Case Title: Kimball v. Lincoln

Citation: 809 P.2d 1130

Docket Number: 

State: hawaii

Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

Date: 1991-04-05T00:00:00Z

Document:
809 P.2d 1130 (1991) Mark KIMBALL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Frances Fox LINCOLN, Individually and as Trustee of the Irrevocable Trust of Frances F. Lincoln, dated February 3, 1987, Defendant-Appellee, and John Does 1-10 and Roe Corporations and Partnerships 1-10; et al., Defendants. No. 14653. Supreme Court of Hawaii. April 5, 1991. *1131 J. James Sogi, Cohn & Sogi, Kailua-Kona, for plaintiff-appellant. Dennis A. Krueger (Robert D. Triantos, with him on the brief), Carlsmith, Ball, Wichman, Murray, Case, Mukai and Ichiki, Kailua-Kona, for defendant-appellee. Before LUM, C.J., and PADGETT, HAYASHI, WAKATSUKI and MOON, JJ. PADGETT, Justice. This is an appeal from a judgment for the appellee landlord in a dispute that is essentially one of whether there was a valid and subsisting lease of agricultural land. The agreement between the appellant, as lessee, and the appellee, as lessor, was executed on January 12, 1988 and acknowledged by both parties. Subsequently, the appellee signed, before a notary and a witness, a document dated August 23, 1988, in which she stated in part: Apparently, appellant took possession of the land in question, commenced working thereon, and tendered rental payments which, for a period of time, were accepted. Subsequently, appellee took the position that the lease was not a valid one and, through her attorneys, refused to accept further lease payments. Appellant then brought this action. The original complaint was in three counts entitled respectively, "Summary Possession," "Specific Performance," and "Declaratory Relief." Essentially appellant sought a declaration that the lease was valid and subsisting and sought the court's aid in the enforcement thereof. The complaint was filed July 12, 1989. On August 16, 1989, appellee filed an answer setting up fourteen defenses and a counterclaim in five counts alleging that she never intended to lease the property to the appellant, that the lease was executed as a result of appellant's undue influence, breach of fiduciary duty, misrepresentations, and as a result of appellee's incompetence at the time of the execution of the lease. The answer and counterclaim were served by registered mail August 16, 1989. On September 14, 1989, the clerk entered a default against the appellant on the counterclaim since no response to the counterclaim had been filed within twenty days as required by HRCP 12(a). On September 18, appellant filed his answer to the counterclaim and on September 21, a motion to set aside the entry of default was filed. On September 29, appellant filed a demand for jury trial of all issues in the case. On November 2, a stipulated order setting aside the default was entered, and on February 14, *1132 1990, a first amended complaint was filed pursuant to an order allowing the same. The first amended complaint added counts entitled respectively, "Fraud" and "Breach of Contract/Promissory Estoppel." On February 26, 1990, appellee filed an answer to the first amended complaint. No jury demand with respect to the new counts was filed. Eventually, after discovery was completed, the case was tried and submitted to a jury upon a special verdict form. On May 10, 1990, the jury returned a verdict which read: Subsequently the judge below refused to enter judgment on the jury verdict and, instead, entered judgment for the appellee on a form drawn by the appellee's attorneys. That judgment was entered July 17, 1990 and read in part as follows: (Emphasis in original.) The court then went on to decree that plaintiff was not entitled to specific performance, not entitled to summary possession, failed to prove there were any material misrepresentations of fact made by the defendant, failed to prove damages and, finally held that even though there was a valid lease, the provisions were not enforceable based upon the findings of fact theretofore stated. Consequently, judgment was granted to the appellee. The Constitution of the State of Hawaii, Article I, section 13, provides: The Hawaii Rules of Civil Procedure (HRCP) provide as follows: The basic question in this appeal is whether the court below erred in entering judgment for the appellee, contrary to the jury verdict. We begin with an analysis of what issues, if any, were triable as of right by a jury. Appellant's first claim for relief is entitled "Summary Possession." There are numerous reasons why the appellant could not prevail on that issue in this action. 1. Summary possession is an action brought by a landlord against a tenant in possession for the possession of the land in question. HRS § 666-1. In this case, appellant claimed to be a tenant, not a landlord. Moreover, apparently appellant was in possession of the land in question except for that portion of the land reserved in the lease to the possession of the appellee. 2. Jurisdiction over summary possession actions lies in the district court, not the circuit court. HRS § 666-6. 3. Appellant had no right to a jury trial of a summary possession action. Lum v. Sun, 70 Haw. 288, 769 P.2d 1091 (1989). 4. Summary possession only lies where there is or has been an admitted relationship of landlord and tenant. It does not lie where the relationship is in dispute. Thus, we said in Harrison v. McCandless, 22 Haw. 129, 130-31 (1914): The court below was correct in denying appellant a writ of summary possession. Appellant's claim for specific performance is clearly equitable in nature and not a claim arising at common law. Accordingly, appellant had no right to demand a jury trial of the claim for specific performance under HRCP 38(b) since the right to demand a jury trial is expressly limited to issues triable of right by a jury under that rule. Moreover, since appellant was in possession of the land, under the lease, there seems no basis for a decree of specific performance since such a decree is normally, in lease situations, used to compel the lessor to give possession of the premises to the lessee. No jury demand as to the two counts added in the first amended complaint was ever made, so they were not triable by a jury. The declaratory judgment count stands on a different footing. This count, the answer thereto, and, to some extent, the first counterclaim, all raise questions of whether a lease was in fact intended to be entered into, and whether there was a sufficient meeting of the minds of the parties *1135 on all the material terms of the lease to constitute a contract. These are legal issues, historically tried at common law in assumpsit or, in some cases, in covenant. While it is true that the former HRS § 632-4 dealing with jury trials in declaratory relief actions was repealed by Act 189 of the Sessions Laws of 1972, the reporter's note with respect thereto indicates that it was deleted because jury trial issues were governed by the rules of court. Those rules would be HRCP 38 and 39. Clearly, the issues raised by the complaint for declaratory relief are legal issues, triable of right by a jury, and clearly also the equitable defenses thereto were likewise triable by a jury. With respect to the counterclaim, its counts also constitute a mixture of legal and equitable issues. The court below therefore was faced with a situation in which, on both sides there were legal, and equitable claims, and a jury trial had been demanded as to all claims at issue after the reply (which was misnamed an answer) to the counterclaim had been filed. No motion to strike the jury demand as to any claim was ever filed. Moreover, no written or oral stipulation consenting to the trial of some issues without a jury was entered into. Nor did the court make any finding prior to the entry of the judgment that a right of trial by jury of some or all of the issues did not exist under the Constitution or statutes of the United States or the State. It is apparent from the record that the issues dealt with in the special verdict form were submitted to the jury by consent. At the close of the appellee's case, appellant moved for a directed verdict. After argument, the court stated: At the close of appellant's rebuttal, the appellee moved for a directed verdict and the court stated: In the court's instructions to the jury, the judge stated: The court then went on to instruct the jury on mutual mistake, unilateral mistake, duress, confidential or fiduciary relationship, fraud, undue influence, and incompetency. After instructing the jury, the court submitted the case to the jury on the special verdict form quoted above. The record does not show any objection, by either party, to the special verdict form. *1136 As we have noted above, the jury returned its verdict and subsequently the court below entered a judgment directly to the contrary, stating findings of fact as we have quoted. Examining the court's findings of fact in the judgment, it appears that findings 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and parts of 6 were encompassed within the jury finding that there was a valid lease. The court's findings 4 and 7 with respect to mistake were dealt with by jury's finding 2(e), and parts of finding 6 were also dealt with by jury's findings 2(a), (g) and (h). Findings 9, 10 and 11 are really not findings of fact but conclusions of law. There were issues which were triable, as of right, by a jury, and a general demand having been made for a jury trial, the jury's verdict on those issues cannot be set aside unless not supported by the evidence. There were also issues which were not triable, as of right, by a jury, but the appellee made no objection to a jury trial of those issues, and indeed appears, tacitly, to have consented thereto, and the court made no finding that they were not triable by a jury. Under HRCP 39(a), therefore, all claims at issue when the jury demand was made, were triable by a jury and not by the court. The special verdict form submitted to the jury appears all encompassing of the issues presented in this case. It does not appear to us that there were issues, necessary to a disposition of the case, omitted from the form. Consequently a declaratory judgment in favor of the appellant should have been entered as prayed. Appellant was not entitled to a writ of summary possession nor to a judgment for specific performance, nor to damages, and appellee's various counterclaims should have been dismissed. The judgment below therefore is vacated and the case is remanded for the entry of a judgment for appellant in accordance with this opinion.