Opinion ID: 2264739
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Kansas Case Law

Text: Defendants argue that the holdings in prior Kansas cases have been consistent with their proffered mandatory joinder rule, requiring all owners to be named parties to a partition. However, at oral argument, defendants' counsel conceded that no Kansas case has specifically held that the failure to name all property owners as parties to a partition action (whether by mistake or by choice) always deprives the district court of subject matter jurisdiction to partition the interests of those property owners who are named parties. We submit that such an absence of explicit precedent is understandable, because the defendants' premise is not the law in this state. Defendants first point to High Plains Oil, Ltd. v. High Plains Drilling Program1981, Ltd., 263 Kan. 1, 6, 946 P.2d 1382 (1997) (hereafter High Plains ), which they believe clearly states that all owners are necessary parties to a partition action. The only vaguely collateral nexus that High Plains has to the issue before us is that it happened to involve a partition suit. There, a coowner of an interest in an oil and gas lease had mortgaged the leasehold interest before seeking relief in bankruptcy. When another leasehold owner filed a partition action, the mortgagee of the bankrupt coowner sought to enforce the bankruptcy's automatic stay. The district court concluded that the debtor had no equity in the lease and modified the stay, allowing the partition to proceed. The lease was partitioned and sold, and the proceeds of the sale were paid to the county to satisfy the bankrupt coowner's delinquent property taxes. The mortgagee appealed, claiming a priority interest in the sale proceeds. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded; however, on remand the district court again ordered the proceeds be paid to the county. After another reversal by the Court of Appeals, this court granted the county's petition for review and ultimately determined that the county had priority over the mortgagee's claims. 263 Kan. at 2-7, 946 P.2d 1382. High Plains was a fight between a county and a mortgagee over which one had priority to the proceeds from the sale of a leasehold interest in which the bankrupt owner had no equity. The defendants point to a district court finding that was recited in the appellate decision but which had nothing to do with the opinion's analysis. Even then, the actual finding was: K.S.A. 60-1003, the partition statute, is clear that only owners are necessary parties to the action. 263 Kan. at 6, 946 P.2d 1382. Obviously, that finding dealt with the fact that neither the owner's mortgagee nor the county were owners of the property in that case. Moreover, declaring that only owners can be necessary parties is not the same as saying all owners must be necessary parties. High Plains does not support the defendants' proposed mandatory joinder rule. Likewise, defendants point us to the century-old partition action in Hazen v. Webb, 65 Kan. 38, 68 P. 1096 (1902). Again, the case is distinguished by the intervention of lienholders into the partition action. Moreover, the primary issue involved a district court's authority upon receiving a partition case after a change in venue. In Hazen, a coowner transferred an interest in jointly owned property that was subject to judgment liens. The grantee filed a partition action against coowners of a portion of the jointly owned property, and subsequently the venue of that action was changed to another district court. After the change in venue, the lienholders on the grantee's interest filed an answer and cross-petition that included a demand to partition all properties jointly owned by all the coowners. The cross-petition request that all co-owned property be partitioned required joinder of additional coowners, and the receiving court's authority to order the joinder was the principle issue in the case. In determining that it had the authority to order the joinder of additional owners and to include all the property in the partition, Hazen noted that the general policy of the law is to avoid a multiplicity of actions. 65 Kan. at 42, 68 P. 1096. Hazen opined that, to effect that general policy, a court of equity which has assumed jurisdiction of a subject matter can reach out and draw in the entire subject matter and all interested parties in order to enter and enforce a full, complete, effectual, and final decree adjusting the rights and equities of all parties in interest. The opinion went on to declare that [n]o decree will be granted until all necessary parties are before the court, if jurisdiction can be obtained. 65 Kan. at 42, 68 P. 1096. In applying those principles to the facts in Hazen, the court found: [O]n account of the interlacing of interests and the overlapping of liens, that any effectual, enforceable and protective decree might be entered, it was almost an imperative necessity that all of the joint property and all the parties interested therein should be brought before one court in one litigation. For, in no other manner conceivable could an effectual decree determining the several rights and protecting the different interests of all parties be obtained. 65 Kan. at 41-42, 68 P. 1096. The general authority of the court in a partition action has been codified in K.S.A. 60-1003(d), entitled General powers of judge, which states: The court shall have full power to make any order not inconsistent with the provisions of this article that may be necessary to make a just and equitable partition between the parties, and to secure their respective interests, or may refuse partition if the same would result in extraordinary hardship or oppression. Likewise, K.S.A. 60-219(a) defines which parties are to be joined in an action as necessary for just adjudication. Landmark Nat'l Bank v. Kesler, 289 Kan. 528, 535, 216 P.3d 158 (2009). In other words, Hazen does not tell us anything that we do not already know, i.e., a partitioning court has the equitable and statutory power to order the joinder of parties and property interests, and if the property interests of nonjoined parties are so intertwined with the property subject to partition that their interests will be adversely affected by an adjudication of the action, the court should require their joinder before going forward with the lawsuit. Contrary to the defendants' interpretation, the case does not instruct us that a partition action can never proceed to judgment without the joinder of all owners of all interests in the subject property, i.e., that all owners are always necessary and indispensable parties in every partition action. The defendants also cite to Witt v. Sheffer, 6 Kan.App.2d 868, 636 P.2d 195 (1981), rev. denied 231 Kan. 802 (1982), for its discussion of the unity of partition rule. That rule requires that each cotenant have the right to occupy the whole property before the cotenant may bring a partition action. 6 Kan.App.2d at 870, 636 P.2d 195. Here, the cross-petitioner had an interest in all of the surface rights with the corresponding right to occupy the property and unquestionably had standing to bring the partition action. If anything, the rule could cut against the defendants because of their limited right to occupy the property as fractional mineral interest owners. Nevertheless, Witt does not support the defendants' mandatory joinder rule and is of no benefit to them here. Finally, defendants attempt to conjure up support from Toklan Royalty Corp. v. Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line Co., 168 Kan. 259, 212 P.2d 348 (1949). There, the assignee of a 60% interest in two oil and gas leases, each subject to a gas purchase contract, was attempting to cancel the contracts without making his assignors and co-owners parties to the action. Because all owners were beneficiaries of the gas purchase contract, this court held that an action for cancellation of that contract could not proceed without joinder of the remaining interest owners. 168 Kan. at 268-69, 212 P.2d 348. Again, the lesson to be learned from Toklan is that the determination of a necessary or indispensable party in a particular action turns not on the type of action, e.g., a partition, but rather on whether the court can arrive at a just adjudication without joining that party in the action, i.e., whether the nonjoined party's interests will be adversely affected by the court's judgment. Accordingly, we find that the case law in this state does not support the defendants' contention that Kansas has a mandatory joinder rule for partition actions, requiring all property owners to be named parties in order to vest the district court with jurisdiction to partition the interests of those owners who are named parties. Rather, a person or entity who challenges a partition judgment based on the failure to join a property owner in the partition action must take the additional step required in any other type of action. The challenger must show that the nonjoined person or entity was a necessary or indispensable party to the action, i.e., that the property interests of the nonjoined party were adversely affected by the judgment partitioning the named parties' property interests.