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Summaries
of Recent New Mexico Appellate Opinions - Civil Cases
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Full Opinions - Hard
Copy
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Civil Cases: May 2008 (most
recent cases listed first)
Miller v. Morrison, CA 27,317 (Vigil) May 28, 2008
A Texas judgment was not entitled to full faith and credit when the Texas court never acquired personal jurisdiction over Defendant; service was by mail and under Texas law, that requires the signature of the defendant, and not someone else, on the return receipt; also, Texas law provides that agreements between counsel to extend the time to answer are not general appearances such as would confer jurisdiction; nor does actual notice of the suit give jurisdiction.
Fowler Brothers, Inc. v. Bounds, CA 27,649 (Bustamante) May 27, 2008
A New Mexico contractor who is not licensed in Arizona may not agree to be the “employee” of an Arizona contractor, where the New Mexico contractor is running the project, and still recover for work performed because both New Mexico and Arizona have statutes that prohibit unlicensed contractors from recovering in their courts and comity counsels that New Mexico should not allow its courts to be used for something that could not be done in Arizona where the contract was entered into and the work performed; it is a false conflict of laws when the laws of each state are similar and the result would be the same no matter which state’s law is used; nor is this a case of substantial compliance because Plaintiff never intended to get an Arizona license.
State ex rel. CYFD v. Lisa A., CA 27, 188 (Castillo) May 13, 2008
Where a child is in CYFD custody because of adjudications of abuse against Mother and neglect against Father and where Father’s adjudication of neglect was reversed on appeal, the district court could return the child to Father and dismiss the case as to Mother, which would mean that Mother would not get the services she was getting; this scenario does not deprive Mother of due process and Mother was not denied effective assistance of counsel when her counsel below made the same arguments as are being made on appeal; nor did the district court ignore the best interests of the child.
Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. v. Montoya, CA 27,465 (Sutin) May 7, 2008
Under the former redemption statute, a junior mortgagee that foreclosed its mortgage in a proceedings in which a senior mortgage was also foreclosed is entitled to redeem and because its assignee exercised its right prior to the debtor’s assignee, its assignee was entitled to the property.
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