IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

LILLIAS J. BRADY, )

) 

Appellant, )

)

v. ) C.A. No. N15A-11-003 JAP

)

STATE OF DELAWARE )

COUNCIL ON REAL ESTATE )

APPRAISERS, )

)

Appellee. )

MEMORANDUM OPINION

This is an appeal from a decision of the Council of Real 

Estate Appraisers disciplining Lillias Brady. The Hearing 

Officer wrote an exhaustive 33 page Recommendation in which 

he detailed several errors and omissions by Ms. Brady “some 

of which could be viewed as misleading.” The Hearing Officer 

recommended a 90 day suspension of Ms. Brady’s license 

followed by a probationary period, a fine of $1000 and 18 

hours of continuing education. Ms. Brady appealed to the 

Council on Real Estate Appraisers. In her appeal she admitted 

that “mistakes were made” and conceded that discipline was 
2

in order. She begged the Council not to suspend her license 

because real estate appraising is her only source of income. In 

a display of lenity the Council chose not to suspend her 

license, but increased the recommended fine to $3000. Ms. 

Brady has appealed the Council’s decision to this court. It is 

not entirely clear what she is arguing, but reduced to its 

essence her argument seems to be the Council did not discuss 

her sanction enough.

Some of Ms. Brady’s problems stem from her appraisal of 

a Crown Carriage end unit model at Sea Colony development. 

When she appraised that property at $435,000, a loan officer 

considered her appraisal to be inconsistent and asked Ms. 

Brady’s employer that it be redone. The employer responded 

that Ms. Brady had reviewed the documentation supporting 

her appraisal and found no change was warranted. Another 

appraiser was called upon to appraise the property which he 

valued at $618,000.

Ms. Brady’s appraisal of the Sea Colony unit was filled 

with errors. For example, she concluded the unit had 3.0 

bathrooms when publicly available information showed it had 
3

3.1 bathrooms. The photographs in her report of the 

comparables she used were not, in fact, photographs of those 

comparables but were photographs of other condominiums. 

She misstated the square footage of the condominium and 

used different type condos for her comparables. In doing so 

she ignored recent sales of similar condominiums where the 

purchase price was considerably higher than the comparables 

she used.

Another appraisal, this one of a double lot located on 

Dover Street in Rehoboth, was also the subject of the 

disciplinary action against her. She admitted that this 

appraisal was “somewhat flawed” and “could have been 

deemed misleading.” She told the Hearing Officer that this 

appraisal was “not truly representative of the overall quality 

and thoroughness” of her reports.

The evidence supporting Ms. Brady’s errors was largely, if 

not entirely, uncontested. Much of the evidence before the 

Hearing Officer took the form of stipulated facts, and at the 

hearing Ms. Brady’s counsel acknowledged that “several 

mistakes were made here.”
4

The precise nature of Ms. Brady’s arguments before this 

court is unclear. The caption to her argument in her Opening 

Brief is “The Board’s Decision is not Supported by Substantial 

Evidence and Committed [sic.] Errors of Law,” yet in her Reply 

Brief she writes “[t]o be clear, there is no dispute with the 

factual findings by the Hearing Officer.” As best the court can 

tell, her argument seems to be that the Board did not 

articulate specific reasons for the punishment it imposed. She 

argues in one portion of her brief that “there was no 

substantive deliberation on any aspect of the case, mitigating 

factors, comparison to other cases and discipline meted out for 

example.”

Ms. Brady points to no statutory or regulatory 

requirement that the Council actually discuss during 

deliberations “mitigating factors, comparison to other cases 

and discipline meted out.” Indeed, it is not practicable to 

require discussion and consideration of specific topics by 

administrative boards. “[W]here the discretion to be exercised 

relates to police regulation for the protection of public morals, 

health, safety, or general welfare, and it is impracticable, to fix 
5

standards without destroying the flexibility necessary to 

enable the administrative officials to carry out the legislative 

will, the legislation delegating such discretion without such 

restrictions may be valid.”

1 Rather the test here is whether the 

Council abused its discretion. “An agency abuses its 

discretion only where its decision exceeds the bounds of 

reason in view of the circumstances.”2 Ms. Brady has failed to 

show that to be the case here.3

Ms. Brady points to the fact that the Council’s order is 

signed only by the Council President and asserts, in a single 

sentence in her brief, that “the law further requires that the 

final order shall be authenticated by the signatures of at least 

a quorum of all agency members, unless otherwise provided by 

law.” She is mistaken. The APA provides in pertinent part:

When any professional licensing board or 

commission governed by Title 23, 24, or 28, and 

listed in § 10161(a) of this title reaches its 

conclusions of law and determines an 

appropriate disciplinary action, if any, the Board 

or Commission shall issue a written decision 

and order in accordance with this section. 

However, notwithstanding the provisions of 

 

1

 Atlantis I Condominium Ass'n v. Bryson, 403 A.2d 711, 713 (Del. 1979) (quoting State v. Durham, 191 

A.2d 646 (Del. Super. 1963)).

2 Cordero v. Gulfstream Development Corp., 256 A.3d 1030, 1034 (Del. 2012).

3

 The Council had before it the Hearing Officer’s finding of mitigation factors such as the fact the appraisal 

of the condominium was done as a “drive by” under tight time constraints. 
6

subsection (c) of this section, the decision and 

order may be issued over the signature of only 

the President or other officer of the Board.

4

The decision of the Council on Real Estate Appraisers is 

therefore AFFIRMED.

______________________________

 John A. Parkins, Jr. 

June 21, 2016 Judge

oc: Prothonotary

cc: Donald L. Gouge, Jr., Donald L. Gouge, Jr., LLC, 

Wilmington, Delaware

Stacey X. Stewart, DAG, Department of Justice, 

Wilmington, Delaware

 

4

 29 Del. C. §10128(g). The Council on Real Estate Appraisers is one of the agencies listed in 29 Del. C. 

§ 10161(a), and therefore its orders may be signed by its president.