Opinion ID: 2069162
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Motion for a New Trial: Evidence of Malice

Text: Next, plaintiff challenges the trial justice's denial of her motion for a new trial on the basis that there is no competent evidence to support a finding that her filing of the lis pendens was malicious. We disagree. When considering a motion for a new trial, the trial justice makes an independent appraisal of the evidence in light of his or her charge to the jury. Barbato v. Epstein, 97 R.I. 191, 193, 196 A.2d 836, 837 (1964). If the evidence is evenly balanced such that reasonable minds might differ, the jury's verdict should be sustained. Id. at 194, 196 A.2d at 837. If the trial justice determines that the verdict is against the fair preponderance of the evidence, a new trial should be ordered. Id. This court will not disturb the decision of the trial justice unless the appellant is able to show that the trial justice overlooked or misconceived material evidence or was otherwise clearly wrong. Donnelly v. Grey Goose Lines, Inc., 667 A.2d 792, 794 (R.I.1995). The plaintiff claims the trial justice was clearly wrong in concluding that reasonable minds could find that plaintiff's act of recording the lis pendens on the subject property was malicious. Malice, in the context of a slander-of-title action, is a term of art. It is not necessary to show malice in its worst sense, only that there exists an intent to deceive or injure. DeLeo, 546 A.2d at 1346 (quoting Hopkins, 21 R.I. at 23, 41 A. at 568). To establish plaintiff's intent to deceive or to injure, the Mandarellis were required to present evidence that plaintiff had made a false statement regarding their title to the property, knowing it to be false, for the specific purpose of injuring them. Peckham, 570 A.2d at 667. Nonetheless, express malice need not be proved    [but malice] may properly be `inferred from the language used or the character of the act committed.' Id. (quoting Hopkins, 21 R.I. at 23, 41 A. at 568). However, [t]he mere fact that a person asserts a claim to the property that is unfounded does not warrant a presumption of malice, but a plaintiff `must also show that the defendant could not honestly have believed in the existence of the right he [or she] claimed, or at least that he [or she] had no reasonable or probable cause of believing so.' Id. (quoting Hopkins, 21 R.I. at 25, 41 A. at 569). The plaintiff argues that the trial justice's denial of defendant's motion for a directed verdict on her oral-partnership claim is evidence that plaintiff held a reasonable belief in her ownership interest in the Atwood Avenue property. But such an inference is unwarranted in that when the trial justice denied defendant's directed-verdict motion, he merely recognized that a question of fact existed concerning whether plaintiff honestly believed she had a valid property interest in the subject property or whether she recorded the lis pendens in bad faith, knowing full well the falsity of her claim and intending to injure the Mandarellis by doing so. If it were otherwise, in every slander-of-title claim where the claimant's motion for a judgment as a matter of law is denied, a subsequent jury verdict in the claimant's favor would be subject to a later attack arguing that the party defending the action must have had a colorable basis to file the lis pendens notice for the trial justice to have denied the claimant's motion. A notice of lis pendens is filed on the public record for the purpose of warning all interested persons that the title to the subject property is being disputed in litigation and that, therefore, any person who subsequently acquires an interest in the property does so subject to the risk of being bound by an adverse judgment in the pending case. Black's Law Dictionary 932 (6th ed.1990); see also G.L.1956 § 9-4-9. The purpose of the notice is to preserve a party's rights in the property pending the outcome of the litigation. As plaintiff has noted, the practical effect of filing a lis pendens may well be to render the property unmarketable during the pendency of the underlying dispute. If, however, a party files a notice of a lis pendens absent a good-faith belief in his or her claim to the title of the property, then he or she utters a statement knowing it is false and malice may properly be inferred. See Hopkins, 21 R.I. at 24-25, 41 A. at 568. In this case, plaintiff was an experienced real estate broker with a college education. Her own attorney characterized her as street-wise. The defendant, on the other hand, had only an eighth-grade education. The plaintiff knew that the Mandarellis had purchased the Atwood Avenue property as joint tenants and later took title as tenants by the entirety. After purchasing the property, defendant allegedly offered plaintiff a partnership interest in it. Yet for the next ten years, and notwithstanding continuous contacts with defendant, plaintiff neither reduced their alleged partnership agreement to writing nor requested defendant to do so. Moreover, plaintiff admitted that she and Joyce Mandarelli never transacted business together concerning any property. The testimony at trial revealed considerable disagreement between the parties regarding moneys plaintiff and her husband allegedly owed the Mandarellis and moneys the Mandarellis allegedly owed plaintiff and her husband from the purchase, sale, and development of various other parcels of real estate. At one point plaintiff stated that getting money from defendant was very difficult. In addition, circumstantial evidence suggests plaintiff anticipated the Mandarellis' pending commercial development of the Atwood Avenue property. She knew defendant had obtained a variance permitting commercial development of the site, and fourteen days after he secured a building permit, plaintiff filed a notice of lis pendens encumbering the property. The plaintiff testified that her intent in filing the lis pendens was to stop the Mandarellis right where they were so that she could receive the funds that were due her or to encourage defendant to come forward to get what was coming to her. After defendant purportedly repudiated their alleged partnership in 1986, plaintiff filed a lis pendens and commenced suit. But plaintiff never alleged an oral-partnership agreement in her original complaint, her first amended complaint, or her second amended complaint. Rather, these complaints only alleged an oral promise to convey to her an ownership interest in the Atwood Avenue property, a promise that, unless it was embodied in some writing signed by the party to be charged, would be unenforceable as within the statute of frauds (absent its qualification under some recognized exception to this defense). See G.L.1956 § 9-1-4(6). After the Mandarellis filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that such an oral promise to convey an interest in land was within the statute of frauds and was, therefore, unenforceable, plaintiff filed a third amended complaint, alleging an oral-partnership agreement with defendant regarding the Atwood Avenue property. Consequently, a possible inference to be drawn from plaintiff's protean pleadings and belated assertions of an alleged oral partnership was that she was engaged in mere opportunistic sail trimming, looking for any safe harbor from the gale-force winds being blown at her verbal contract claim by the statute of frauds. After a careful review of the record, we believe sufficient evidence existed for the jury to conclude that plaintiff's act of recording the lis pendens was done maliciously. The facts and circumstances were such that the jury had reason to find that plaintiff never had a good-faith belief in her claim to a shared ownership in the Atwood Avenue property despite her conviction that the Mandarellis owed her money with respect to this and other properties. Hence, the jury could have reasonably viewed her action in filing the lis pendens as a calculated attempt to coerce defendant into paying her the money she believed past due and owing to her, rather than a legitimate endeavor to preserve her claimed ownership interest in the property. Indeed, at one point she candidly admitted that her purpose in filing the lis pendens was to stop Roger Mandarelli and Joyce Mandarelli right where they were so that I could receive the funds that were due me. However, a lis pendens may not be used as a substitute for an attachment to collect an alleged indebtedness. Because the Mandarellis presented sufficient evidence about which reasonable minds might differ concerning whether plaintiff's intent in recording the lis pendens was malicious, plaintiff has failed to persuade us that the decision of the trial justice to sustain the jury's verdict on this claim was clearly wrong or that he overlooked or misconceived material evidence.