Case Title: Bennett v. Pace

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1987-01-15T00:00:00Z

Document:
Bennett v. Pace1987 WY 3731 P.2d 33Case Number: 86-114Decided: 01/15/1987Supreme Court of Wyoming
PATRICIA A. BENNETT AND 
CLARENCE D. BENNETT, APPELLANTS (PLAINTIFFS),

 
 
v.

 
 
CARL R. PACE, D/B/A 
CARL'S BACKHOE AND WELL DRILLING SERVICE AND JOHN E. FRENTHEWAY, APPELLEES 
(DEFENDANTS).

 
 
Appeal from the District 
Court, LaramieCounty, William A. Taylor, 
J.

 
 
Sue Davidson and Jack 
Gage of Whitehead, Zunker, Gage, Davidson & Shotwell, P.C., Cheyenne, for appellants.

 
 
Curtis B. Buchhammer of 
Guy, Williams, White & Argeris, Cheyenne, for appellee Carl R. Pace d/b/a Carl's 
Backhoe and Well Drilling Service.

 
 
Glenn Parker and Thomas 
G. Gorman of Hirst & Applegate, P.C., Cheyenne, for appellee John E. 
Frentheway.

 
 
Before BROWN, C.J., THOMAS, CARDINE and MACY, JJ., 
and RAPER, Retired Justice.

 
 

RAPER, Retired 
Justice.

 
 

[¶1.]     The trial judge 
dismissed "without prejudice" appellants' complaint claiming damages against 
appellees for slander of title to real property. The only real issue is whether 
appellants had standing to maintain such action in that it appears in the 
complaint that they had no title, possession, or other interest in the real 
property, the title to which is alleged to have been 
slandered.

 
 

[¶2.]     We will affirm the 
district court.

 
 

[¶3.]     Appellants' complaint 
alleges that they were the owners of certain real estate which was to have been 
sold on February 7, 1985. The lender postponed the closing of the sale until the 
following day. On February 7, 1985, at 4:50 p.m., appellee Frentheway, as 
attorney for appellee Pace, placed on record a lien statement claiming a balance 
due for well drilling, water lines, other materials, and labor. The parties to 
the sale were unaware of this and proceeded to close the 
sale.

 
 

[¶4.]     It is further alleged 
in the complaint that the amount claimed by the lien is not due and that the 
lien is invalid for failure to comply with statutory 
requirements.

 
 

[¶5.]     It is claimed by the 
complaint that the lien filing was made willfully and maliciously for the 
purpose of slander of title to hold up the sale and force appellants to pay an 
additional amount for services for which Pace had been paid. Actual and punitive 
damages were claimed along with declaratory relief to clear title of the lien 
statement.

 
 

[¶6.]     Both appellees filed 
motions to dismiss on the ground that it appeared from the allegations of the 
complaint that no claim upon which relief must be granted was stated in that 
appellants held no title to the property, retained no interest therein, and were 
not in possession since all such interests had been conveyed on February 8, 
1985.

 
 

[¶7.]     This Court has never 
before had an occasion to announce the law applicable to slander of title under 
circumstances such as those of this case. "Slander of title" is defined as a 
false and malicious statement made in disparagement of a person's title to real 
or personal property, or of some right of his causing him special damage. 
Black's Law Dictionary 1244 (5th ed. 1979).

 
 

[¶8.]     Our research indicates 
the prevailing rule for many years has been, and still is, that, in order for a 
plaintiff to recover for slander of title, he must possess an interest in the 
property slandered. Zehner v. Post Oak Oil Company, Okla.App., 640 P.2d 991 
(1981); White & Baxter, Inc. v. Jade Square and Tower, Ltd., 62 A.D.2d 963, 
404 N.Y.S.2d 105 (1978); Bynum v. Bynum, 87 N.M. 195, 531 P.2d 618 (1975); 
Island Homes, Inc. v. City of Fairbanks, Alaska, 421 P.2d 759 (1966); Slusher v. 
Buckley, 174 Cal. App. 2d 324, 344 P.2d 905 (1959); Metcalf v. American Surety Co. 
of New York, 360 Mo. 1043, 232 S.W.2d 526 (1950); Allison v. Berry, 316 Ill. 
App. 261, 44 N.E.2d 929 (1942).

 
 

[¶9.]     Appellants take a 
position that such is not the law, that a new rule prevails, and that, even 
though they parted with title at the closing on February 8, 1985, they are still 
damaged by the filing of an alleged false lien, and they point to the 
Restatement, Second, Torts. We have examined most carefully those parts of the 
work involving property, and the only change we see which might be taking place 
is in attaching a different label to the claim as "injurious falsehood" rather 
than "slander of title." It is explained in the Restatement, Second, Torts § 
624, comment a at 343 that:

 
 
"The particular form of 
injurious falsehood that involves disparagement of the property in land, 
chattels, or intangible things, is commonly called `slander of title.' The 
earliest cases in which it arose involved oral aspersions cast upon the 
plaintiff's ownership of land, as a result of which he was prevented from 
selling or leasing it; and the decisions went upon an analogy to the kind of 
oral defamation of the person that is actionable only upon proof of special 
harm. (See § 569). The extension of the liability to other kinds of injurious 
falsehood has left the terms `slander of title,' and `disparagement,' merely as 
special names given to this particular form of the tort."

 
 

[¶10.]  When this action was filed in the 
district court, appellants had no claim because they had parted with all legally 
protected interests in the property. The Restatement, Second, Torts, id., 
comment c at 344, sets out those interests as:

 
 
"Any kind of legally 
protected interest in land, chattels or intangible things may be disparaged if 
the interest is transferable and therefore salable or otherwise capable of 
profitable disposal. It may be real or personal, corporeal or incorporeal, in 
possession or reversion. It may be protected either by legal or equitable 
proceedings and may be vested or inchoate. It may be a mortgage, lease, 
easement, reversion or remainder, whether vested or contingent, in land or 
chattels, a trust or other equitable interest. It may be a patent right, a 
copyright or the right to use a trademark or trade name. It may be intangible 
property, whether represented and embodied in a document, negotiable or 
otherwise, or consisting of a simple debt or other cause of action. This does 
not purport to be a complete catalogue of legally protected interests in land, 
chattels and intangible things capable of disparagement. There may be other 
interests recognized by the law of property that are salable or otherwise 
capable of profitable disposal and to which the rule stated in this Section is 
therefore applicable."

 
 
Appellants retained no 
salable or disposable interest in the land, a necessary element upon which to 
base a claim for slander of title.

 
 

[¶11.]  Furthermore, we can add that this concept 
seems to bear a strong relationship to "`[s]tanding to sue'" as declared in L 
Slash X Cattle Company, Inc. v. Texaco, Inc., Wyo., 623 P.2d 764, 767 
(1981):

 
 
"`Standing to sue' is a 
right to relief and goes to the existence of a personal claim for relief. It 
includes a legal disability, such as insanity or infancy, but it is more. It 
involves a sufficient stake in an otherwise justiciable controversy to obtain 
judicial resolution of that controversy. It is closely related to the doctrine 
of mootness. It requires sufficient personal interest in the outcome of 
litigation by way of injury or potential injury to warrant consideration by the 
court. Since it goes to the existence of a claim for relief and is 
jurisdictional in nature, it can be raised at any point in the procedure." 
(Citations omitted.)

 
 

[¶12.]  This Court, in L Slash X Cattle Company, 
Inc., held that the sale of affected land removed the petitioners from the 
status of being "`aggrieved or adversely affected in fact.'" Id. at 
768.

 
 

[¶13.]  We agree with the district court that no 
claim for relief was stated in appellants' complaint.1

 
 

[¶14.]  Affirmed.

 
 
FOOTNOTES

 
 

1 
The dismissal was "without prejudice," which meant that appellants were at 
liberty to amend their complaint to state a claim other than "slander of title." 
They elected to stand on the claim as alleged, and this appeal ensued. By this 
statement, we do not infer that they had a claim of any 
sort.