Court Opinion

ID: 9859195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 19:10:46.02426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:08:29.932967
License: Public Domain

MESCHKE, Justice,
concurring.
With considerable hesitation, I concur.
On remand, FCB deposited the amount of all delinquent taxes, including penalty and interest. Thereupon, the trial court entered a judgment for FCB declaring the tax sale and certificates void. Only Fibel-stad, claiming as a purchaser, had opposed that judgment. Grant County had not.
The trial court reasoned:
The question of whether Fibelstad was acting as an agent for Asbridge or was himself attempting to purchase the property is important because the answer to that question will determine whether the bank is entitled to the return of the money it has been required to deposit (which it would be if Asbridge had, in fact, previously paid up the back taxes) or whether Fibelstad is entitled to return of the money he deposited if it should be determined that it was his. Also, in the latter case the question of whether he is entitled to interest on that money arises. That question, however, is of concern only to Fibelstad and Grant County, and not the bank, and has no bearing on the deposit.
Fibelstad has argued that the bank can no longer contest whether it is he who made the deposit on his own or whether he was acting as an agent for the landowner, Mr. Asbridge. Initially I was not much impressed with this argument, but upon further reflection I agree that litigants cannot further contest any facts that were declared undisputed and which were material and necessary to support the order for summary judgment. The flaw in Fibelstad’s argument however, is that a determination whether he was an attempted purchaser, as opposed to an agent, was not necessary to that decision. His status was irrelevant. Although described in that manner, it is not quite correct to say that it is assumed true that he was a purchaser for purposes of making summary judgment. It is more accurate to say his status was irrelevant for purposes of resolving that issue. Now, however, it is relevant for the reasons I mentioned above, and the matter has never been resolved.
Accordingly, the bank is now entitled to summary judgment on the issue that has been litigated, and there is no just reason to delay entry of that judgment. The question of Mr. Fibelstad’s status must still be litigated....
*431In my view, a party who obtains a favorable judgment cannot continue to question a fact assumed for purposes of that summary judgment.
While a party is entitled to plead alternatively, NDRCivP 8(a), it is not entitled to alternative relief by judgments, see 25 Am-Jur2d Election of Remedies § 19 (1966), unless there is fraud. Id. at § 23. Thus, I agree with Chief Justice VandeWalle that FCB had the right to raise alternative defenses. But, I do not concur with his opinion that FCB is not foreclosed from arguing in the alternative whether it had to make the deposit by NDCC 57-45-10.
Unless FCB has plead, and is still asserting, a claim for fraud against Fibelstad, with all the ugly implications that raises, I am unable to see how Fibelstad’s status is irrelevant to the favorable judgment entered for FCB. A fact assumed for a summary judgment favorable to a party is material and necessarily decided. I see no reason why, on remand, the statutory direction to repay Fibelstad any monies received by the county should not be carried out. There was no other purpose for the deposit.
Still, I recognize that error is normally corrected by appeal, not by a supervisory writ. And, I suppose it is possible that lurking behind all this legal manipulation may be some kind of fraud, even though not plead as yet. Therefore, I reluctantly concur.