Salens v. Tubbs

292 F. App'x 438
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedSeptember 3, 2008
Docket06-2194
StatusUnpublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 292 F. App'x 438 (Salens v. Tubbs) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Salens v. Tubbs, 292 F. App'x 438 (6th Cir. 2008).

Opinions

COOK, Circuit Judge.

Jacqulyn Tubbs1 appeals pro re from an adverse grant of summary judgment in this diversity action for breach of implied contract.

Appellee Tami Woodworth Salens, Ancillary and Personal Representative of the Estate of Keith George Church, deceased, filed a complaint against Tubbs claiming breach of implied contract, unjust enrichment, and conditional gift, seeking monetary and declaratory relief. The district court initially denied Tubbs’s motion for summary judgment, but later modified its order following supplemental briefing, granting summary judgment in part to the Estate and in part to Tubbs. Thereafter, the district court entered a judgment resolving all of the claims in the litigation. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court’s judgment.

I.

Appellee’s decedent, Keith George Church, a citizen of the United Kingdom, and Tubbs, a Michigan resident, began communicating over the Internet in the fall of 1999. Thereafter, Church and Tubbs developed a long-distance relationship built on written correspondence, tele[440]*440phone contacts, and several in-person visits. Church and Tubbs became engaged in February 2000, planning to be married in Las Vegas in July 2000. Two months before the engagement, Church paid off $4,100 of Tubbs’s credit card debt. He also gave Tubbs an engagement ring that he purchased for $7,274.42 in February 2000. On March 15, 2000, he deposited $194,852.56 in Tubbs’s bank account to fund the purchase of land and a residential home located at 3865 S. Sandusky Road, Peck, Michigan. Tubbs testified that she did not supply any money for the purchase of the home and that Church instructed her to place title in both of their names. In April 2000, the real property was conveyed to “Keith G. Church, a single man and Jacqulyn J. Tubbs, a single woman as joint tenants.” Church later delivered certain personal belongings to the Michigan home, including a family heirloom diamond ring worth $4,560. Tubbs moved into the home in April 2000.

On June 5, 2000, Tubbs e-mailed Church stating that their relationship was over and that the rings and paperwork on the house were in her attorney’s possession. According to Tubbs, she was horrified after seeing Church’s “bizarre and abnormal behavior” on the Internet. He led a “risque lifestyle as a cross[-]dresser and bisexual.” (Appellant’s Br. 2) Tubbs rejected Church’s demands to repay the $4,100 and to return the engagement ring, his personal property, and her interest in the Michigan home. On July 24, 2000, Church died in England.

Over four years later, Church’s Estate filed a diversity suit seeking to recover the property Tubbs refused to return. Tubbs moved for summary judgment, and the district court denied her motion, prompting responsive supplemental briefing. Thereafter, the district court entered an amended order granting summary judgment sua sponte, in part to the Estate and in part to Tubbs. Because this amended order left the claim for damages unresolved, this court rejected as premature an appeal of that non-final order. Following an off-record telephone conference with counsel for both parties, the court entered a final judgment entitling the Estate to: the rings or a money judgment for their values; the real property, partitioned as a matter of law to account for its appreciation; complete right, title, interest, and possession of the land and residential home, free and clear1 of any claim, right, title, or interest of Tubbs; and a money judgment in the amount of $75,000 (the amount of Tubbs’s home equity mortgage), less credits to Tubbs of $13,000 for property taxes she paid from 2000 through 2005, or a modified money judgment in the amount of $62,000. The district court ruled that under the probate exception to diversity jurisdiction, it lacked federal subject matter jurisdiction to decide whether a provision of Church’s will released the alleged $4,100 debt; the court therefore granted summary judgment to Tubbs for this claim. This appeal followed.

II.

For her pro se appellate arguments, Tubbs says that the district court only considered when the gifts were made, ignoring Church’s misconduct during the engagement and after the relationship was over. Church’s responsibility for the broken engagement, she reasons, should preclude his estate from recovering the gifts and home. She also denies any express or implied contract between Church and her for repayment or return of the property if the marriage did not take place.

A. Standard of Review

We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment. Sigler v. [441]*441Am. Honda Motor Co., 532 F.3d 469, 482 (6th Cir.2008). Summary judgment is proper where “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and ... the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). In considering a motion for summary judgment, the district court must construe the evidence and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). The inquiry is “whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

We note that Tubbs does not challenge the district court’s procedural decision to enter summary judgment for the Estate sua sponte. If she had, we would find no procedural error because Tubbs had ample notice and opportunity to respond to the prospect of summary judgment. After all, it was she who first moved for summary judgment, setting off a deluge of cross-briefing from the parties. As we have said, granting summary judgment “in favor of an opposing party when one party has made a motion for summary judgment ... may not be as detrimental since the moving party is at least aware that the issue has been raised.” Employers Ins. of Wausau v. Petroleum Specialties, Inc., 69 F.3d 98, 105 (6th Cir.1995). Tubbs filed two briefs even after the district court denied her motion for summary judgment, and the court responded to these arguments with an amended order. Tubbs did not object on either lack-of-notice or opportunity-to-respond grounds. As the only deponent, Tubbs could readily mai’-shal the evidence and address all the issues considered by the court, so the court acted well within its discretion in deciding to grant summary judgment against her and for the Estate.

B. Engagement Ring

Tubbs received a $7,274.42 engagement ring from Church, but testified that she no longer possessed it; she “threw it over the bridge in Elk Creek River.”

Tubbs acknowledges that Michigan law categorizes engagement rings as conditional gifts, rather than outright gifts, because of their symbolic weight. In Meyer v.

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