HOA Governance | Declaration Enforcement | CV2019-005775
The court narrowed a homeowner’s pleading-stage claims, holding that fiduciary duty and tort good-faith remedies were not available on the allegations while contract enforcement theories could continue.
Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Debbie Westerman v. Michael Brubaker, et al., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2019-005775.
Scope note: This page covers Debbie Westerman v. Michael Brubaker, et al. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2019-005775) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from six filed minute entries, especially the July 1, 2019 and September 16, 2019 motion-to-dismiss rulings. Currency caveat: the collected record ends with the October 4, 2022 order dismissing any remaining unadjudicated claims and parties without prejudice for lack of prosecution. Any later refiling, appeal, settlement, or bankruptcy-court activity 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
A homeowner’s HOA enforcement complaint needs the right legal theory for each defendant. The court allowed some contract and declaration-enforcement theories to continue, but dismissed fiduciary-duty, warranty, tort good-faith, fraud, and derivative association-contract theories where the pleadings did not allege the required legal predicates.
Case Participants
Neutral Parties
- Debbie Westerman (Plaintiff)
Homeowner who asserted claims concerning the association’s Declaration and Bylaws and alleged enforcement failures. - Bridgewood Nine 30 Property Owners Association, Inc. (Defendant)
Property owners association defendant in the amended complaint ruling. - Michael Brubaker (Defendant)
Individual defendant whose motion to dismiss was granted in part in the July 2019 ruling. - Bridgewood 38 LLC (Defendant)
Named defendant in the case-party data. - Patrick R. MacQueen (Counsel)
Counsel listed for the plaintiff in the 2019 dismissal rulings. - Mark E. Lines (Counsel)
Counsel listed for defendants in the 2019 dismissal rulings. - Hon. Christopher Coury (Judge)
Judge who issued the 2019 motion-to-dismiss rulings. - Hon. Frank W. Moskowitz (Judge)
Judge who later dismissed remaining unadjudicated claims for lack of prosecution.
What happened
The plaintiff brought claims against an individual defendant and the Bridgewood Nine 30 Property Owners Association. The claims referenced the neighborhood association’s Declaration and Bylaws and alleged failures connected to those governing documents.
In July 2019, the court granted in part the individual defendant’s motion to dismiss. The court concluded that contract and warranty claims based on the Declaration, Bylaws, or contracts between the individual defendant and the association could not be asserted individually without a contract with the plaintiff, and derivative claims on behalf of the association required derivative-suit prerequisites. It also dismissed a fraud claim for lack of particularity and a fiduciary-duty claim because the duty was owed, if at all, to the association rather than the plaintiff.
The plaintiff then filed a first amended verified complaint against the individual defendant and the association. In September 2019, the court again narrowed the case. It dismissed tort remedies for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing because the pleadings did not show the special relationship required for tort remedies, but it allowed contract-based good-faith relief to remain pending.
The court also dismissed warranty claims against the association because the POA was not a builder or developer and was not alleged to have assumed warranty liability. It dismissed fiduciary duty because the homeowner-association contractual relationship alone did not create a fiduciary duty. The court let the requested permanent injunction for failure to enforce the Declaration and Bylaws continue at that stage, although it noted the injunction was probably a remedy rather than a standalone claim.
After later bankruptcy-related docket activity and a long period with no case activity, the court placed the case on the dismissal calendar and ultimately dismissed any remaining unadjudicated claims and parties without prejudice for lack of prosecution.
Video overview of the ruling
An AI-generated video overview of Westerman v. Bridgewood Nine 30 Property Owners Association (CV2019-005775 (Maricopa County Superior Court)). Pleading-stage HOA claims narrowed: no fiduciary duty or tort good-faith remedies, but contract enforcement survived. 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 Westerman v. Bridgewood Nine 30 Property Owners Association. Generated from the case filings; verify against the linked ruling below.
Procedural timeline
Complete uploaded source-document index
This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/westerman-v-bridgewood-nine-30-property-owners-association/raw/: 6 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.
Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Ruling granting in part Michael Brubaker’s motion to dismiss by treating declaration, bylaw, contract, warranty, fiduciary-duty, fraud, and injunction claims as insufficient or derivative in part, while allowing two claims to proceed.
Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Ruling granting in part the association’s motion to dismiss by rejecting tort good-faith remedies, warranty liability, and fiduciary-duty claims, while allowing contract good-faith and declaration-enforcement injunction theories to proceed.
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.
Ruling
Type: Court order/minute entry
Final dismissal-calendar order dismissing any remaining unadjudicated claims and parties without prejudice for lack of prosecution.
FAQ
Did the homeowner’s claims all get dismissed in 2019?
No. The court dismissed some claims and parts of claims, but allowed contract-based good-faith relief and an injunction theory for failure to enforce the Declaration and Bylaws to remain pending at that stage.
What happened to the fiduciary-duty claim against the association?
The court dismissed it, stating that no fiduciary duty is owed simply from the contractual relationship between a homeowner and the homeowners association.
What happened to the tort good-faith claim?
The court dismissed the claim to the extent it sought tort remedies because no fiduciary, special, or adhesion relationship was shown. It did not dismiss the claim to the extent contract remedies were sought.
Why did the warranty claim fail?
The court found that the POA was not alleged to be a builder, developer, or party that made warranties or assumed warranty liability.
Did the case end on the merits?
No final merits judgment is shown in the collected entries. The remaining unadjudicated claims and parties were later dismissed without prejudice for lack of prosecution.
Why is this case classified as standard?
The case contains useful pleading-stage HOA analysis, but it is a superior-court ruling and the record ended with a lack-of-prosecution dismissal rather than a final merits judgment on all 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 | CV2019-005775 (Maricopa County Superior Court) |
|---|---|
| Court / tribunal | Superior Court |
| Decision / key date | September 16, 2019 |
| Judge / panel | Hon. Christopher Coury, Hon. Frank W. Moskowitz |
| Parties | Debbie Westerman (Plaintiff) v. Michael Brubaker and Bridgewood Nine 30 Property Owners Association, Inc. (Defendants) |
| Topics | cc-and-rscovenantsgood-faith-and-fair-dealingselective-enforcementprocedure |
| Outcome / holding | The court held that contract and warranty claims against the individual defendant were derivative of association rights unless derivative-suit prerequisites were met, dismissed fraud for lack of particularity, and dismissed fiduciary-duty claims against both the individual defendant and the association. As to the association, it dismissed tort good-faith remedies and warranty claims, but allowed contract-based good-faith relief and an injunction theory for failure to enforce the declaration and bylaws to remain pending at the pleading stage. |
| Primary public source | View source opinion/order |
Parties, Court, and Research Coverage
| Uploaded source package | 6 PDFs |
|---|---|
| Step-by-step docket roadmap | 5 roadmap entries |
| Video overview | Westerman v. Bridgewood Nine 30 Property Owners Association |
| Study / briefing material | 1 section |
| FAQ / homeowner questions | 6 questions |
| Curated download aliases | 1 download link |
Key Issues & Findings
A homeowner sued a property owners association and an individual defendant over alleged declaration and bylaw enforcement failures. The superior court dismissed several claims at the pleading stage, including tort good-faith remedies, warranty, and fiduciary-duty claims against the association, while allowing contract-based good-faith relief and an injunction theory aimed at enforcing the declaration and bylaws to proceed at that stage.
In the first dismissal ruling, the court treated several claims against the individual defendant as predicated on the neighborhood association’s Declaration and Bylaws or contracts between that defendant and the association. Because no contract was alleged between the plaintiff and the individual defendant, and because individual relief on association contracts would be derivative, the court dismissed those contract and warranty claims unless derivative-suit prerequisites were met. The court also dismissed fraud because it was not pled with Rule 9(b) particularity and dismissed fiduciary-duty and enforcement-injunction claims against that individual defendant.
In the amended-complaint ruling, the court evaluated claims against Bridgewood POA. It held that tort remedies for breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing require a special relationship and that no fiduciary, special, or adhesion relationship was shown between the homeowner and the association. The court therefore dismissed tort remedies but allowed contract remedies for good faith to continue. It also dismissed warranty claims because the POA was not alleged to be a builder, developer, or party that assumed warranty liability, and dismissed fiduciary duty because no fiduciary duty arises simply from the homeowner-association contractual relationship. The court allowed the requested permanent injunction for failure to enforce the Declaration and Bylaws to remain pending, while noting it was likely a remedy rather than a standalone claim.
This case is useful for homeowners and associations because it separates several common HOA pleading theories: contract-based enforcement claims may survive, but tort good-faith remedies, fiduciary-duty claims, warranty theories, and derivative claims require specific legal predicates. It also highlights that an injunction to enforce governing documents may be treated as a remedy rather than an independent cause of action.