nor sufficient.” On injunctive relief, it was undisputed that moving the door would cost approximately $245,000 and would require closing NSPC, a medical facility, for months; applying the specific-performance factors from The Power P.E.O., Inc. v. Employees Ins. of Wausau, the court concluded no reasonable factfinder could find the anticipated benefit to the association outweighed that hardship. A pending motion to consolidate was denied as moot.
The endgame was about money. In a July 28, 2015 ruling, the court held NSPC was the prevailing party and that § 12.1 of the declaration — the same enforcement clause the association had sued under — entitles the prevailing party to recover “all attorney fees incurred by the prevailing party in the action,” leaving the court no discretion to refuse a contractual fee award. The court awarded NSPC $276,666.14 in attorneys’ fees, $8,555.30 in costs — after holding that under Rule 68(g) NSPC was entitled to double the taxable costs incurred after its April 18, 2014 offer of judgment — and $8,621.24 in expert-witness costs, while excluding fees tied to a separate injunction-against-harassment matter and one expert’s fees it found unreasonable. Notably, the court denied NSPC’s request for sanctions under A.R.S. § 12-349 and Rule 11, finding the association did not bring or maintain its claims without substantial justification. Judgment was entered the same day, and the collected minute entries end there.
Procedural timeline
Complete uploaded source-document index
This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/chauncey-ranch-office-condominium-association-v-north-scottsdale-pain/raw/: 30 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.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Default Judgment
Type: Decision or judgment
Shows the filer trying to move the case forward because the opposing party had not timely appeared.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
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.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
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.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
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.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Under Advisement Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
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.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
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.
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.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Under Advisement Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Under Advisement Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
FAQ
What did the association accuse the unit owner of doing?
Installing a door along a common-element wall without first getting the association board’s written consent. CC&R § 4.3 requires prior written consent of the board before a unit owner alters a perimeter or party wall or makes any structural alteration within a unit. The association sued for breach of contract and asked the court to order the property brought back into compliance with the CC&Rs.
Why didn’t the CC&Rs’ internal dispute-resolution process apply?
NSPC argued the case belonged in the CC&Rs’ Article 11 “Dispute Resolution” process. The court disagreed: Article 11 did not apply to a situation where the owner installed a door along a common wall without association approval, and § 12.1 of the CC&Rs specifically governs enforcement and “clearly authorizes the Association to file a suit at law or in equity to enjoin a violation of, or compel compliance with, the CC&R’s.” The court also rejected the owner’s attempt to recast the case as a design-defect dispute to fit it into Article 11.
Why did the association’s own summary-judgment motion fail?
The association argued NSPC had made binding “judicial admissions” — in its initial disclosure statement and in earlier motion practice — that it never sought approval before installing the door. The court held those statements did not qualify: a Rule 12(c) motion is not a “pleading,” and a disclosure statement is not a judicial admission. NSPC had also moved to amend its answer and retracted the statements. That left whether NSPC obtained approval as a genuine issue of material fact that could not be resolved on summary judgment.
Why did the association ultimately lose at summary judgment?
Two independent failures. On breach of contract, the association had to prove damages, but the deadline to disclose a computation of damages had passed, and the “nominal damages” theory it raised for the first time at oral argument — based on the tax value of the “stolen” portion of the common elements — was neither timely nor sufficient. On injunctive relief, it was undisputed that relocating the door would cost approximately $245,000 and require closing the owner’s medical facility for months; the court held that no reasonable factfinder could find the benefit to the association outweighed that hardship, defeating a required element of specific performance.
Why did the association have to pay the unit owner’s attorneys’ fees?
The same CC&R clause the association sued under, § 12.1, provides that the prevailing party in such an action recovers “all attorney fees incurred by the prevailing party in the action.” Because the fee provision is contractual, the court had no discretion to refuse the award once it found NSPC was the prevailing party. The court awarded $276,666.14 in fees, plus $8,555.30 in costs — after holding that Rule 68(g) entitled NSPC to double the taxable costs incurred after its April 18, 2014 offer of judgment — and $8,621.24 in expert-witness costs. Prevailing-party fee clauses in CC&Rs cut both ways.
Was the association’s lawsuit found frivolous, and is this ruling binding elsewhere?
No on both counts. The court expressly denied NSPC’s request for sanctions under A.R.S. § 12-349 and Rule 11, finding the association did not bring or maintain its claims without substantial justification — losing at summary judgment does not make a claim groundless. And as a superior-court decision, the ruling binds only these parties and is not precedent. It is still instructive on how Arizona courts weigh hardship before ordering covenant-compliance injunctions, and on the financial exposure created by prevailing-party fee clauses.
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 | CV2013-003636 (Maricopa County Superior Court) |
|---|---|
| Court / tribunal | Superior Court |
| Decision / key date | April 14, 2015 |
| Judge / panel | Hon. Lisa Daniel Flores, Hon. Patricia Ann Starr |
| Parties | Chauncey Ranch Office Condominium Association (Plaintiff) v. North Scottsdale Pain Center, LLC (Defendant, unit owner) |
| Governing law | |
| Topics | cc-and-rsarchitectural-reviewattorneys-feesprocedure |
| Outcome / holding | The superior court granted the unit owner summary judgment on the association’s breach-of-contract and injunctive-relief claims — the association failed to timely disclose any computation of damages, and no reasonable factfinder could find that the benefit of relocating the door outweighed the undisputed hardship of approximately $245,000 in cost and months of closure of a medical facility — and, because CC&R § 12.1 entitles the prevailing party to all attorneys’ fees, awarded the owner $276,666.14 in fees plus costs and expert-witness costs, while denying A.R.S. § 12-349 and Rule 11 sanctions because the association’s claims were not brought without substantial justification. |
| Primary public source | View source opinion/order |
Parties, Court, and Research Coverage
| Uploaded source package | 30 PDFs |
|---|---|
| Step-by-step docket roadmap | 14 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
An office condominium association sued a unit owner, medical practice North Scottsdale Pain Center, LLC, in April 2013 for installing a door along a common-element wall without the prior written board consent required by CC&R § 4.3, seeking breach-of-contract damages and an injunction compelling compliance. The court denied the owner’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in February 2014, holding the CC&Rs’ Article 11 dispute-resolution process did not apply and that § 12.1 authorized the association’s enforcement suit. It then denied the association’s summary-judgment motion in September 2014, holding the owner’s earlier statements that it had not sought approval were not binding judicial admissions and that whether the owner obtained approval was a disputed fact. In an April 14, 2015 under-advisement ruling the court granted the owner summary judgment on both claims: the association never timely disclosed a computation of damages, and the requested injunction — relocating the door at an undisputed cost of about $245,000 while closing a medical facility for months — would inflict hardship outweighing any benefit. In July 2015 the court, applying the declaration’s prevailing-party fee clause, awarded the owner $276,666.14 in attorneys’ fees plus $8,555.30 in costs and $8,621.24 in expert-witness costs, while denying sanctions against the association, and entered judgment.
At the pleadings stage, the court sided with the association’s framing of the case. Denying the owner’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in February 2014, Judge Flores held that the CC&Rs’ Article 11 “Dispute Resolution” process did not apply to a situation in which the defendant “admittedly installed a door along a common wall without Association approval”; the suit was brought to compel compliance with CC&R § 4.3, which requires prior written board consent before altering a perimeter or party wall or making any structural alteration within a unit, and § 12.1 “clearly authorizes the Association to file a suit at law or in equity to enjoin a violation of, or compel compliance with, the CC&R’s.” The court rejected the owner’s effort to recast the dispute as a design-defect claim subject to Article 11.
The cross-motions for summary judgment then turned the case. In September 2014, Judge Starr denied the association’s motion, which rested on the theory that the owner was bound by “judicial admissions” — statements in its initial disclosure statement and in the judgment-on-the-pleadings briefing that it had not sought approval. The court held that a Rule 12(c) motion is not a “pleading” under Rule 7(a) and a disclosure statement is not a judicial admission under Clark Equipment, that even an admission can be relieved when made through mistake, and that the owner had moved to amend its answer and retracted the statements; whether the owner obtained approval to relocate the door was therefore a genuine issue of material fact. In the dispositive April 14, 2015 ruling, the court granted the owner’s motion: the association’s contract claim required proof of damages, but the disclosure deadline had “come and gone,” and the nominal-damages theory based on the tax value of the “stolen” portion of the common elements, first raised at oral argument, was “neither timely nor sufficient.” The injunction claim failed the fourth specific-performance element from The Power P.E.O., Inc. v. Employees Ins. of Wausau — it was undisputed that moving the door would cost approximately $245,000 and require closing the owner’s medical facility for months, a hardship no reasonable factfinder could find outweighed by the benefit to the association.
The July 28, 2015 fee ruling completed the picture. Because § 12.1 of the declaration entitles the prevailing party to “all attorney fees incurred by the prevailing party in the action,” and a court lacks discretion to refuse a contractual fee award, the court awarded the owner $276,666.14 in fees after finding the China Doll requirements met and the fees not clearly excessive. It awarded $8,555.30 in costs — after holding that Rule 68(g) entitled the owner to double the taxable costs incurred after its April 18, 2014 offer of judgment — and $8,621.24 in expert-witness costs, while excluding fees from a separate injunction-against-harassment matter and one expert’s unreasonable fees. The court declined to sanction the association under A.R.S. § 12-349 or Rule 11, holding that its claims were not groundless merely because they failed at summary judgment, and entered judgment the same day.
This case shows that establishing a covenant violation theory is only half of an enforcement suit — the association won every framing battle, including a ruling that the CC&Rs authorized it to sue and that the owner’s ADR argument failed, yet lost the case because it could not prove timely-disclosed damages and asked for a remedy the court found wildly disproportionate. Arizona courts weigh hardship before ordering specific performance of covenants: an injunction requiring a $245,000 door relocation and months-long closure of a medical facility was never going to balance against an unquantified injury to the association.
It is also a stark illustration that prevailing-party fee clauses in CC&Rs cut both ways. The same § 12.1 the association invoked to bring the suit obligated it, after losing, to pay the unit owner more than $293,000 in fees, costs, and expert-witness costs — an award the court had no discretion to refuse under the contract. At the same time, the court’s denial of A.R.S. § 12-349 sanctions confirms that losing at summary judgment does not make a claim frivolous. As a superior-court decision, the ruling binds only these parties and is not precedent, and the collected minute entries end at the July 2015 judgment.