Opinion ID: 783388
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: State-Court Litigation

Text: 6 The unhappy collaboration between Sandra Hall and Noel resulted in four suits litigated in Washington State courts (a fifth suit was filed but never litigated): two actions concerning the mobile home in the small claims department of the Clark County District Court (eventually consolidated on appeal), one action concerning the investment in Red in the Skamania County Superior Court, and one action for violation of privacy and wiretapping laws in the Clark County District Court. We discuss each action below. 7
8 Two separate actions related to the mobile home were litigated in the small claims department of the district court in Clark County. In the first action, Sandra Hall (alone) sued Noel for $2500 in rent. The court awarded Hall $2000 plus costs on August 27, 1997. Two months later, Sandra Hall returned to small claims court with her husband Brian. The second action, brought by both Sandra and Brian Hall against Noel, sought $2500 for physical damage to the mobile home and for compensation for Noel's employees' allegedly unauthorized use of the home. In December 1997, the small claims court awarded the Halls $1400 plus costs for the period from June through December 1997. 9 Noel appealed both decisions. He claimed that he owned the mobile home based on his agreement to pay Hall $5000 upon the sale of Red and asked for an injunction to stop the Halls from interfering with his use of the mobile home. The Clark County Superior Court consolidated the two appeals and held that Noel and Hall had a valid contract for the sale of the mobile home, with the $5000 purchase price payable upon the sale of Red. The court awarded Noel ownership of the home beginning October 11, 1996, the date Sandra Hall sent Red to Noel to sell it. The superior court awarded the Halls the $5000 purchase price of the mobile home plus interest from the sale date of Red. 10
11 While the mobile home suits were pending against him, Noel filed a separate action in May 1997 in the Skamania County Superior Court against Sandra Hall for an accounting and dissolution of the partnership involving Red. Noel claimed that he and Hall had entered into a partnership agreement to purchase and train Red, which Hall had wrongfully dissolved. Hall denied the existence of a partnership in her answer. She also counterclaimed, contending that, in the event the court found a valid partnership, Noel had breached the partnership agreement, and that by tape recording her telephone conversations, he had violated state and federal wiretap statutes and had invaded her privacy. 12 In response to the counterclaims, Noel asserted his own counterclaims, alleging that Hall wrongfully entered his property, converted his property, slandered him by accusing him of illegal wiretapping, and violated federal wiretapping statutes herself. Hall moved to voluntarily dismiss her counterclaims (to which Noel had in turn counterclaimed) arising out of the tape recordings based on a pending suit in Clark County District Court. (The Clark County suit is discussed below.) Noel did not oppose the motion. In May 1998, the court dismissed the counterclaims of both Hall and Noel that were related to wiretapping and privacy, based on the pendency of the suit in Clark County District Court. 13 The court found that Noel and Hall had entered into an oral agreement, but not a partnership, and awarded Noel $4909 plus costs and attorney's fees. Noel appealed. In September 2000, the Washington Court of Appeals held that Noel and Hall had formed a partnership and remanded to the superior court. This suit was still pending in the superior court when the federal district court dismissed the claims in the case now before us. 14
15 Sandra Hall filed the final state action against Noel in Clark County District Court in January 1998, alleging violations of state and federal wiretapping statutes and violation of privacy. She alleged that Noel had intercepted private communications without her consent, had violated her right to privacy by listening to the recordings, and had used the recordings to interfere with her impending marriage by telling her fiancé of her affair with another person. 16 Noel's answer stated that an action asserting these claims was already pending in Skamania County Superior Court, and that that action had priority. He did not assert any counterclaims, even after his counterclaims were dismissed in the Skamania County suit. In August 1999, one year and three months after the counterclaims were dismissed in the Skamania County suit, the court granted summary judgment to Hall. It found that Noel had tape recorded Hall's telephone conversations without her permission in violation of Wash. Rev.Code § 9.73.030 and 18 U.S.C. § 2511, and awarded her $2500 in damages and $2866 in attorney's fees and costs.