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C.A. Spurns Attempt to Hold Association Liable for Violent Neighbor Dispute
Opinion Says Homeowners’ Group, Management Company Owe No Duty to Intervene, After Complaints, to Prevent Hostility Between Residents From Turning Physical
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
Div. Three of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has held that summary judgment was properly granted to a homeowners’ association and real estate management company that the court said were “dragged into litigation that should have remained between two sets of homeowners,” finding that the defendants owed no duty of care to prevent a known and ongoing neighbor dispute from turning physical.
The litigation began in 2020 when Eric Smith and Stacy Thorne sued their next-door neighbors Eric Woolard and Breonna Hall, and the property management company for their complex, Regent Association Services. The complaint asserts negligence claims, numerous intentional torts, and premises liability for an incident on the property on Dec. 27, 2019.
Smith and Thorne allege in the complaint that Smith was punched in the head and Thorne was stabbed after a verbal argument with Woolard and Hall turned physical. The complaint also alleges:
“….Defendants Regent Real Estate Services Inc…failed to take action to ensure Defendants Woolard and Hall comply with all Homeowners Association policies, despite having received several complaints of their…history of disturbing behavior. Due to [the] failure to enforce the…policies and failure to remove defendants Woolard and Hall following incidents of prior aggressive and threatening behavior, an extended verbal altercation developed….which quickly escalated into the vicious…beating and stabbing of Plaintiffs….”
Woolard and Hall responded by filing a cross-complaint against Smith and Thorne, and naming Regent and the Greenhouse Community Association as additional cross-defendants, asserting that the physical altercation was the result of long-standing harassment against them by multiple neighbors.
As to Regent and Greenhouse, Woolard and Hall asserted a cause of action for negligence and sought general and punitive damages.
The cross-plaintiffs assert that neighbors would take “late night walks around their back gates in an attempt to provoke their dogs to bark, then file complaints with the city for the dogs being a nuisance” and that an association officer “used another member in the community…to obtain information about…[the defendants’] whereabouts and activities…and encouraged neighbors to intimidate and record [them].”
They contend that they suffered their own physical injuries and mental anguish from the fight with Smith and Thorne, which they allege occurred in front of the cross-plaintiffs’ small children.
As to facts supporting their negligence claims against Regent and Greenhouse, the cross-plaintiffs contend that the association and management company “refused to assist or respond to any complaints” and failed “to take any steps to deescalate the situation.”
In April 2023, Regent and Greenhouse filed a joint motion for summary judgment against Hall and Woolard, arguing that they owed no duty of care to intervene in a dispute between neighbors. They submitted a declaration from Robert Griswold, a purported expert on homeowners’ association matters, saying:
“The standard of care for a homeowner association, such as Greenhouse, and a management company, such as Regent, is that neither should or would be expected to intervene in a neighbor-to-neighbor dispute, as a homeowner association or management company is not a security guard or peacemaker for neighbor-to-neighbor disputes. To the extent any intervention is felt necessary by one of the parties, such intervention would need to come from a combination of the police and/or the legal system…”
Orange Superior Court Judge Kimberly Knill agreed and granted the motion. Judgment was entered in favor of Regent and Greenhouse on July 13, 2023.
Acting Presiding Justice Eileen C. Moore authored the opinion, filed Dec. 3 and certified for publication on Monday, affirming the judgment. Justices Thomas M. Goethals and Joanne Motoike joined in the opinion
Duty of Care
Saying that “[w]e must start by asking just what duty Woolard and Hall seek to impose on Regent and Greenhouse,” Moore pointed out:
“Their opposition to the motion to summary judgment specifically disclaimed the notion that they were seeking to impose a duty on Regent and Greenhouse ‘to contact or call the police of [sic] make any contact for them or on their behalf, regarding any dispute at all.’….They argue that the foreseeability of harm could not have been clearer, but that only begs the question. ‘[T]hrough their managing agents Regent, Greenhouse Association knew or should have known of the repeated verbal and physical assault and battery incidents occurring against’ them. But what duty did they have other than calling the police, if there was potential or ongoing criminal activity? They do not tell us. They spend much time arguing about foreseeability of the harm, but foreseeability alone is not enough.”
Woolard and Hall maintains that cases involving a landlord’s duty to a tenant to secure common areas against third-party criminal activity and a college’s duty to prevent assaults on campus establish duties of care in analogous situations, but Moore was unpersuaded and concluded that the jurisprudence is “inapplicable.” She wrote: “The admissible evidence we have before us is the declaration of an expert in homeowners associations, who stated under oath that an association’s duty of care does not include mediating, deescalating, or resolving disputes between neighbors. Nor do Woolard and Hall cite any cases that have held differently.”
Noting that Woolard and Hall rented their unit and “are, accordingly, in a very limited relationship with Greenhouse (and Regent as its managing agent),” she said that “they have no legal standing to maintain a complaint that Greenhouse failed to adequately enforce its own governing documents.”
Public Policy Concerns
The jurist pointed to public policy concerns and remarked:
“[T]here is simply no law to support Woolard and Hall’s contentions that Regent and Greenhouse had some unspecified duty to do something to prevent what turned into an allegedly violent dispute. Imposing a duty on homeowners associations or their managing agents to intervene and attempt to resolve disputes between homeowners (or their tenants) would place an untenable burden on these entities. Run by volunteers, they already have enough (and some would argue too much) authority and responsibility. Associations do not have police powers or subpoena power. They cannot compel owners, much less tenants of owners, to sit down and work out their differences, and they cannot adjudicate differences except in the limited context of violations of the association’s governing documents.”
She continued:
“Imposing a duty under these facts would leave associations liable for the outcome of such disputes without the tools to prevent them. This would leave ordinary homeowners holding the bag when special assessments were needed to pay judgments or attorney fees. Regent and Greenhouse played no part in the physical altercation at issue here and should never have been dragged into this dispute.”
Moore declared: “Accordingly, we find no existing duty of care was breached and decline to recognize a new duty of care requiring a homeowners association or its management company to involve itself in disputes between homeowners outside the confines of the governing documents. Summary judgment was properly granted as to both Regent and Greenhouse.”
The case is Woolard v. Regent Real Estate Services Inc., G062897.
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