Fiduciary Duty & Negligence | Rule 12(b)(6) | CV2017-015815
In this Maricopa County Superior Court case, Joyce Jasper-Burnett brought claims of negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and equitable estoppel against the Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association, and aiding-and-abetting and negligence claims against co-defendant AAM, LLC. Applying the Rule 12(b)(6) standard, the court dismissed the fiduciary-duty count against the Association and the negligence count against AAM, allowed the remaining counts to proceed, and — after the case was confirmed on the arbitration track and referred to a settlement conference — the parties settled in March 2019.
Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Joyce Jasper-Burnett v. Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association, et al., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2017-015815.
Scope note: This page covers Joyce Jasper-Burnett v. Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association, et al. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2017-015815) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, including the July 18, 2018 under-advisement ruling on the defendants’ motion to dismiss; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. The minute entries recite the counts pleaded and the court’s orders but do not recite the underlying factual allegations. Currency caveat: the collected entries end with the court’s March 6, 2019 order — entered after the parties filed a Notice of Settlement — setting the case for dismissal on May 6, 2019 unless dismissal papers were submitted; the final dismissal order itself is not among the collected entries. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.
The takeaway
In its July 18, 2018 under-advisement ruling, the court granted the defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion in part and denied it in part. It dismissed Count Two — breach of fiduciary duty against the Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association and negligence against AAM, LLC — but denied dismissal of Count Three (negligence) and Count Four (equitable estoppel) against the Association and Count One (aiding and abetting) against AAM. Applying the standard from Coleman v. City of Mesa, the court accepted the plaintiff’s alleged facts as true and asked only whether dismissal was permitted because the plaintiff “would not be entitled to relief under any interpretation of the facts susceptible of proof.” The surviving claims never reached trial: the case was confirmed on the arbitration track, referred to a settlement conference, and resolved by settlement in March 2019.
Case Participants
Petitioner Side
- Joyce Jasper-Burnett (Plaintiff)
Plaintiff who sued the Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association and AAM, LLC on counts including negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and equitable estoppel. - Joseph C. Dolan (Counsel)
Counsel of record for Plaintiff Joyce Jasper-Burnett, appearing at the June 2018 oral argument and the later status conferences. - Sally Odegard (Counsel)
Listed as counsel for the plaintiff in the court’s case-party records; she does not appear in the collected minute entries.
Respondent Side
- Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association (Defendant)
Townhouse association defendant. The court dismissed the breach-of-fiduciary-duty count against it but allowed the negligence and equitable-estoppel counts to proceed. - AAM, LLC (Defendant)
Co-defendant. The court dismissed the negligence count against it but allowed the aiding-and-abetting count to proceed. - Nicholas C.S. Nogami (Counsel)
Counsel of record for Defendants Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association and AAM, LLC throughout the collected minute entries. - Lydia A. Peirce Linsmeier (Counsel)
Counsel appearing for the Defendants, including at the June 27, 2018 oral argument (in place of Mr. Nogami) and the February 27, 2019 status conference.
Neutral Parties
- Pamela Gates (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who heard the motion-to-dismiss argument, issued the July 18, 2018 under-advisement ruling, and presided over the settlement-conference and arbitration proceedings. - Randall H. Warner (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge assigned earlier in the case; set the June 2018 oral argument before the calendar rotated to Judge Gates. - Nicholas C. Abdo (Arbitrator)
Court-appointed arbitrator who filed a Notice of Potential Conflict in February 2019; the court excused him after the plaintiff objected to his continuing on the case.
What happened
Joyce Jasper-Burnett sued the Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association (the “Association”) and AAM, LLC in Maricopa County Superior Court under 2017 case number CV2017-015815. As reflected in the court’s July 2018 ruling, her complaint included counts for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and equitable estoppel against the Association, and counts for aiding and abetting and negligence against AAM. The collected minute entries do not recite the underlying factual allegations behind those counts.
On April 23, 2018 the defendants jointly moved to dismiss certain counts of the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. Judge Randall H. Warner set oral argument for June 27, 2018, noting that the June judicial rotation would move the civil calendar to Judge Pamela Gates. At the June 27 argument, Joseph C. Dolan appeared for the plaintiff and Lydia A. Peirce Linsmeier appeared for the defendants in place of Nicholas C.S. Nogami; Judge Gates took the motion under advisement.
Judge Gates issued the under-advisement ruling on July 18, 2018. Quoting Coleman v. City of Mesa, the court framed the question as whether the facts alleged were sufficient “to warrant allowing the [Plaintiff] to attempt to prove [her] case,” accepting all material facts alleged by the plaintiff as true and permitting dismissal only when a plaintiff “would not be entitled to relief under any interpretation of the facts susceptible of proof.” Applying that standard, the court denied dismissal of Count Three (negligence) and Count Four (equitable estoppel) against the Association and Count One (aiding and abetting) against AAM, but granted dismissal of Count Two — breach of fiduciary duty against the Association and negligence against AAM.
The case then moved toward resolution. In October 2018 the parties jointly asked for a referral to a settlement conference, and at a November 7, 2018 status conference the court granted the request, referring the case to the Superior Court’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Department for appointment of a judge pro tempore to conduct a mandatory settlement conference no later than February 11, 2019. Plaintiff’s counsel confirmed the case was on the arbitration track, and the matter was continued on the dismissal calendar to February 28, 2019.
In February 2019 the parties jointly requested an emergency status conference. At that conference on February 27, 2019, the court found the parties had not knowingly or intentionally waived their right to arbitration and ordered arbitration to proceed. The court-appointed arbitrator, Nicholas C. Abdo, had filed a Notice of Potential Conflict; after the plaintiff’s counsel objected to his continuing, the court excused Mr. Abdo and sent the case to the arbitration desk for appointment of a new arbitrator. The dismissal deadline was extended to August 27, 2019.
Arbitration never ran its course. The parties filed a Notice of Settlement on March 5, 2019, and the next day the court vacated the August dismissal deadline, set the case for dismissal on May 6, 2019 unless a stipulated judgment or stipulation for dismissal was submitted, and deemed all pending motions moot. 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/joyce-jasper-burnett-v-chateau-de-vie-four-townhouse-association/raw/: 10 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.
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
Under-advisement ruling denying Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss Count Three, Negligence against the Association.
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.
Minute Entry
Type: Court order/minute entry
Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.
FAQ
What claims were at issue in this case?
According to the court’s July 18, 2018 ruling, the complaint included counts for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and equitable estoppel against the Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association, and counts for aiding and abetting and negligence against AAM, LLC. The minute entries recite the counts and the court’s orders but do not describe the underlying factual allegations behind them.
What did the court decide in the July 18, 2018 ruling?
The court granted the defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion in part and denied it in part. It dismissed Count Two — breach of fiduciary duty against the Association and negligence against AAM, LLC — but denied dismissal of Count Three (negligence) and Count Four (equitable estoppel) against the Association and Count One (aiding and abetting) against AAM, allowing those claims to move forward.
What standard did the court apply to the motion to dismiss?
The Rule 12(b)(6) standard from Arizona case law, including Coleman v. City of Mesa. The court asked only whether the facts alleged in the complaint were sufficient “to warrant allowing the [Plaintiff] to attempt to prove [her] case,” accepted all material facts alleged by the plaintiff as true, and could dismiss only if the plaintiff “would not be entitled to relief under any interpretation of the facts susceptible of proof.” Surviving that standard means only that a claim may proceed — not that it will ultimately succeed.
Did the case go to trial or arbitration?
Neither. The case was on the superior court’s arbitration track — in February 2019 the court found the parties had not waived arbitration and ordered it to proceed — but before a new arbitrator could take up the case, the parties filed a Notice of Settlement on March 5, 2019. The court then set the case for dismissal and deemed all pending motions moot.
Why was the court-appointed arbitrator removed?
The court-appointed arbitrator, Nicholas C. Abdo, filed a Notice of Potential Conflict in February 2019. Plaintiff’s counsel objected to his continuing on the case, so the court excused him, sent the case to the Civil Court Administration/Arbitration Desk for appointment of a new arbitrator, and directed that Mr. Abdo be appointed as arbitrator in the next available case instead.
Is this decision binding on other Arizona HOA disputes?
No. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties to the case and are not precedent. The July 2018 ruling is still useful reading as an example of how Arizona courts screen homeowner claims against associations at the pleading stage: some counts were dismissed outright while others survived to be litigated. Because the case settled, no court ever decided the merits of the surviving claims.
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 | CV2017-015815 (Maricopa County Superior Court) |
|---|---|
| Court / tribunal | Superior Court |
| Decision / key date | July 18, 2018 |
| Judge / panel | Hon. Pamela Gates, Hon. Randall H. Warner |
| Parties | Joyce Jasper-Burnett (Plaintiff) v. Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association and AAM, LLC (Defendants) |
| Topics | procedureboard-governancemembership |
| Outcome / holding | The superior court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss: it dismissed the breach-of-fiduciary-duty count against the Association and the negligence count against AAM, LLC for failure to state a claim, but allowed the negligence and equitable-estoppel counts against the Association and the aiding-and-abetting count against AAM to proceed. The surviving claims were never adjudicated on the merits because the parties settled in March 2019. |
| Primary public source | View source opinion/order |
Parties, Court, and Research Coverage
| Uploaded source package | 10 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
Joyce Jasper-Burnett sued the Chateau De Vie Four Townhouse Association and AAM, LLC in Maricopa County Superior Court on counts including negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and equitable estoppel against the Association, and aiding and abetting and negligence against AAM; the collected minute entries do not recite the underlying factual allegations. The defendants moved under Rule 12(b)(6) to dismiss certain counts, and in a July 18, 2018 under-advisement ruling Judge Pamela Gates granted the motion in part: the breach-of-fiduciary-duty count against the Association and the negligence count against AAM were dismissed, while the negligence and equitable-estoppel counts against the Association and the aiding-and-abetting count against AAM survived. The case was confirmed on the arbitration track and referred to a court-supervised settlement conference; after the court excused the original arbitrator over a potential conflict and ordered arbitration to proceed, the parties filed a Notice of Settlement on March 5, 2019 and the court set the case for dismissal.
The July 18, 2018 under-advisement ruling turned entirely on the Rule 12(b)(6) pleading standard. Quoting Coleman v. City of Mesa, the court framed the narrow question as whether the facts alleged in the complaint were sufficient “to warrant allowing the [Plaintiff] to attempt to prove [her] case,” and, citing Fidelity Security Life Insurance Co. v. State Department of Insurance, noted that dismissal is permitted only when a plaintiff “would not be entitled to relief under any interpretation of the facts susceptible of proof.” The court accepted all material facts alleged by the plaintiff as true in assessing the motion.
Applying that standard, the court reached a mixed result stated in its orders: it denied dismissal of Count Three (negligence) and Count Four (equitable estoppel) against the Association and Count One (aiding and abetting) against AAM, LLC, but granted dismissal of Count Two — breach of fiduciary duty against the Association and negligence against AAM. The minute entry states the standard and the count-by-count orders without setting out claim-specific analysis, so the ruling’s reasoning on each individual count is not reflected in the collected record.
The rest of the docket shows how the case resolved. The parties jointly sought a settlement-conference referral in October 2018, which the court granted in November while confirming the case remained on the arbitration track. In February 2019 the court found the parties had not knowingly or intentionally waived arbitration and ordered it to proceed, excusing the court-appointed arbitrator after he disclosed a potential conflict and the plaintiff objected. Before a new arbitrator took up the case, the parties filed a Notice of Settlement on March 5, 2019; the court then set the case for dismissal on May 6, 2019 and deemed all pending motions moot.
This case is a compact example of how homeowner tort suits against Arizona community associations are screened at the pleading stage. The plaintiff’s breach-of-fiduciary-duty count against the townhouse association did not survive the Rule 12(b)(6) motion, while her negligence and equitable-estoppel counts against the association — and an aiding-and-abetting count against co-defendant AAM, LLC — were allowed to proceed because, under Coleman v. City of Mesa, dismissal requires that the plaintiff could not recover under any provable interpretation of the alleged facts.
It also illustrates the procedural machinery that resolves most association disputes short of trial: the compulsory-arbitration track, court-ordered referral to a settlement conference before an ADR judge pro tempore, arbitrator conflict-of-interest handling, and the dismissal-calendar deadlines that keep a settling case moving. The dispute ended in a private settlement, so no court ever ruled on the merits of the surviving claims. As a superior-court minute-entry ruling, the decision binds only the parties and is not precedent.