Opinion ID: 2305975
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Rulings With Respect to Zanders's Remedy Under TOPA

Text: The trial court instructed the jury to determine and award monetary damages if it found Reid liable to Zanders for violating her right of first refusal under TOPA. In so doing, the court disagreed with Zanders's argument that the proper remedy for a violation of TOPA is specific performance rather than a monetary award. The jury returned a verdict in Zanders's favor and awarded her $210,000 in damages. Subsequently, however, the court denied Zanders's motion to enforce the award on the ground that its review of the case law demonstrates that the Act does not provide for monetary damages. The court also refused Zanders's request to set aside the sale of the house. In effect, therefore, Zanders was deprived of any relief for the TOPA violation that the jury found (though the court did order Reid to pay her costs and attorney's fees). She appeals the court's order. We reverse it, in part. The trial court's interpretation of TOPA presents a pure question of law, which we consider de novo. The relevant statutory provision states: An aggrieved ... tenant ... may seek enforcement of any right or provision under this chapter through a civil action in law or equity, and, upon prevailing, may seek an award of costs and reasonable attorneys fees. [14] That a tenant may seek to enforce her TOPA rights by an action in law or equity signifies that she may seek monetary damages in lieu of specific performance. [15] Accordingly, we hold that the trial court wrongly refused to enforce the jury's monetary award. [16] We do not agree with Zanders, however, that the trial court should have set aside the sale to the Bakers and ordered specific performance of the sale to her. A court has discretion to grant such equitable relief in an action by the tenant against a third party purchaser if the tenant establishes that the third party had actual or constructive knowledge of the tenant's superior rights at the time it acquired the property (i.e., the third party was not a bona fide purchaser). [17] But that fact was not established in this case. To begin with, Zanders did not join the Bakers as defendants in her TOPA claim, and because the court struck Zanders's other claims against them, she and the Bakers did not litigate the bona fides of their purchase of the property from Reid at trial. On remand, in connection with the reinstatement of her suit against the Bakers, Zanders may seek to add a TOPA claim against them as alleged non-bona fide purchasers, assuming the claim is not time-barred and the amendment is not otherwise properly precluded. [18] On this record, though, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to order specific performance.