Donald D. Kessler, on Their Own Behalf and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated v. National Enterprises, Inc. Arkansas No. 1 Lcc

238 F.3d 1006, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 1194, 2001 WL 70434
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 30, 2001
Docket99-4249
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 238 F.3d 1006 (Donald D. Kessler, on Their Own Behalf and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated v. National Enterprises, Inc. Arkansas No. 1 Lcc) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Donald D. Kessler, on Their Own Behalf and on Behalf of All Others Similarly Situated v. National Enterprises, Inc. Arkansas No. 1 Lcc, 238 F.3d 1006, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 1194, 2001 WL 70434 (8th Cir. 2001).

Opinions

BYE, Circuit Judge.

In the mid-1980s, plaintiffs purchased time-share interests in the Lakeshore Resort & Yacht Club (Lakeshore) in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Lakeshore is sur--rounded by the Lake Hamilton Resort Hotel (the Hotel). In December 1993, the Hotel revoked a license agreement that allowed time-share owners access to the Hotel’s parking and recreational facilities, and also terminated Lakeshore’s utilities.

As successor to Lakeshore’s developer, defendant National Enterprises, Inc. (NEI) unsuccessfully sued the Hotel in the Arkansas courts to enforce the license agreement. Plaintiffs then filed the instant class action, claiming that Lake-shore’s developer was obligated to provide utilities and continued access to the Hotel’s parking and recreational facilities, and seeking to hold NEI liable for the initial developer’s obligations. After remands following two threshold appeals, see 165 F.3d 596 (8th Cir.1999), 203 F.3d 1058 (8th Cir.2000), the district court entered judgment in favor of NEI. We now reverse and remand for calculation of damages.

BACKGROUND1

In 1983, Painter’s Point Development Company Limited Partnership (Painter’s Point) began construction of a hotel and [1008]*1008twenty-unit condominium resort on a tract of land located on the shores of Lake Hamilton in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Painter’s Point commonly owned the hotel property and resort property until mid-1985, when it conveyed the resort property to the Lakeshore Resort & Yacht Club Limited Partnership (Lakeshore LP). Painter’s Point continued to construct a hotel on the tract of land surrounding the resort property.

In June 1985, Lakeshore LP started Lakeshore, a time-share project organized pursuant to the provisions of the Arkansas Time-Share Act, Ark.Code Ann. §§ 18-14-101 to 18-14-602 (the Time-Share Act). Contemporaneous with its organization of the time-share project, Lakeshore LP reached a license agreement with Painter’s Point that allowed individual purchasers of Lakeshore’s time-share units to use hotel parking, as well as the recreational amenities contemplated in the operation of the hotel.

The Lakeshore time-share project had to be registered with, and accepted by, the Arkansas Real Estate Commission (the Commission) before time-share interests could be sold to prospective buyers. See Ark.Code Ann. §§ 18-14-202(a)(l), 18-14-204, 18 — 14—206(b), 18-14-207. Lakeshore LP filed an application for registration containing the public offering statement required by the Time-Share Act, see id. at § 18-14-204(a), and a document entitled “Horizontal Property Regime, Master Deed and Bylaws for Lakeshore Resort and Yacht Club.”

The Master Deed referred to the timeshare purchasers’ rights to use hotel amenities by stating that

[t]he Developer is presently contemplating construction of certain recreational facilities on property owned by the Developer adjacent to the property described in Exhibit “A”. The Co-Owners of this Regime shall have the right to use said recreational facilities jointly with other property regimes established or to be established by the Developer or such other persons who are licenses or guests of the Developer. (Emphasis added).

The public offering statement referred to the Hotel license agreement,2 but the agreement itself was not included with Lakeshore LP’s application to the Commission. By letter dated July 3, 1985, the Commission accepted the Lakeshore application conditioned upon the submission of “the Licensing Agreement referred to in the Public Offering Statement that is intended to insure use of hotel amenities by the Time-Share Purchaser.”

Lakeshore LP submitted the license agreement to the Commission, but it was not accepted. In a letter dated August 11, 1985, the Commission stated

the Licensing Agreement was not accepted as written.... [T]he Licensing Agreement must be drafted so that the Agreement cannot be voided or can-celled by either the [Lakeshore] developer or the [Hotel owner]. The Agreement should be drafted so that it will be in existence as long as the Time-Share program exists, to insure the promised use of the amenities by Time-Share Interval purchasers.

The Commission accepted the application only after a revised “irrevocable” license agreement3 was submitted.

[1009]*1009Following registration, Lakeshore LP began marketing time-share interests to the named plaintiffs and other members of the class. Each purchase was memorialized by a Warranty Deed that incorporated by reference the Lakeshore Resort Master Deed and By Laws, and gave the purchasers a time-share interest in the resort until noon on the first Friday of the year 2020.

A sales brochure givea to the plaintiffs represented that “[a]s a Lakeshore owner all of the facilities at the [Hotel] are yours to use and enjoy.” In addition, during the application process with the Commission, Lakeshore LP represented that the license agreement with the Hotel “provid[es] for the continued use of all amenities and parking facilities of the resort by the timeshare owners of Lakeshore Resort and Yacht Club.” NEI stipulated that representations made during the application process were corroborated by oral representations made by sales agents to individual purchasers.

NEI also stipulated that representations were made that time-share purchasers would receive standard utilities in exchange for paying annual maintenance fees. Finally, NEI stipulated that the plaintiffs’ decisions to purchase time-share interests were based upon the express representations regarding the continued use of the Hotel amenities, and that plaintiffs would not have purchased their time-share interests absent the continued use of the Hotel amenities.

The Hotel honored the terms of the license agreement for the first seven or eight years of each plaintiffs contemplated thirty-five year interest in the time-share project. Lakeshore also provided utilities, such as sewer and water, via the Hotel property in exchange for annual maintenance fees. Problems arose, however, after a series of changes in the financing and ownership of both the Lakeshore and Hotel properties.

Lakeshore LP transferred its interests in the Lakeshore property to Hansen, Hooper & Hayes, Inc. (HHH) in August 1986. HHH then executed a note and mortgage in favor of Independence Federal Savings & Loan (Independence) with the Lakeshore property pledged as collateral. In 1991, Independence went into receiver-ship, and the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) was appointed as receiver. HHH subsequently defaulted on the note and the RTC started foreclosure proceedings against the Lakeshore property. In October 1993, NEI purchased the note and mortgage from the RTC, and then purchased the Lakeshore property itself following a foreclosure sale in May 1994. For present purposes, then, NEI stood in the shoes of Lakeshore LP as owner of the Lakeshore property.4

The Hotel property also experienced a series of changes. The original developer (Painter’s Point) defaulted on its financing. The lender, Union Planter’s, initiated foreclosure proceedings against the Hotel in November 1988.

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238 F.3d 1006, 2001 U.S. App. LEXIS 1194, 2001 WL 70434, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/donald-d-kessler-on-their-own-behalf-and-on-behalf-of-all-others-ca8-2001.