Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_10-cv-02137/USCOURTS-azd-2_10-cv-02137-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 320
Nature of Suit: Assault, Libel, and Slander
Cause of Action: 28:1332 Diversity-Libel,Assault,Slander

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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Michael E. Tennenbaum, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

Arizona City Sanitary District, a political 

subdivision of the State of Arizona, et al., 

 Defendants. 

NO. CV-10-2137-PHX-GMS 

ORDER 

 

Pending before the Court are Defendant Arizona City Sanitary District’s Motion 

for Summary Judgment (Doc. 53) and Plaintiff’s Cross Motion for Summary Judgment 

(Doc. 67). For the reasons discussed below, Defendant’s motion is denied and Plaintiff’s 

motion is granted.

BACKGROUND 

Defendant Arizona City Sanitary District (“ACSD”) is a public entity and political 

subdivision of the State of Arizona. Plaintiff Michael E. Tennenbaum alleges that on 

December 30, 2009, the ACSD published a defamatory letter about him. Plaintiff further 

alleges that this same letter was published in a local newspaper on January 13, 2010 and 

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January 20, 2010, and that the ACSD made additional defamatory comments regarding 

Plaintiff in a January 20, 2010 meeting. 

 On July 12, 2010, two of Plaintiff’s attorneys entered the ACSD’s Office at 12922 

S. Kashmir Rd., Arizona City, AZ (the “Office”) with a notice of claim which they 

indicated they wanted to leave for the ACSD’s Board of Directors.1

 Also on July 12, a 

notice of claim was mailed to the Office. On July 13, an ACSD attorney worked on a 

matter entitled “Tennebaum [sic] adv. Arizona City Sanitary District – Notice of Claim.” 

(Doc. 68, ¶ 32; Doc. 73, ¶ 32). On July 15, 2010, a process server came to the Office and 

left a notice of claim with Mary Boileau, an ACSD accounting supervisor. This process 

server also delivered a notice of claim on July 15 to William Miller, one of the members 

of the Board of Directors. All the notices of claim were addressed to “Mr. Miller, The 

Arizona Sanitary District And Its Board of Directors.” (Doc. 68-6, Ex. 9). The only office 

maintained by the ACSD is the one at 12922 S. Kashmir Rd. (Doc. 68, ¶ 36; Doc. 73, ¶ 

36). 

 On October 6, 2010, Plaintiff filed his Complaint in this action, bringing claims 

against Defendants for libel, slander, and false light invasion of privacy. (Doc. 1). On 

October 27, 2010, Defendants filed their Answer to Plaintiff’s complaint. (Doc. 7). 

Defendants raised several affirmative defenses in their answer, none of which were 

related to the Arizona notice of claim statute. (See Doc. 7 at ¶¶ 35–36). 

 

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 Plaintiff argues that his attorneys left this notice of claim at the ACSD’s office before 

departing. (Doc. 68, ¶ 16). Defendants, meanwhile, contend that employees at the ACSD 

informed the attorneys that they were not authorized to accept legal papers on behalf of 

the Board of Directors, and that the notice of claim was not left at the office. (Doc. 54, 

¶¶15–16). 

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 On March 19, 2012—over seventeen months after it filed its Answer and just three 

months before the close of discovery—Defendant ACSD filed its instant motion for 

summary judgment. (Doc. 53). ACSD contends that Plaintiff failed to provide it with a 

notice of claim prior to bringing this action and that therefore Plaintiff’s claims fail as a 

matter of law. Plaintiff, meanwhile, has filed a cross motion for summary judgment on 

the notice of claim issue, arguing that the ACSD should be precluded from raising this 

defense. (Doc. 67). 

DISCUSSION 

I. Legal Standard 

Summary judgment is appropriate if the evidence, viewed in the light most 

favorable to the nonmoving party, demonstrates “that there is no genuine dispute as to 

any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” FED. R. CIV.

P. 56(a). Substantive law determines which facts are material and “[o]nly disputes over 

facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law will properly 

preclude the entry of summary judgment.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 

248 (1986). “A fact issue is genuine ‘if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could 

return a verdict for the nonmoving party.’” Villiarimo v. Aloha Island Air, Inc., 281 F.3d 

1054, 1061 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting Anderson, 477 U.S. at 248). Thus, the nonmoving 

party must show that the genuine factual issues “‘can be resolved only by a finder of fact

because they may reasonably be resolved in favor of either party.’” Cal. Architectural 

Bldg. Prods., Inc. v. Franciscan Ceramics, Inc., 818 F.2d 1466, 1468 (9th Cir. 1987) 

(quoting Anderson, 477 U.S. at 250). 

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II. Analysis

A. Plaintiff’s Compliance with Arizona’s Notice of Claim Statute (A.R.S. 

 § 12-821.01(A)) 

The ACSD contends that that Plaintiff’s claims fails as a matter of law because he 

failed to properly file a notice of claim prior to bringing this action. Arizona Revised 

Statutes (“A.R.S.”) § 12-821.01(A) bars any cause of action against a public entity unless 

the claimant files a notice of claim with the entity within 180 days of the accrual of the 

cause of action. Such notice of claim must be filed “with the person or persons authorized 

to accept service for the public entity . . . as set forth in the Arizona rules of civil 

procedure.” A.R.S. § 12-821.01(A). And Arizona Rule of Civil Procedure 4.1(i) states 

that service upon a governmental subdivision must be delivered to that entity’s “chief 

executive officer, the secretary, clerk, or recording officer.” 

The ACSD concedes that the Board of Directors is its “chief executive officer.” 

(Doc. 53 at 6). See also Falcon ex rel. Sandoval v. Maricopa County, 213 Ariz. 525, 528, 

144 P.3d 1254, 1257 (2006) (“Because the board of supervisors has general supervisory 

powers and policy-making responsibility for the county, including the direction and 

control of lawsuits against the county . . . the board is the chief executive officer of the 

county.”). The ACSD contends, however, that Plaintiff did not individually serve each 

member of the Board of Directors with the notice of claim and thus is barred from 

bringing the claims in his complaint against the ACSD. 

The ACSD relies on Falcon v. Maricopa County for the proposition that 

“delivering a notice of claim to only one member of [a] board does comply with the 

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requirements of [ ] the statute.” 213 Ariz. 525, 526 (2006). The plaintiffs in Falcon, 

however, mailed their notice of claim to a board member without “deliver[ing] their 

notice of claim to the office of a person or entity listed in Rule 4.1(i).” Id. at 530. Here, 

on the other hand, Plaintiffs’ notice of claim was addressed to the entire Board and the 

ACSD has stipulated that the notice was both mailed and hand-delivered to its office on 

Kashmir Road. (Doc. 68, ¶¶ 28–29; Doc. 73, ¶¶ 28–29). Plaintiffs therefore complied 

with Falcon’s requirement that they “deliver their notice of claim to [the public entity’s] 

chief executive officer or the office of the chief executive officer.” 213 Ariz. 525, 530. See 

also Creasy v. Coxon, 156 Ariz. 145, 148, 750 P.2d 903, 906 (App. 1987) (“If a claimant 

can establish that delivery was made to the appropriate office of the person or agent 

described in [the Rules of Civil Procedure] that is sufficient to show that the notice of 

claim was properly delivered.”). 

The ACSD argues that “neither the Arizona City Sanitary District Board of 

Directors nor any of its members maintains an office at the Kashmir Road office.” (Doc. 

72 at 3). The ACSD has not, however, provided any evidence that the Board of Directors 

maintains an office elsewhere. Moreover, not only is the allegedly defamatory December 

2009 letter, which was signed by William Miller as the Chairman of the Board, on 

District letterhead with the Kashmir Road office’s address, but the Board’s own agenda 

and minutes reflect that this office is “the regular meeting place” for Board meetings. 

(Doc. 68-5, Ex. 1; Doc. 68-5, Ex. 4). To be sure, the ACSD has produced affidavits from 

three of its employees, each of which states that “[n]either the Arizona City Sanitary 

District Board of Directors, nor any of the Individual Board Members, maintain [sic] an 

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office at 12922 S. Kashmir Road.” (Doc. 54-3, ¶ 5; Doc. 54-4, ¶ 5; Doc. 54-5, ¶ 5). These 

affidavits do not, however, identify any other office which is used by the Board of 

Directors. Such “conclusory, self serving affidavit[s], lacking detailed facts and any 

supporting evidence” are “insufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact.” Range 

Road Music, Inc. v. East Coast Foods, Inc., 668 F.3d 1148, 1152 (9th Cir. 2012) (quoting 

FTC v. Publ’g Clearing House, Inc., 104 F.3d 1168, 1171 (9th Cir. 1997)). 

B. Waiver 

Even if Plaintiff had failed to properly file a notice of claim with the ACSD, the 

ACSD would be estopped from asserting this defense under the doctrine of waiver. “The 

notice of claim statute is ‘subject to waiver, estoppel and equitable tolling.’” Jones v. 

Cochise County, 218 Ariz. 372, 379, 187 P.3d 97, 104 (Ct. App. 2008) (quoting 

Pritchard v. State, 163 Ariz. 427, 432, 788 P.2d 1178, 1183 (1990)). “Waiver is either the 

express, voluntary, intentional relinquishment of a known right or such conduct as 

warrants an inference of such an intentional relinquishment.” Am. Cont’l Life Ins. Co. v. 

Ranier Const. Co., Inc., 125 Ariz. 53, 55, 607 P.2d 372, 374 (1980). “[W]aiver may be 

found when a governmental entity has taken substantial action to litigate the merits of the 

claim that would not have been necessary had the entity promptly raised the defense.” 

Jones, 218 Ariz. at 380. 

“Arizona courts have held waiver is ‘a question of fact to be determined by the 

trier of fact.’” Id. (citing Chaney Bldg. Co. v. Sunnyside Sch. Dist. No. 12, 147 Ariz. 270, 

272–73, 709 P.2d 904, 906–07 (App.1985)). Waiver of notice of claim requirements may 

be decided as a matter of law, however, where “the facts relating to waiver are 

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uncontested, occurred after litigation began, and are wholly unrelated to the underlying 

facts of the claim.” Id. “[I]n these circumstances, the question of waiver need not be 

submitted to the jury but instead should be decided by the trial court as a matter of law.” 

Id. at 381. 

In Jones v. Cochise County, the Arizona Court of Appeals determined that a court 

may make a “finding of waiver as a matter of law when a party fails to assert a deficiency 

in the notice of claim until after litigating the claim on its merits or investigating the 

claim prior to litigation.” 218 Ariz. 372, 379, 187 P.3d 97, 104 (Ct. App. 2008). In Jones, 

the defendant, Cochise County, “provided [the plaintiffs] with a disclosure statement, 

answered interrogatories, and participated in seven depositions . . . before it raised [a 

notice of claim] defense, almost a year after the complaint was filed.” Id. at 380. The 

court found that such “conduct is inconsistent with an intention to assert the notice of 

claim statute as a defense,” reasoning that “[h]ad the County intended to assert that 

defense, there would have been no need for it to engage in disclosure or discovery; it 

would have been able to assert the defense immediately.” Id. The court in Jones therefore 

held that “the County waived the affirmative defense that the notice of claim was 

deficient.” Id. at 381. 

In this case, the ACSD’s conduct has been similarly “inconsistent with an 

intention to assert the notice of claim statute as a defense.” Jones, 218 Ariz. at 380. Not 

only did the ACSD fail to assert this defense in its Answer, but it provided Plaintiff with 

both a disclosure statement and a supplemental disclosure statement. (See Docs. 7, 36, 43, 

46). It also accepted discovery requests from Plaintiff. (Id.). See Cmty. Ass’n 

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Underwriters of Am., Inc. v. Salt River Project Agric. & Improvement Power Dist., 1 CACV 10-0797, 2011 WL 5299392 (Ariz. Ct. App. Nov. 3, 2011) (observing that in Jones

“[t]he failure of the County to even assert the affirmative defense of failure to comply 

with the notice of claims statute along with litigating the complaint itself was indicia of 

an intent to waive the defense”). To be sure, unlike the County in Jones, the ACSD does 

not appear to have actively subpoenaed and deposed witnesses prior to raising the notice 

of claim defense. (Doc. 72 at 2). See Jones, 218 Ariz. at 372 (“[T]he County did more 

than merely respond to the complaint or discovery requests—it actively investigated and 

proactively defended the claim by subpoenaing and deposing witnesses and conducting 

other discovery.”). Nonetheless, the ACSD waited over seventeen months after Plaintiff 

filed his complaint to raise the notice of claim—five months longer than the twelve 

months the County waited to raise the defense in Jones. See id. at 374. The ACSD has 

waived the right to raise noncompliance with the Arizona notice of claim statute as a 

defense. 

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant Arizona City Sanitary District’s 

Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 53) is DENIED. 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Cross Motion for Summary 

Judgment (Doc. 67) is GRANTED. 

DATED this 7th day of August, 2012. 

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