Voting & Elections | A.R.S. §§ 10-3804, 10-3206 | 1 CA-CV 19-0341
How the Arizona Court of Appeals read a condominium association’s bylaws to determine when a valid board election occurred—and why a cancelled annual meeting meant no July election took place.
Last updated June 30, 2026. Case: Robert Wollner, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. Spanish Hills Condominium Association, Defendant/Appellee, 1 CA-CV 19-0341.
Scope note: This page covers Robert Wollner, Plaintiff/Appellant, v. Spanish Hills Condominium Association, Defendant/Appellee (1 CA-CV 19-0341) as a public Arizona Court of Appeals HOA case guide. The source decision came from Division One. The downloadable source-document index below is generated from local raw source files when a PDF opinion is available. This page is educational and is not legal advice.
The takeaway
The Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the association, holding that because the bylaws provide that directors are elected at the annual meeting and no July annual meeting was held, no valid July election occurred; the rescheduled August 29 election, conducted after a Nominating Committee selected candidates as the bylaws required, was valid.
Case Participants
Petitioner Side
- Robert Wollner (Appellant)
Association member and plaintiff below; appeared pro se (In Propria Persona), Phoenix. Claimed he was validly elected to the board in July 2017.
Respondent Side
- Spanish Hills Condominium Association (Appellee)
Defendant condominium association; cancelled the July meeting and held the August board election under its bylaws. - Chad M. Gallacher (Counsel)
Maxwell & Morgan, P.C., Mesa
Counsel for Defendant/Appellee Spanish Hills Condominium Association.
Neutral Parties
- Lawrence F. Winthrop (Judge)
Presiding Judge, Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One; authored the memorandum decision. - Maria Elena Cruz (Judge)
Judge, Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One; joined the decision. - David B. Gass (Judge)
Judge, Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One; joined the decision. - Theodore Campagnolo (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who granted summary judgment for the association below.
What happened
Spanish Hills Condominium Association’s bylaws provide that at each annual meeting the members elect three directors for one-year terms, and that nominations for the board are made either by a Nominating Committee or from the floor at the annual meeting.
In 2017, the association gave written notice that its annual meeting, including a board election, was set for July 27, 2017, and that members could vote in person or by absentee ballot. Robert Wollner expressed interest in serving, and his name was one of three placed on the absentee ballots mailed before the meeting.
On July 24, 2017, the association cancelled the July 27 meeting after realizing the candidates on the ballot had not been nominated by a Nominating Committee, as the bylaws required. It reset the annual meeting for August 29, 2017, convened a Nominating Committee that nominated candidates, and mailed a new ballot. Wollner was not among the committee’s nominees and was not on the new ballot.
Wollner attended and participated in the August 29 meeting but did not object to the cancellation, the reset, the discarding of the original ballots, or his exclusion, and he did not nominate himself from the floor as the bylaws allowed. Three candidates on the new ballot were elected.
On September 18, 2017, Wollner filed a civil complaint in Maricopa County Superior Court seeking to nullify the August election and a declaration that he had been duly elected in July. The same day, he filed a certificate of compulsory arbitration, which led to appointment of an arbitrator.
After a June 6, 2018 hearing, the arbitrator ruled he lacked jurisdiction under Arizona Rule of Civil Procedure 72(b)(1)(A) because Wollner sought relief other than a money judgment, and referred the matter back to the superior court. The court later denied Wollner’s motions challenging the arbitration.
On cross-motions, the superior court granted summary judgment for the association on February 5, 2019, ruling that no election was held in July and that the annual meeting and election were properly rescheduled to August 29 in accordance with the bylaws. Wollner appealed.
On March 3, 2020, the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One, affirmed the grant of summary judgment in favor of Spanish Hills and awarded the association its reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs on appeal under a provision in its CC&Rs.
Procedural timeline
Complete uploaded source-document index
This index is generated from every public-facing source file currently present in assets/court_case_downloads/wollner-v-spanish-hills-condominium-association/raw/: 1 PDF. 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.
Memorandum Decision
Type: Decision or judgment
Memorandum decision holding that the Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the association, holding that because the bylaws provide that directors are elected at the annual meeting and no July annual meeting was held, no valid July election occurred; the rescheduled August 29 election, conducted after a Nominating Committee selected candidates as the bylaws required, was valid.
FAQ
What was the dispute in Wollner v. Spanish Hills Condominium Association about?
Robert Wollner, a condominium association member, claimed he had been validly elected to the Board of Directors through absentee ballots mailed before a July 2017 annual meeting. The association cancelled that meeting and held a rescheduled August meeting with a different, Nominating-Committee-approved slate. Wollner sued to nullify the August election, but the courts sided with the association.
Why did the court find there was no valid July election?
The association’s bylaws provided that directors are elected “at each annual meeting.” Because the July annual meeting was cancelled and never held, the court concluded no valid election occurred in July even though absentee ballots had already been mailed. The election properly took place at the rescheduled August annual meeting.
Why did the association cancel the July meeting?
The association realized the candidates on the initial ballot had not been nominated by a Nominating Committee, as its bylaws required. It cancelled the July 27 meeting, convened a Nominating Committee, and reset the annual meeting for August 29, 2017, with a new ballot. Wollner was not among the committee’s nominees.
What happened with the compulsory arbitration?
Wollner himself filed a certificate of compulsory arbitration, which triggered appointment of an arbitrator. The arbitrator later found he lacked jurisdiction under Arizona Rule of Civil Procedure 72(b)(1)(A) because Wollner sought non-monetary relief, and referred the case back to the superior court. The Court of Appeals held the arbitration was proper and denied Wollner’s request for compensation.
Who won and what did the court order?
The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment in favor of Spanish Hills Condominium Association. It also awarded the association its reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs on appeal under a provision in its CC&Rs, upon compliance with the applicable appellate rule.
Is this decision binding precedent in Arizona?
No. This is an unpublished memorandum decision of the Arizona Court of Appeals, Division One. Under Arizona Rule of the Supreme Court 111(c), it is not precedential and may be cited only as authorized by rule.
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 | 1 CA-CV 19-0341 |
|---|---|
| Court / tribunal | Court of Appeals |
| Decision / key date | March 3, 2020 |
| Judge / panel | Lawrence F. Winthrop (Presiding Judge, author), Maria Elena Cruz, David B. Gass |
| Parties | Robert Wollner (Plaintiff/Appellant) v. Spanish Hills Condominium Association (Defendant/Appellee) |
| Governing law | |
| Topics | voting-and-electionsboard-governancemeetings-and-recordsprocedure |
| Outcome / holding | The Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the association, holding that because the bylaws provide that directors are elected at the annual meeting and no July annual meeting was held, no valid July election occurred; the rescheduled August 29 election, conducted after a Nominating Committee selected candidates as the bylaws required, was valid. |
| Primary public source | View source opinion/order |
Parties, Court, and Research Coverage
| Uploaded source package | 1 PDF |
|---|---|
| Step-by-step docket roadmap | 10 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
Robert Wollner, a Spanish Hills Condominium Association member, sought a seat on the association’s Board of Directors after his name appeared on absentee ballots mailed before a July 27, 2017 annual meeting. The association cancelled that meeting when it realized the candidates had not been nominated by a Nominating Committee as its bylaws required. It reset the annual meeting to August 29, 2017, where a Nominating Committee’s slate was elected; Wollner was not on the new ballot. Wollner sued to nullify the August election and be seated as elected in July. He also filed a certificate of compulsory arbitration, and the appointed arbitrator later found he lacked jurisdiction because Wollner sought non-monetary relief. The superior court granted summary judgment for the association. The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that because the bylaws provide for electing directors at the annual meeting and no July meeting occurred, no valid July election took place.
The court first rejected Wollner’s challenge to the compulsory arbitration. It emphasized that Wollner himself filed the certificate of compulsory arbitration that triggered the referral, and that under Arizona Rule of Civil Procedure 72 the arbitrator was properly appointed and had no choice but to proceed. When it became clear the relief sought was non-monetary, the arbitrator correctly referred the matter back to the superior court under Rule 72(e). Wollner cited no legal authority entitling him to compensation for the time or money spent in an arbitration he himself initiated, so the court declined to award any.
Turning to the merits, the court treated the bylaws as a contract between the association and its members, to be enforced as written when clear and unambiguous. The bylaws stated that “[a]t each annual meeting the Members shall elect three (3) directors,” so the election necessarily occurs at the annual meeting. Because Wollner conceded no annual meeting was held in July, there could be no valid July election even though absentee ballots had already been mailed. This reading also conformed to A.R.S. § 10-3804(A)(2), which provides that directors are elected at each annual meeting, and the bylaws’ Nominating Committee requirement was a permissible provision under A.R.S. § 10-3206(B) that the association was obligated to follow.
The court held that Wollner waived his argument that the association should be sanctioned for its July process because he cited no supporting legal authority, and it found no basis to award him costs where the association was the successful party. Declining his invitation to apply public-election-law principles from Zajac v. City of Casa Grande, the court affirmed summary judgment in full and awarded the association its reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs on appeal under a fee provision in its CC&Rs.
This decision illustrates how Arizona courts treat community-association bylaws as binding contracts and read election and annual-meeting provisions according to their plain terms. For condominium and HOA governance, it underscores that mailing absentee ballots does not by itself constitute an election when the governing documents tie the vote to an annual meeting, and that a board may need to cancel and reschedule a defective process to comply with nomination requirements.
The case helps fill in the condo-governance side of association law—how elections and annual meetings interact—and shows how a member’s own procedural choices, such as filing for compulsory arbitration, can shape the course and cost of the litigation. It is an unpublished memorandum decision and is not precedential; it may be cited only as authorized by court rule.