CASE RESULTS
PROPERTY RIGHTS
WATER SUPPLY DISCONNECTED
LD3 LLC v. South I-90 Limited Partnership (King County Superior Court 2009). Our client, a private water district, intervened in a lawsuit between two of its commercial customers when one customer cut off the other customer’s water supply by disconnecting a pipeline. We argued that our client owned the water system components and had a prescriptive easement for water mains to cross on the customers’ properties. After a four-day trial, judgment was entered in favor of our client, including an award of over $166,000 in attorney fees and costs.
TRIAL ENDED IN FAVOR OF CLIENT
FRAUDULENT 1984 PROMISSORY NOTE
TCAP Corp. v. Gervin (Washington Supreme Court 2008). In 1984, our client had signed a promissory note to a Texas-based savings and loan association for promised securities from the S&L’s president. He never received the securities, and the S&L’s president was convicted of fraud. Nevertheless, our client remained responsible for payment on the note. In 1989, a collection agency obtained a judgment on the note from a Texas court. In 1996, the creditor registered the Texas judgment in the superior court for Pierce County, Washington, where our client held partnership shares in a property. In 2001, the Texas judgment expired under Texas law. From time to time over the next several years, the creditor filed writs of execution on the partnership interest which were enjoined or quashed by state and federal courts. Eventually, the creditor obtained writ of execution that was not quashed. We appealed on behalf of our client. The Washington Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, held that under the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act, the Texas judgment could not be enforced in the State of Washington once the judgment had expired under Texas law, which was in 2001. The Supreme Court reversed the trial court and quashed the writ of execution, freeing our client of the burden of the 1984 promissory note.