Court Opinion

ID: 9709773
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:54:28.541959+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:51.379888
License: Public Domain

NEUMANN, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in parts 1 and 3 of the majority’s opinion. I dissent as to part 2 because I cannot agree the trial court’s conclusion concerning the six “apparent record title owners” is an unchallenged finding of fact.
As the majority has stated, on appeal, a trial court’s conclusions of law are fully reviewable and its findings of fact will be set aside only if they are clearly erroneous. In the present case, the trial court found two trustees of the Byron Ogren Trust were not served with notice of expiration of the period of redemption, but the court, without explanation, excluded those two trustees from its listing of the apparent record title owners. This court decides “[wjhether a determination is a finding of fact or a conclusion of law ... and labels applied by the trial court are not conclusive.” Maragos v. Norwest Bank Minnesota, N.A., 507 N.W.2d 562, 565 (N.D.1993) (citing Guardianship of Braaten, 502 N.W.2d 512, 517 (N.D.1993)). “Findings of fact are the realities as disclosed by the evidence as distinguished from their legal effect or consequences. Where the ultimate conclusion can be arrived at only by applying rules of law the result is a ‘conclusion of law.’ ” E.E.E., Inc., v. Hanson, 318 N.W.2d 101, 104 (N.D.1982). The determination of apparent record title owners clearly is a conclusion that can only be arrived at by applying rules of law. It is therefore a conclusion of law, or at the very least, a mixed question of fact and law, either of which is fully reviewable by this court on appeal. Earth Builders, Inc. v. State, 325 N.W.2d 258, 259 (N.D.1982).
The trial court’s findings do not explain why the missing trustees are not apparent record title owners. The missing trustees’ interest is reflected in the personal representatives’ deed of distribution transferring the interest of the estate of Byron Ogren to the three trustees of the Byron Ogren Trust. In light of this evidentiary record, the unexplained omission of the two trustees from the list of apparent record title owners is error. This incorrect determination led the trial court to further conclude incorrectly that notice of expiration of the period of redemption was sufficient because all owners with a recorded interest were served.
I certainly agree-with the majority when it says “neither the trial judge nor supreme court judges should have to examine the entire record title to assess the relevance of a particular entry.” But, having said that, the majority then proceeds to examine the record title in its attempt to support the trial court’s unsupported conclusion. The majority’s characterization of the Ogren estate deed to the three trustees as an “isolated fragment” and of other conflicting record entries as “more important” and “effective” fails to expunge the missing trustees’ interest from the record. Nor is an explanation accomplished by the majority’s surprising assump*856tion that the missing trustees must have been named in the partition action (upon which the majority relies) simply because a code section requires it. The record fails to disclose the missing trustees were made parties to that action. Without such evidence in the record, the missing trustees’ interest cannot be assumed away. Likewise, the majority’s speculations regarding the details of the unrecorded trust instrument are not evidence in the record, and cannot make the interest of the missing trustees disappear.
I also agree when the majority says “we should not have to guess at whether the other two trustees retained record title after the partition action, judgment, and sheriffs deed.” But guess is exactly what the majority has done in order to support and sustain the trial court’s conclusion. The plaintiffs’ tax deed was prima facie evidence of valid title only so long as there was no evidence of irregularity as to its issuance. Black’s Law Dictionary 1190 (6th ed. 1990) (defining pri-ma facie evidence as “evidence which, if unexplained or uncontradicted, is sufficient to sustain a judgment in favor of the issue which it supports, but which may be contradicted by other evidence”). An irregularity sufficient to contradict a tax deed’s prima facie evidence is a jurisdictional defect. E.g., Remmich v. Wagner, 77 N.D. 120, 41 N.W.2d 170, 173-74 (1950). Defendants asserted a jurisdictional defect by claiming notice of the expiration of the period of redemption was not given to all record title owners as required by law. To support their claim, they offered evidence, in the form of a legitimate deed to the three trustees, two of whom did not join in later transactions, and were not named in the partition action, and therefore continued to have an interest in the property entitling them to notice. Once that evidence was shown, it became the plaintiffs’ responsibility, and not the defendants’, to keep the majority from having to do the guessing it has done.
I would reverse the judgment for plaintiffs, and order entiy of judgment dismissing plaintiffs’ action to quiet title.