Smalley v. Juneau Clinic Building Corporation

493 P.2d 1296, 1972 Alas. LEXIS 205
CourtAlaska Supreme Court
DecidedFebruary 14, 1972
Docket1310, 1311
StatusPublished
Cited by38 cases

This text of 493 P.2d 1296 (Smalley v. Juneau Clinic Building Corporation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Alaska Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Smalley v. Juneau Clinic Building Corporation, 493 P.2d 1296, 1972 Alas. LEXIS 205 (Ala. 1972).

Opinions

OPINION

RABINOWITZ, Justice.

These appeals arise out of a fairly complex factual setting involving the leasing by a closely held corporation of a building to a medical partnership which at the inception of the lease was composed of the majority of the shareholders of the lessor corporation.

In 1957 the Juneau Clinic Building Corporation built a single story concrete medical building, containing approximately 7,100 square feet of useable space, in downtown Juneau. The corporation conducted no business other than that related to the ownership and rental of this building. On August 1, 1960, the corporation and the Juneau Clinic, a medical partnership composed of Doctors C. C. Carter, William M. Whitehead, and Jack W. Gibson, entered into a 10-year lease agreement.

The lease was in writing and was signed by the parties.1 However, it was not acknowledged. Rent, in the amount of $3,800 was to be paid monthly. In November 1967, the corporation sued Doctors Robert R. Smalley, Peter O. Hansen, and the estate of Doctor Gibson for nonpayment of rent under the lease. The pertinent facts which preceded the corporation’s initiation of this litigation are as follows.

The doctors and staff of the Juneau Clinic partnership occupied the building under the lease from August of 1960 until June 30, 1967. During that period the number of doctors in the partnership fluctuated. At the time Smalley was recruited to the partnership in May of 1960, there were five other physicians who were members 2 of the partnership. When Hansen arrived in 1964, there were six other physicians. However, during a period of [1298]*1298about six months in 1965 and 1966, four doctors left the clinic or gave notice of intent to leave. A fifth, Gibson, was expelled from the partnership for a short period in October of 1965.3

Despite intensive recruitment efforts, there were only three physicians practicing at the clinic by the beginning of 1967. As the number of physicians diminished, the remaining doctors were forced to work long hours to compensate for high overhead costs. On June 30, 1967, Gibson withdrew from the partnership. Smalley and Hansen then assessed the partnership’s financial situation, found it to be disastrous,4 and immediately ceased practicing at the clinic building. One part-time and two full-time employees were kept on the premises for the purpose of collecting receivables and transmitting patients’ records. These employees occupied two small offices in the clinic, remaining there until March 15, 1968.

Thereafter the corporation sued Smalley, Hansen, and the estate of Gibson 5 for rent due until the expiration of the lease on July 31, 1970. The superior court granted Smalley, Hansen, and Gibson’s motion for partial summary judgment, holding the lease void because it lacked acknowledgment. The corporation then amended its complaint, alleging it was due rent for January and March of 1967 and for the period July 1967 through April 1968. The trial court subsequently granted motion for summary judgment, holding that the assets of the Juneau Clinic partnership were first liable for payment of any judgment obtained by plaintiff for rent, and that Smal-ley and Hansen, doing business as the Juneau Clinic, were solely liable for any rental payments found due to the plaintiff.6 After all parties had rested, the court directed a verdict in favor of the corporation for $37,500.7

[1299]*1299Smalley and Hansen appeal from the court’s determination that $3,800 was a reasonable monthly rental and its refusal to apply the “indemnification” agreements against Gibson’s estate. The corporation appeals from the court’s determination that the lease is void and unenforceable. Gibson’s estate urges affirmance of the lower court’s decisions in every respect.

We first turn to the issue of whether the trial court’s invalidation of the 1960 lease was erroneous. Resolution of this question necessarily controls the disposition of other issues raised in these appeals.

The superior court found the lease to be invalid because it was not acknowledged. The trial court’s decision was based on an interpretation of AS 34.15.150(a) which provides in part:

A conveyance executed in the state of land or an interest in land in the state shall be acknowledged before a judge, clerk of the superior court, notary public, postmaster, or commissioner in the state or proved in accordance with §§ 210 or 220 of this chapter.

This statute applies to a lease for a terfn of years. In the case at bar the corporation does not challenge such application. Moreover, we find the statutory definition of “conveyance” is sufficiently broad to include a lease. In this regard, AS 34.15.350 provides in part:

“[Cjonveyance” includes every instrument in writing by which an estate or interest in real property, including royalty and other interests in minerals, is created, alienated, mortgaged or encumbered, or by which the title to real property is affected, except a will.

Also of significance is the fact that the United States Supreme Court, speaking through Justice Holmes, has held that a lease was a conveyance under an earlier but similar Alaska recording statute. Waskey v. Chambers, 224 U.S. 564, 32 S.Ct. 597, 56 L.Ed. 885 (1912).

The more difficult question here is the effect of the parties’ failure to comply with the statutory requirement that the lease be acknowledged. The trial court concluded that such failure rendered the instrument invalid. The court noted that acknowledgment, which had previously been permissive, was made mandatory in 1953, replacing a requirement that deeds and conveyances be signed by two witnesses. The trial court also stated that:

As a matter of policy, my interpretation is that this was intended to surround the making of an instrument of this kind with formality that would impress upon the parties . . . the seriousness of dealing in land in this manner, and that it was the legislature’s intention that no instrument thus failing should be valid, even if between parties, much less as to third parties, without the existence of that formality.

We agree that this question must ultimately be decided as a matter of policy. However, we are unable to agree with the trial court’s interpretation of the effect of lack of an acknowledgment as between the parties to the lease in the circumstances of this case. Before discussing the policy issues involved, we think it appropriate to consider prior Alaska case law and the legislative history of AS 34.15.150(a).

While there are no post-statehood cases construing AS 34.15.150(a), a number of Alaska territorial decisions were concerned with the various predecessor statutes which required that a deed or conveyance be executed before two signing witnesses.8 The corporation cites these cases for the proposition that failure to comply with the acknowledgment requirement does not make an instrument invalid as between the par[1300]*1300ties to it, but rather only precludes its rec-ordation and thus its effectiveness as against third persons. Cross-appellee Gibson artfully seeks to distinguish them on various grounds.

In Morency v.

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Bluebook (online)
493 P.2d 1296, 1972 Alas. LEXIS 205, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smalley-v-juneau-clinic-building-corporation-alaska-1972.