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Summaries
of Recent New Mexico Appellate Opinions - Civil Cases
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Full Opinions - Hard
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Civil Cases: September 2007 (most
recent cases listed first)
Smith v. City of Santa Fe, CA 24,801 (Castillo) Feb 16, 2006, aff’d SC 29,712 (Maes) Sep 28, 2007
Where issue of district court jurisdiction over declaratory judgment is arguable because there may be a failure to exhaust administrative appeal remedies, but there is also authority that there is jurisdiction, appellate court would assume jurisdiction where answer to substantive issue is clear; Court follows analysis of minimum wage act case to determine whether home rule city could enact ordinances requiring city approval of domestic well permits and decides that state law on State Engineer permits for domestic wells does not preempt local ordinance (Vigil, concurring on the merits, but dissenting on the jurisdictional issue, which he believes is necessary to be decided).
Aff’d on the merits for the reasons stated in the COA opinion, but noting that jurisdictional issues must be reached, and holding that the district court had jurisdiction over the declaratory judgment of the petitioner who did not begin administrative proceedings under City’s appeal process or under Rule 1-075 when the issues sought to be raised were purely legal and did not depend on fact finding or administrative expertise, but did not have jurisdiction over the case of the petitioner who went through the administrative appeal process and then did not timely file under Rule 1-075.
Zavala v. El Paso County Hospital Dist., CA 25,971 (Wechsler) Sep 25, 2007
Where Plaintiffs had several months to conduct discovery relating to issues of personal jurisdiction and did not ask to continue the hearing on the matter, they could not later complain that there was insufficient time for discovery; treating patients from another state is not sufficient by itself to permit personal jurisdiction over a hospital, nor is the existence of a website that anyone can access and registration as a medicaid provider in both states even when taken together with the fact that hospital is near the border of two states and has agreements with another hospital regarding transfer of patients; even if these contacts would allow general jurisdiction, principles of fairness do not permit it; there was no specific jurisdiction because there was no contact reaching into this state; regarding fairness, hospital’s, as well as the State of Texas’s, of which hospital is a part, interest in efficiency makes it better to litigate Plaintiffs’ claims in Texas when balanced against the hospital’s meager contacts in New Mexico; there are also no minimum contacts by the doctors who treated one plaintiff in Texas because their contacts are even slimmer than hospital’s.
Ullrich v. Blanchard, CA 27,130 (Pickard) Sep 19, 2007
Where an original order said that Respondent was not Petitioner’s father and when an order stemming from a settlement of a Rule 1-060(B) motion said that there was no finding that Respondent was Petitioner’s father because Petitioner’s (a child) GAL would not approve the settlement unless the question of paternity was reserved for Petitioner to raise once he became an adult, neither res judicata nor collateral estoppel barred the paternity suit that Petitioner filed when he was an adult; further the order on Rule 1-060(B) superseded the earlier order because they were inconsistent; however, the funds Respondent paid on Petitioner’s behalf pursuant to the earlier orders could be considered as offsets for the child support Petitioner is now claiming.
Barrington Reinsurance Ltd. v. Fidelity National Title Ins. Co., CA 26,777 (Castillo) Sep 18, 2007
When courts held that title insurance companies owed a duty of reasonable care to sellers under a statute providing that title insurers were required to reasonably search titles, legislature amended statute to provide that the duty provided by the statute runs only to title insurers and therefore superseded the case; however, the superseding language goes only to the duty created by the statute and therefore title insurers can be sued for other causes of action, such as misrepresentation, unfair practices, etc, when supported by the facts.
Corrections Corp. of America v. State, CA 26,246 (Bustamante) Sep 18, 2007
CCA’s contracts providing prison services to the federal bureau of prisons and state corrections department on a per diem basis (with the government paying a daily rate per prisoner) are not leases of real property that are exempt from gross receipts tax.
J.R. Hale Contracting Co. v. Union Pac. RR, CA 26,422 (Sutin) Sep 12, 2007
In a fact- and issue-intensive case involving a contractor and subcontractor doing grade work involving ballast in which the subcontractor made a calculation mistake in its bid, but also thought it was conforming to a course of conduct in doing more work than called for in written documents due to unforeseen soil conditions, trial court erred in granting summary judgment and should have taken evidence of parties’ intent outside of four corners of contract and made a decision after a full trial; indemnification clause in contract is not void as against public policy because it does not involve bodily injury; further facts must be developed to determine whether interest penalty under Retainage Act is required; court should separate out attorney fees for issues on which such fees are allowed.
Monks Own Limited v. Monastery of Christ in the Desert, CA 25,787 (Vigil) Jun 27, 2006, aff’d SC 29,973 (Bosson) Sep 5, 2007
Default judgment of Canadian court is valid against a NM corporation when there are sufficient contacts of the NM corporation in Canada; party is not required to defend in the foreign court in order not to waive the issue of personal jurisdiction; the NM corporation transacted business in Canada by buying the Canadian business in a contract that said Canadian law would control and representatives of the NM corporation went to Canada to transact the business.
Aff’d using a slightly different analysis, i.e., determining whether the foreign court had jurisdiction under its own law and then applying due process principles of domestic law.
Bishop v. Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, CA 25,510 (Alarid) Sep 4, 2007
Although the Continuing Care Act requires long-term care facilities to set increases in fees based on factors including a reasonable return on investment, because Defendant is a non-profit organization, that concept does not apply because non-profits are driven by missions and not be economics, and Defendant did not breach contract with residents by increasing fees without considering return on investment; initial fee residents are charged is a matter of freedom of contract and is not regulated by CCA; Plaintiffs’ theory of continuing wrong was not presented to the trial court, who therefore correctly applied six-year statute of limitations to dates of increases in fees; prejudgment interest is allowed but only to a maximum of one full recovery of such interest; court could not credit Defendants with fee increases that could have been made but were not in certain years.
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