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NOT DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION 

No. 124,428 

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS 

WESLEY PROPERTIES MANAGEMENT, INC., 

Appellee, 

v.

GEOFFREY HILL (deceased), 

JENNIE ANDRUK and ZACHARY ANDRUK, 

Appellants. 

MEMORANDUM OPINION 

Appeal from Leavenworth District Court; JOHN J. BRYANT, judge. Opinion filed July 15, 2022. 

Affirmed. 

Daniel E. Cummings and Matthew D. Keenan, of Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, of Kansas City, 

Missouri, for appellants. 

Gary A. Nelson, of Gary A. Nelson, P.A., of Leavenworth, for appellee. 

Before ATCHESON, P.J., WARNER, J., and ANTHONY J. POWELL, Court of Appeals Judge, 

Retired. 

PER CURIAM: Defendants Jennie and Zachary Andruk, a married couple, appeal 

the ruling of the Leavenworth County District Court evicting them from an apartment 

managed by Plaintiff Wesley Properties Management, Inc. While the Andruks have 

advanced several creative arguments in this appeal, we find them unavailing in light of 

both the district court's factual findings and the clear language of the Kansas Residential 

Landlord and Tenant Act (KRLTA). In turn, we affirm the district court's eviction order. 
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FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Wesley Properties Management filed this Chapter 61 action in late July 2021 to 

remove the Andruks from the apartment where they apparently had been living for 

months. See K.S.A. 61-3801 et seq. About a month later, the district court held a bench 

trial on the eviction claim and promptly entered written orders. From the district court 

record, including the trial, we glean these facts:

Geoffrey Hill, Jennie Andruk's stepfather, signed a one-year lease for the 

apartment on December 19, 2019, and duly moved in. A representative of Wesley 

Properties signed the lease as the lessor for an undisclosed property owner—a 

circumstance that, as we explain shortly, has independent legal significance under the 

KRLTA, K.S.A. 58-2540 et seq. Hill was in poor health, and the apartment was partially 

subsidized through a government program. Jennie Andruk helped Hill with various 

activities and managed at least some of his financial affairs.

Hill remained in the apartment beyond the term of the lease, converting his 

occupancy to a month-to-month tenancy. At some point, the Andruks moved into and 

began living in the apartment with Hill. Hill died in June 2021, and the Andruks 

continued living in the apartment without paying rent for July. They never signed a lease, 

a sublease, or otherwise delivered written notice of their occupancy to anyone with 

Wesley Properties Management. Based on the record, Zachary Andruk played no relevant 

part in this legal drama, so going forward our reference to "Andruk" alone means Jennie.

Andruk displayed a handwritten note dated June 30, 2021, on the door of the 

apartment stating she was in the process of "willingly" moving out of the place after 

having "been here for over a year . . . ." Wesley Properties Management posted a threeday notice on the apartment door on July 13 addressed to Hill and anyone else residing 

there that the company would "pursue legal action against you . . . for possession of the 
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premises" if the rent due were not immediately paid. The notice identified the amount due 

as the monthly rent Hill had personally paid apart from the government subsidy. Andruk 

tendered that amount, but Wesley Properties Management refused to accept the payment 

because she was not a tenant.

During the bench trial, Mary Garrison, the Wesley Properties Management office 

manager, testified that Andruk came to the office from time to time to drop off a rent 

check or to make a request for maintenance. Garrison testified that she believed Andruk 

was simply acting for her stepfather and did not live in the apartment. According to 

Garrison, Andruk requested a lease application at some point but never returned it to the 

office. The district court credited that testimony. Garrison also testified that she 

understood Andruk's June 30 note to mean she was removing her stepfather's personal 

effects from the apartment and not that she had been living there and was moving out. 

The district court also credited that testimony, although it reflects a decidedly strained 

reading of the note.

Andruk testified that on occasion she told "ladies in the office" that she and her 

husband were living in Hill's apartment. The district court expressly rejected that 

testimony, finding it to be an inaccurate statement of historical fact. So the district court

determined Andruk never said anything like that to someone in the office. But the district 

court concluded Andruk testified falsely on that point because she understood she 

actually had no landlord-tenant relationship with Wesley Properties Management. The 

district court buttressed its conclusion based on Andruk's request for a lease agreement—

a request that would have been unnecessary if she already were a tenant. In short, the 

district court found that the Andruks were not tenants and resided in the apartment

without any legal right or authority. They were, in a word, squatters. 

The district court entered an order evicting the Andruks from the apartment and 

granting possession of the premises to Wesley Properties Management. The district court 
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denied the Andruks' request to remain in the apartment and to pay rent into court during 

an appeal. See K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 61-3905(c) (permitting district court to allow rental 

payments in place of supersedeas bond during appeal). The Andruks have appealed. 

Although Hill appears as a defendant in the case caption, his estate has never been 

substituted as a party, and no one has ever appeared for Hill or his estate. Neither the 

relief the district court ordered nor the issues on appeal affect Hill's estate.

LEGAL ANALYSIS

Wesley Property Management's Standing and Subject Matter Jurisdiction

On appeal, the Andruks argue Wesley Properties Management lacked standing to 

bring the Chapter 61 eviction action because it does not own the apartment building. 

Under Kansas law, standing is an essential component of subject matter jurisdiction. 

KNEA v. State, 305 Kan. 739, 743, 387 P.3d 795 (2017). So if a plaintiff lacks standing, 

then the district court has no subject matter jurisdiction over the action. In turn, any order 

entered by a district court without subject matter jurisdiction is void and, thus, 

unenforceable. In re Estate of Heiman, 44 Kan. App. 2d 764, 766, 241 P.3d 161 (2010).

To have standing, a party typically must have an actual stake in what's being 

litigated and some recognized legal interest that would be benefitted or burdened by a 

final judgment. Kansas Bldg. Industry Workers Comp. Fund v. State, 302 Kan. 656, 678, 

359 P.3d 33 (2015). Otherwise, the party would be litigating abstract or hypothetical legal 

issues resulting in an advisory opinion or would be impermissibly litigating someone 

else's legal rights. Peterson v. Ferrell, 302 Kan. 99, 103, 349 P.3d 1269 (2015); Board of 

Sumner County Comm'rs v. Bremby, 286 Kan. 745, 750, 189 P.3d 494 (2008). Standing 

presents a question of law we review without deference to the district court's conclusion.

Kansas Bldg. Industry Workers Comp. Fund, 302 Kan. at 676. If, however, the 
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conclusion rests on the district court's resolution of conflicting factual representations, we 

defer to those determinations when they are supported by substantial evidence. 

Here, the record shows that Wesley Properties, LLC, a corporate entity separate 

from Wesley Properties Management, owns the apartment. Jerry Wesley is the principal 

or sole shareholder of each corporation, although that is of no particular legal significance 

in determining Wesley Property Management's standing to bring a Chapter 61 eviction 

action. The trial evidence established the two corporations entered a contract for the

management of the apartment building. But neither the agreement itself nor its pertinent 

terms were presented, so they can shed no light on standing. We are not, however, 

navigating in the dark.

The KRLTA confers standing on Wesley Properties Management. A landlord is 

statutorily defined as: "the owner, lessor[,] or sublessor of the dwelling unit . . . and it 

also means a manager of the premises who fails to disclose as required by K.S.A. 58-

2551." K.S.A. 58-2543(e). Under K.S.A. 58-2551, a residential lease must disclose the 

manager of the premises and the owner or someone authorized to receive notices on 

behalf of the owner. If the lease fails to do so, the party signing the lease on behalf of the 

owner becomes a landlord under the KRLTA by virtue of K.S.A. 58-2543(e). Here, 

Wesley Properties Management was the lessor of the apartment, as evidenced by the 

lease with Hill. The company operated in that capacity with respect to the Andruks and 

third parties, even though they were not signatories to the lease. In addition, the owner of 

the apartment (Wesley Properties, LLC) was not disclosed in the lease, alternatively 

making Wesley Properties Management the landlord through the default provision in 

K.S.A. 58-2543(e). Under K.S.A. 58-2552, "[t]he landlord may bring an action for 

possession against any person wrongfully in possession" of the property. 

Those provisions together confer standing on Wesley Properties Management to 

file a Chapter 61 eviction action as a statutorily defined landlord. Standing extends to 
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ousting "any person" from the premises, a generic term encompassing both statutory 

tenants and interlopers or squatters. Accordingly, Wesley Properties Management had the 

authority and a legal right—standing—under the KRLTA to proceed. Basically, the 

Legislature sought to accommodate the legal interests of owners of residential rental 

properties who wish to delegate full operation and management of those premises to an 

agent. We see nothing amiss in that legislative purpose or the resulting grant of authority 

in the KRLTA. 

The Andruks offer two rejoinders we find unpersuasive. First, they say the 

authority to bring an eviction action against someone other than a tenant, as outlined in 

K.S.A. 58-2552, applies only when the landlord has already leased the premises to 

another person. In other words, according to the Andruks, a landlord could not evict a 

squatter from a residential rental unit if the premises would otherwise be vacant. Simply 

stating the proposition illustrates its illogic. More particularly, the Andruks' peculiar 

statutory construction reads a condition or provision into the statute that cannot be found 

in the actual words. We do not tinker with legislative handiwork in that way. Robinson v. 

City of Wichita Employees' Retirement Bd. of Trustees, 291 Kan. 266, Syl. ¶ 6, 241 P.3d 

15 (2010) (The court "will not speculate on legislative intent and will not read the 

[statutory] provision to add something not readily found in it."); Unruh v. Purina Mills, 

289 Kan. 1185, 1201, 221 P.3d 1130 (2009) (rejecting an argument that "asks the court to 

read into the statute language that is not present"). 

Second, the Andruks suggest that even if Wesley Properties Management had 

statutory standing under the KRLTA, the company somehow lacked constitutional 

standing. But they never really explain, in this situation, why the two forms of standing 

would differ or why statutory standing would not otherwise satisfy constitutional 

standing. Here, there was a genuine legal dispute over the Andruks' occupancy of the 

apartment in the sense they were not prepared to leave of their own accord. And Wesley 

Properties Management was not asserting the legal rights of some stranger in bringing the 
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eviction action to oust them. Those circumstances are sufficient to confer both statutory 

and constitutional standing. 

We mention in passing that even if Wesley Properties Management were not the 

proper party to bring this case, that likely would be a real party in interest problem, given 

the close affiliation of Wesley Properties Management with Wesley Properties, LLC, 

rather than a standing issue. See K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 60-217(a)(1). Unlike a lack of 

subject-matter jurisdiction, prosecuting a civil action in the name of a person or entity 

who is not the real party in interest is a correctable defect. See K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 60-

217(a)(1); Ross-Williams v. Bennett, 55 Kan. App. 2d 524, 550, 419 P.3d 608 (2018). 

Because the parties have been content to present the inquiry as one of subject-matter 

jurisdiction, we similarly confine our determination to the legal frame they have provided 

us.

Andruks' Assertion of Tenant Rights 

The remaining points the Andruks raise on appeal turn on Wesley Properties 

Management's compliance with provisions of the KRLTA related to eviction actions. But 

the arguments also require the Andruks to have been tenants. The district court properly 

found they were not. 

The Andruks say they had an implied-in-fact contract with Wesley Properties 

Management for occupancy of the apartment. We are unpersuaded, especially given the 

district court's factual findings. The law will imply a contract for parties who have 

undertaken a transaction—typically the exchange of money for goods or a service—

without formalizing the terms of the deal either orally or in writing. See Atchison County 

Farmers Union Co-op Ass'n v. Turnbull, 241 Kan. 357, 363, 736 P.2d 917 (1987) 

("Contracts implied in fact are inferred from the facts and circumstances of the case and 

are not formally and explicitly stated in words."); Degnan v. Young Bros. Cattle Co., 152 
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Kan. 250, 255, 103 P.2d 918 (1940) (Parties "'may arrive at agreements, by acts and 

conduct which evince a mutual intention to contract and from which the law implies a 

contract.'") (quoting Rains v. Weiler, 101 Kan. 294, Syl. ¶ 1, 166 P. 235 [1917]). So, 

"[i]mplied-in-fact contracts, then, function as a convention to impose some legal structure 

upon arrangements parties have left unstructured either because they have failed to 

appreciate the utility that structure might provide if their relationship does not go as 

planned or because they consider their arrangements so straightforward they have no 

need to fully articulate the terms." Lindsey Masonry Co. v. Murray & Sons Construction 

Co., 53 Kan. App. 2d 505, 533, 390 P.3d 56 (2017) (Atcheson, J., concurring). 

An implied contract arises when the parties have mutually acted in a way evincing 

an agreed-upon bargain. The facts here, as found by the district court and supported by 

substantial evidence, are otherwise. Andruk simply delivered rent checks and 

maintenance requests to Wesley Properties Management—conduct fully consistent with 

the ongoing landlord-tenant relationship between the company and Hill. Nothing about 

those interactions implied some understanding or agreement that Andruk could reside in 

the apartment as a co-tenant or sublessee. The credited evidence shows no meeting of the 

minds or overt manifestation of assent to such a proposal—a necessary condition for a 

contract whether formal or implied. See Hercules Inc. v. United States, 516 U.S. 417, 

424, 116 S. Ct. 981, 134 L. Ed. 2d 47 (1996) ("An agreement implied in fact is 'founded 

upon a meeting of minds, which, although not embodied in an express contract, is 

inferred, as a fact, from conduct of the parties showing, in the light of the surrounding 

circumstances, their tacit understanding.'") (quoting Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. United 

States, 261 U.S. 592, 597, 43 S. Ct. 425, 67 L. Ed. 816 [1923]); 17 C.J.S., Contracts § 15. 

The June 30 note Andruk wrote doesn't create an implied-in-fact contract even if we were 

to construe it as reasonably informing Wesley Properties Management that she had been 

residing in the apartment. The company, however, took no rent from Andruk after 

reviewing the note—conduct that arguably might have signified a form of acceptance of 
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Andruk's occupancy of the apartment as a tenant. To the contrary, the company promptly 

began eviction proceedings and refused her tender of rent. 

The Andruks' arguments otherwise fail. They contend the written notice Wesley 

Properties Management delivered on July 13 was deficient because it did not explicitly 

state it was the company's "intention to terminate the rental agreement if the rent is not 

paid" within three days, thereby parroting the exact statutory language in K.S.A. 58-

2564(b) describing the required notice. The notice stated Wesley Properties Management 

would "pursue legal action against you . . . for possession of the premises" if the rent 

remained unpaid for three days. The statutory notice must be given to tenants, and the 

Andruks weren't tenants, as we have already explained. Moreover, the language Wesley 

Properties Management used imparted fair notice of what steps would be taken, 

conforming to the purpose of K.S.A. 58-2564. 

Along the same lines, the Andruks contend Wesley Properties Management 

wrongfully refused Andruk's offer of the delinquent rent after receiving the July 13 

notice. But the statutory right to cure the delinquency within the three-day period belongs 

to tenants. K.S.A. 58-2564(b) (landlord may terminate agreement if "the tenant fails to 

pay rent" after receiving three-day notice). Because the Andruks were not tenants, they 

could not tender the unpaid rent and continue residing in the apartment. Their 

interpretation of K.S.A. 58-2564 would allow a squatter to create a landlord-tenant 

relationship by curing an ostensible breach of a landlord-tenant relationship that never 

existed. The argument fails. 

Postjudgment Relief During Appeal 

After the district court entered its eviction order, the Andruks requested they be 

allowed to pay rent into court and remain in the apartment during any appeal. The district 

court denied their request. The Andruks have appealed that ruling. 
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Under K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 61-3905(c), a district court may allow a losing 

defendant in an eviction action to pay "into court . . . the periodic rent otherwise due from 

the defendant to the plaintiff under the rental agreement pertaining to the real property at 

issue" as an alternative to posting a supersedeas bond. If the defendant posts a bond or 

complies with a pay-in order, the proceedings are stayed on appeal. K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 

61-3905. Execution of the eviction order is then held in abeyance, so the defendant 

retains possession of the premises. 

The Andruks did not ask the district court to set a supersedeas bond. They sought 

postjudgment relief only through a pay-in order, as provided in K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 61-

3905(c). The statutory language plainly requires the parties have a landlord-tenant 

relationship, since the amount to be paid periodically conforms to the rent that would 

have been due under their "rental agreement." Here, the district court found the Andruks 

had no such relationship and no such agreement with Wesley Properties Management. 

Based on that finding, they were not legally entitled to a pay-in order. 

Given the permissive language governing pay-in orders—the district court "may" 

grant the request—we presumably review a ruling one way or the other for abuse of 

judicial discretion. A district court exceeds that discretion if it rules in a way no 

reasonable judicial officer would under the circumstances, if it ignores controlling facts 

or relies on unproven factual representations, or if it acts outside the legal framework 

appropriate to the issue. See Biglow v. Eidenberg, 308 Kan. 873, 893, 424 P.3d 515 

(2018); Northern Natural Gas Co. v. ONEOK Field Services Co., 296 Kan. 906, 935, 296 

P.3d 1106 (2013). Here, the district court relied on credibility determinations and 

resulting historical facts supported in the evidence to find no landlord-tenant relationship. 

And given the statutory language of K.S.A. 2021 Supp. 61-3905(c), the district court 

acted within the legal framework. Had the district court granted the Andruks' request for 

a pay-in order, it likely would have abused its discretion by disregarding those legal 
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dictates. We have no doubt other district courts would have denied a pay-in order in 

comparable circumstances. 

The Andruks had no right to a pay-in order as squatters. Even if they did, the 

district court did not exceed its broad judicial discretion in the denying their request. 

Having considered the parties' arguments and the appellate record, we find no 

error in the district court's rulings in entering the eviction order and denying the 

postjudgment request to stay that order during this appeal. 

Affirmed.