Good examples of Estoppel and Latches?
grendal
documents that use the terms but don't really give a good working
definition.
What I am interested in is the use of Estoppel and Latches in an
affirmative defense.
What are the criteria in using Estoppel and or Latches?
Any good example cases in Federal courts? Looking primarily at real
estate examples.
Thx.
Cy Pres
<im_g...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>What I am interested in is the use of Estoppel and Latches in an
>affirmative defense.
>What are the criteria in using Estoppel and or Latches?
Laches (it has no "t") in it, is a doctrine arising out of equity,
that basically prohibits a party from sleeping on its rights, then
bringing a lawsuit after inordinate delay, when the delay has resulted
in prejudice to the adverse party. This prejudice might consist of
increased damages, difficulty in presenting one's case because of loss
of evidence or unavailability of witnesses.
Without prejudice and unreasonable delay, there is no laches defense.
There also may not be a laches defense when there is an applicable
statute of limitations although, in extreme circumstances, the defense
might still be available.
Estoppel effectively prevents a party from taking inconsistent
positions at different times. There are many different kinds of
estoppel, however, even relating specifically to real estate, and the
doctrine would be applied differently depending on what you mean
exactly. For instance, easements can be created by estoppel, or
breaches of contracts for the sale of real estate can be rendered
unenforceable by estoppel.
>Any good example cases in Federal courts? Looking primarily at real
>estate examples.
Decisions from just any federal court are not going to be of use. Real
estate law is generally a matter of state law, so the only federal
cases of use to you would be federal cases which rely on state
substantive law due to diversity of citizenship or some federal
question. Even those cases are not binding on state courts, where
most litigation of real estate issues occurs. You would want to look
to the law of the state by whose law the issue will be litigated,
which is often, but not always, the state in whose courts the issue
will be litigated, which is itself often, but not always, the state in
which the real estate is.
Deadrat
481156...@z30g2000yqz.googlegroups.com:
> Sure one can google Estoppel and Latches, but you get a lot of
> documents that use the terms but don't really give a good working
> definition.
It's possible that your google isn't giving your the results you want
because of your howler of a misspelling. The word you're looking for is
"laches," and it refers to the rule whereby your delay in asserting your
rights may deprive you of recourse. It ultimately comes from the Latin,
laxare, meaning (roughly) to slack off. Latches, on the other hand are
door catches, and the word dervies from the Old English laeccan, meaning
"catch." Natch.
> What I am interested in is the use of Estoppel and Latches in an
> affirmative defense.
> What are the criteria in using Estoppel and or Latches?
>
> Any good example cases in Federal courts? Looking primarily at real
> estate examples.
Hmmm. You wouldn't be a student looking for a shortcut on your homework,
would you?
> Thx.
Yr Wlcm.
grendal
> grendal <im_gu...@hotmail.com> wrote in news:58d64590-8790-407d-abca-
> 4811565ca...@z30g2000yqz.googlegroups.com:
> > What I am interested in is the use of Estoppel and Latches in an
> > affirmative defense.
> > What are the criteria in using Estoppel and or Latches?
>
> > Any good example cases in Federal courts? Looking primarily at real
> > estate examples.
>
> Hmmm. �You wouldn't be a student looking for a shortcut on your homework,
> would you?
>
If I were a law student I would have caught the spelling error. :-P
Even Laches, if you google it, you come up with a lot of different
cases. The ones I saw were dealing with criminal cases. An example,
the convicted murderer waited to long for his appeal for a new trial.
It seems that all of the witnesses were either dead or had memory
issues.
I was thinking back on some of the real estate questions and estate
questions that have been posed here.
The reason I asked about federal court is that it would probably be
applicable in multiple states. But yes, I do agree that state laws are
different. (Statute of Limitations)
Dick Adams
> What I am interested in is the use of Estoppel and Latches in an
> affirmative defense. What are the criteria in using Estoppel and
> or Latches?
>
> Any good example cases in Federal courts? Looking primarily at
> real estate examples.
I am just not familar with real estate law and I don't how much
RE law comes before the federal courts. The best example of
laches is adverse possession. The owner has a limited time to
raise the issue so it is effectively a statute of limitations.
Unable to conjure up a RE example of estoppel, I will relate my
favorite example from divorce law. There's a North Carolina
Appellate case where a woman was suing for divorce and the
husband was claiming their marriage was null and void because
the wamn had ebded her first marriage wih a Dominican Republic
divorce which North Carolina does not recognize. The court
decided he was estopped from using that defense because he had
paid for the divorce as well as all the costs of their trip to
to the Dominican Republic to get the divorce.
Dick
Hilary P
> Sure one can google Estoppel and Latches, but you get a lot of
> documents that use the terms but don't really give a good working
> definition.
Grendal, I also have trouble conceptualizing these two terms. In
French, the word "l�che" means "coward." So when I think of the
English word laches, I think of someone who was too cowardly to act
when he/she should have acted and thereby let him/herself open to the
affirmative defense that he/she is a wuss who let things fester until
the last minute and get badder than bad, and only then brought a
lawsuit, a lawsuit he'll lose because he is "l�che."
Stuart A. Bronstein
> Grendal, I also have trouble conceptualizing these two terms. In
> French, the word "l�che" means "coward." So when I think of the
> English word laches, I think of someone who was too cowardly to
> act when he/she should have acted and thereby let him/herself
> open to the affirmative defense that he/she is a wuss who let
> things fester until the last minute and get badder than bad, and
> only then brought a lawsuit, a lawsuit he'll lose because he is
> "l�che."
In French L�cher means to drop something, let it go. Think of laches
as when someone has dropped the ball, figuratively, and the other
person is prejudiced as a result.
Gene E. Utterback, EA, RFC, ABA
news:58d64590-8790-407d...@z30g2000yqz.googlegroups.com...
I think the response given by our good friend Cy is about as good as you can
expect here. I will gladly relate a situation that happened to me many
years ago, though.
I lived in a little community in Southern Maryland known as Drum Point. It
started out as a private development, with covenants and bylaws, but over
the years it grew to the point where the state and county took over some of
the roads, but not all of them. Our house was IN Drum Point but was on a
STATE maintained road - this caused a LOT of confusion at the time over
whether those of us who lived on state road frontage were subject to the
covenants and restrictions of Drum Point. Much of the confusion revolved
around the fact that those of us who lived on the state or county maintained
roads were not required to joint the Home Owner's Association while those
that lived on HOA maintained roads were required to join, and pay dues.
Drum Point Home Owner's Association has (or did at the time) an
architectural committee that was responsible for approving all modifications
to houses, garages, fences, outbuildings, driveways and such. If it wasn't
approved by the committee then you weren't supposed to do it. I'd like to
point out now that at the time I was unaware of this rule. The committee
members made it a point of walking around the neighborhood every Sunday,
weather permitting, looking for work that had not been approved.
Living on the state road, and not belonging to the HOA, I ignored their
wanderings - they HAD to cross the state road and walk past my house to get
to the other side of the development.
One summer my (now)ex-wife and I in put in an above ground pool and built a
12X12 shed in the back yard. The nice committee people even stopped in for
a beer one Sunday while we were working and commented on how much work it
must be for us to do this by ourselves. That was the ONLY communication we
got from them about the project for several years.
Then, 3 or 4 years later the committee got some new members, one of whom was
an attorney who went over the covenants and restrictions and determined that
even those that lived on the state and county road WERE subject to the HOA
rules and restrictions even if they choose NOT to join the HOA. Shortly
after this the HOA sent notices to all of us (state road residents) saying
that our improvements were not approved and they would have either be
submitted to the committee for approval or be removed - we were given
something like 30-days to respond.
Of course, I balked at this - it had been at least 3 years since we put in
the pool and the shed AND the committee had been at my house while we were
doing it. It didn't seem right that they could come back now and subject us
to rules they ignored earlier.
This is when I learned about the Doctrine of Laches, which in Maryland is 2
years. Under this theory, as long as I hadn't hid the work from the HOA,
which I hadn't - I even had permits! - they only had 2 years to raise an
issue over it. If they didn't make any noise in the first two years they
were out of luck on anything they could do.
Hope this helps,
Gene E. Utterback, EA, RFC, ABA
grendal
Yeah, the concept in general means that the plaintiff waited too long
to bring their case, but that's kind of vague.
One series of examples dealt with prisoners who are trying to overturn
their convictions well after the fact when people have died or their
memories are no longer accurate.
Another dealt with adverse possession of land where they waited too
long.
With respect to Estoppel, the best cases I've seen deal with foreign
country divorces/marriages when one party argues that the marriage
wasn't official in the first place.
Then there's child support cases...
With respect to real estate, I've only seen one interesting case which
dealt with river front property and access rights.
(In Ohio)
The reason I'm still interested in finding out more in terms of case
law is that there are some criteria in bringing up affirmative
defenses regarding laches. In part I think that one has to demonstrate
that a reasonable person would have known at a point earlier in time
when the alleged fraud occurred. That should start the statute of
limitations.
Barry Gold
There are very good articles about these concepts in Wikipedia.
Basically, Laches means, "You had (weeks) (months) (years) to start a
lawsuit about this, and you didn't. There is no excuse for your delay,
and that delay has put the defendant at a disadvantage -- he has spent
money or other resources because you didn't complain. And now, all
this time later, you come and complain? You should have complained at
the start. Your request for an injunction is denied. Goodbye."
Estoppel comes from an Old French word for "stop" or "prevent". It
means, "You created this situation. The other party relied on something
that you did or said, and now you are _not allowed_ to claim the
opposite of what you said/did back then."
Estoppel might be considered a special case of the general rule:
nobody is allowed to profit from his own wrongful act.
A couple of examples:
1. Your friend Joe is starting a business. Joe
doesn't have much of a credit history, but you are considered an
excellent risk. Joe takes you with him to visit Fred, and tells Fred
that the two of you are partners _in your presence_. Relying on this,
Fred sells Joe some materials for his business on credit.
Joe turns out to be as bad at running a business as he is at handling
credit. He goes out of business leaving a bunch of debts, including
the one to Fred. Fred sues the two of you as a partnership, and
expects you to make good on the debt. You tell the court, "No, Joe
and I weren't partners." Fred testifies that you were present when
Joe said you were, and you admit it (or don't dispute it). The court
will treat the two of you as "Partners by estoppel", and hold you
responsible for the debt to Fred.
2. You want to marry Paula, but she is currently married to Adam.
You take Paula to (say) Bermuda and help her get a quickie divorce
there. Then the two of you come back and get married. It turns out
that Bermuda divorces aren't valid in the US. Later on, Paula sues
you for divorce and property settlement, alimony, etc. You say that
her divorce wasn't valid, and hence the marriage is invalid. But
(assuming Paula's lawyer raises this issue), the court will not allow
you to use that defense, because the problem arises from _your own_
conduct. You are estopped from claiming the invalidity of the
previous divorce and hence of your own marriage.
In a sense, laches is a kind of estoppel: you are estopped from
raising this claim because you waited too long.
--
Barry Gold, webmaster:
Conchord: http://www.conchord.org
Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc.: http://www.lasfsinc.org
Seth
Dick Adams <rda...@panix.com> wrote:
>Unable to conjure up a RE example of estoppel,
Doesn't the legally-haunted house qualify? (Stambovsky v. Ackley)
Buyer sued for rescission because the seller hadn't informed him
the house was haunted. Because seller had previously advertised it to
the public as haunted, he was estopped from claiming it wasn't.
Seth