This is a notice-of-claim case in the context of a particular statute.

Turner claimed that a new Flagstaff ordinance reduced his property value. He sued under §12-1134, which allows compensation for that sort of thing. He had filed a notice of claim saying that he owned the property. Flagstaff moved to dismiss because the notice was wrong: the actual owner was Turner’s L.L.C, of which he is merely the President.  Turner asked to amend his notice but the court dismissed without expressly ruling on that.

The Court of Appeals agrees that the notice was bad.

Although 12-1134 has its own notice-of-claim requirement the court holds (explicitly – it says “We hold”) that both it and the general notice-of-claim statute (12-821.01) apply. The court does not explain why the Legislature intended in 1134 a 90-day notice requirement atop the otherwise-similar 180-day–after-accrual requirement of 821.01. “Turner does not dispute” this, the court says. One wonders why the court thought that an adequate substitute for statutory interpretation. Turner’s failure to argue it is a basis for decision in this case; to bind others to that failure by purporting to “hold” something without legal analysis is unfortunate. The holding might be right – one of the footnotes, written about another subject, hints at a possible argument – but law shouldn’t be made on rollovers.

The statutes require that the “owner” (1134)/ “persons who have [the] claims” (821.01) give the notice. Turner wasn’t the owner. Substantial compliance isn’t good enough. What about the cases saying that the purpose of the claims’ statutes is to give the government reasonable opportunity to investigate/settle/defend? They apply to grey areas – what facts should be in the notice, for example. Since “owner” means “owner,” the notice was defective.

The court remands, however, for determination of the amendment issue, which the trial court hadn’t ruled on. Amendment must come within the original 180-day limit, though, and this case is over three years old. So the court includes a footnote explaining why it bothers to remand: the savings statute might apply unless the limitations period has already run. But that explains how a late lawsuit might be filed, not how a late notice can be. And, in any event, it’s an argument for the next case, not this one; a trial court can’t decline to dismiss simply because a litigant might have the right to re-file.

(link to opinion)

“In this appeal we decide whether participants in a brawl can be held jointly liable under Arizona Revised Statutes (“A.R.S.”) section 12-2506(D)(1) (2003) for injuries inflicted on common foes.” The answer is “yes,” except when it’s “no.”

Plaintiffs and Defendants were in a bar fight. According to Plaintiffs (the trial court granted summary judgment for defendants, so the Court of Appeals views the facts favorablly to Plaintiffs), they were beaten up by a group of men including Defendants. They couldn’t identify which assailant did what, though, so they sued them jointly and severally, on the theory that Defendants were acting in concert (that’s 12-2506(D(1) – joint and several for acting in concert).

A.R.S. § 12-2506(F)(1) defines acting in concert: “entering into a conscious agreement to pursue a common plan or design to commit an intentional tort and actively taking part in that intentional tort.” The question here was whether the defendants did that. “[A] prima facie case . . .  requires evidence that the parties (a) knowingly agreed to commit an intentional tort that (b) they were certain or substantially certain would result in the consequences complained of, and (c) actively participated in commission of the tort,” Mein (2008). (This was a drag-race case; the race cases are traditionally a main source of acting-in-concert law.) In Mein injury wasn’t substantially certain but with punching and kicking people it is. Conscious agreement can be inferred from circumstances. The jury could have done so here.

The court reverses summary judgment for defendants and remands.

This is a commendably  brief and clearly-written opinion. The opening sentence (quoted above) is perhaps a bit overblown, as this is more a factual issue than a legal one, but the immediate announcement of the factual context, issue, and holding (in the court’s second sentence) is the right way to do things.

(link to opinion)

The question here is whether Arizona has jurisdiction over a defendant’s foreign spouse when there is no marital community.

Plaintiffs sued three Missouri men for a business transaction gone bad, also naming their wives as defendants on community-property grounds. The wives moved to dismiss as to them; they personally do not have minimum contacts with Arizona (Plaintiffs agree with that) and Missouri does not have community property so there is no community which the husbands’ acts might have bound. The trial court denied the motion, reasoning that tenancy by the entirety – by which spouses hold property in Missouri – is essentially the same thing for jurisdiction purposes.

The Court of Appeals accepted the wives’ special action and granted relief.

The actions of one spouse can establish jurisdiction over the community (Rollins 1985). But there has to be a community, or at least something like it. This opinion concludes that tenancy by the entirety under Missouri’s statutes is “wholly different” from community property, not the same thing – mostly, it seems, because in Missouri a judgment or debt incurred by one spouse alone cannot reach the marital property.

The court notes in a long paragraph of dicta that the tenancy-in-common law of some states is closer to community property and that it isn’t trying to “draw a bright line” between Arizona and all tenancy-in-common states. The court doesn’t specifically point out that you have to check the statues and cases of the state at issue. The implementation and interpretation of tenancy by the entirety varies; it’s easy, in fact, to find authority for the proposition that it is indeed just like community property.

The court also says, in more dicta, that concepts of agency “might justify the exercise of jurisdiction in appropriate cases” but doesn’t here because no facts or law support an agency argument. One wonders why the court advances an argument that “might” work in other cases but has no application whatever to the one before it. As always, we’ll give the court the benefit of the doubt and assume that somebody mentioned it in a brief.

The court started out by saying that it took this special action because “we have never addressed the [jurisdiction]  question when the spouses reside in a state that does not recognize the concept of the marital community. We therefore accept jurisdiction to clarify the reach of Rollins.” What it ends up holding, though, is merely that Rollins doesn’t reach Missouri.

(link to opinion)