Bjornson v. Cowan

58 So. 3d 517, 2011 La. App. LEXIS 250, 2011 WL 712093
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedMarch 2, 2011
DocketNo. 45,927-CA
StatusPublished

This text of 58 So. 3d 517 (Bjornson v. Cowan) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bjornson v. Cowan, 58 So. 3d 517, 2011 La. App. LEXIS 250, 2011 WL 712093 (La. Ct. App. 2011).

Opinion

WILLIAMS, J.

|2The defendant, Dinah Cowan, appeals a judgment in favor of the plaintiff, Timothy Bjornson. The trial court found that defendant breached her contract to sell land with a dock and awarded $7,920 in damages to the plaintiff. For the following reasons, we amend and affirm as amended.

FACTS

In June 2007, Timothy Bjornson purchased a residential lot on Caney Lake in Jackson Parish from the seller, Dinah Co-wan. The property was advertised as having a dock extending into the lake. Cowan had bought the parcel from Travis Young, who had also sold the adjacent lot to Melba Murphy. Young had built the dock in 1996 and Cowan bought the property in 2006 with the belief that the dock was located on her parcel. The evidence showed that before Bjornson bought the land, the property line between the adjacent tracts had been marked by two “T-posts,” which had been removed by Co-wan’s boyfriend, George Wierzbicki.

In November 2007, the adjacent landowner, Murphy, hired a surveyor, Walter Kirkland, to mark the boundary line between the parcels. Kirkland’s survey crew located and marked the property line, which demonstrated that the dock was situated on Murphy’s tract. After learning that the dock was not located on his property, Bjornson tried to contact Cowan and spoke with Wierzbicki, who initially indicated that Cowan would correct the problem. However, Cowan did not take any action.

Subsequently, the plaintiff, Bjornson, filed a petition for damages against the defendants, Cowan and her real estate agents, Sharon Ouchley and Coldwell Banker Group One Realty (“Coldwell Banker”). The plaintiff alleged that the defendants had breached the parties’ contract by selling him property which did not contain a dock as represented by Cowan. The plaintiff later dismissed Ouchley and Coldwell Banker from the lawsuit in return for a $3,000 settlement payment. At trial, the plaintiff testified that the dock was L-shaped, with a walkway 46 feet long and six feet wide, attached to an area that measured ten feet by twelve feet on the left side. Regarding the cost of building a dock, the trial court excluded the testimony of Eric Ortego, the owner of a dock-building business, because he was not named in the original pretrial order. However, after trial the parties [ ^stipulated that the court should have admitted into evidence Ortego’s testimony that building a new dock would cost $15 per square foot.

After hearing the evidence, the trial court issued written reasons finding that Cowan was liable because the property sold did not include the dock as represent[519]*519ed to the plaintiff. Because plaintiff had not sought to rescind the sale, the court found that a reasonable measure of damages would be reducing the purchase price by the cost of building a new dock. The trial court determined, based on its stated experience with the cost of home construction, that a price of $20 per square foot was a reasonable estimate for the cost of building a new dock that was the same size as the existing dock. The court rendered judgment awarding the plaintiff damages of $7,920, denying his claim for attorney fees and denying the defendant’s claim for a setoff. The defendant appeals the judgment.

DISCUSSION

The defendant contends the trial court erred in finding that she is liable to the plaintiff for the cost of building a dock on the tract of land sold to plaintiff. Defendant argues that the plaintiff failed to prove that the parties’ contract for the sale of land was breached because the property did not contain a dock.

When the thing delivered by the seller, though in itself free from redhibi-tory defects, is not of the kind or quality represented by the seller, the buyer’s rights are governed by other rules of sale and conventional obligations. LSA-C.C. art. 2529; Swoboda v. SMT Properties, L.L.C., 42,746 (La.App.2d Cir.1/30/08), 975 So.2d 691. A trial court’s factual findings will not be reversed unless clearly wrong. A reviewing court does not decide whether the factfinder was correct, but whether its findings were reasonable based upon the record as a whole. Stobart v. State DOTD, 617 So.2d 880 (La.1993).

In the present case, Walter Kirkland was accepted as an expert land surveyor. Kirkland testified that he had done surveying work in the area at issue in 1983, when the property lines were established. Kirkland stated that he was hired by Melba Murphy in November 2007 to mark the property line between her tract and that of the plaintiff. Kirkland testified that at his instruction, the survey crew located the existing monuments in the field and | ¿placed a 3/4-inch iron rod at the intersection of Murphy’s property line and the shoreline of the lake. Kirkland stated the survey demonstrated that the dock was not located on the plaintiffs property, but had been built on land now owned by Murphy. Referring to a plat prepared in 2002, Kirkland explained that the property line ran west from the shoreline and that the dock was located on Murphy’s tract north of the property line.

Melba Murphy testified that she owned the tract of land adjacent to plaintiffs property. Murphy stated that the tract she bought from Travis Young in 2002 did not include the land between her property line and the shoreline, so she bought that land from a bank. According to Murphy, Young had told her that the bank would not care if she used that land, but she wanted to own the waterfront property. Murphy testified that after Cowan bought the adjacent tract, some T-posts marking the property line were removed. Murphy stated that before the sale she had told Cowan’s real estate agent that part of the property being sold did not belong to Co-wan. Murphy testified that after the sale, she hired Kirkland to locate and mark the property line between the tracts.

Sharon Ouchley testified that she was the real estate agent who represented Co-wan in the sale of the property. Ouchley stated that she believed the dock was located on the Cowan tract as represented in the property listing and advertisements. Ouchley acknowledged that prior to the sale she went to the property, and met with Murphy, who said that the Cowan tract did not extend to the water and that the prop[520]*520erty did not include the dock. Ouchley testified that she had not told Cowan about Murphy’s statement concerning the dock because Murphy had not been able to find a marker showing that the property line extended past the dock.

The plaintiff, Tim Bjornson, testified that he bought the property from Cowan in June 2007. The plaintiff stated that the property was listed as including a dock and that Coldwell Banker’s website displayed photographs of the property with the dock in view. He testified that obtaining the dock was one of his reasons for buying the property. Plaintiff stated that he learned there was a problem regarding the dock when he saw two members of Kirkland’s survey crew on the property. They had placed a stake in the ground at the right hand (east) corner of the dock to mark the property line, [,vindicating that the dock was not located on plaintiffs tract. Plaintiff stated that he contacted Cowan and George to resolve the problem, but eventually Cowan said she was not going to do anything. Plaintiff testified that he took measurements of the L-shaped dock, which included a walkway 46 feet long and six feet wide, with a deck on the left side that was 12 feet long and 10 feet wide. Plaintiff acknowledged that he did not obtain a survey or inquire about the location of the property lines before buying the parcel.

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Related

Stobart v. State Through DOTD
617 So. 2d 880 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1993)
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975 So. 2d 691 (Louisiana Court of Appeal, 2008)
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Bluebook (online)
58 So. 3d 517, 2011 La. App. LEXIS 250, 2011 WL 712093, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bjornson-v-cowan-lactapp-2011.