North Dakota Supreme Court Highlights
By Michael J. Morley
Author’ s Note and Caveat: The following cases of interest were recently decided by the North Dakota Supreme Court. Because the following contain the author’ s summary of the decisions, the reader is encouraged to read the entire published decision to determine its precedential value, if any, in a given case.
Berg v. Berg, 2018 ND 79, 908 N. W. 2d 705
This divorce case involved issues of spousal support. The Supreme Court noted a District Court must make a spousal support award in accordance with the needs of the spouse seeking support and of the supporting spouse’ s needs and ability to pay. The District Court must also consider the relevant factors under the Ruff-Fischer guidelines in determining an award of spousal support, but the District Court is not required to make specific findings on each factor, provided the appellate court can determine the reasons for the Court’ s decision. The Court said property division and spousal support are interrelated and intertwined and often must be considered together. The Supreme Court affirmed the District Court’ s award of spousal support even though the District Court did not explicitly quantify one party’ s need for spousal support and the other’ s ability to pay, nor did the District Court precisely calculate each party’ s assets, debts, and expenses in determining spousal support, because the District Court’ s findings did indicate it considered the party’ s monthly expenses and property division amounts in awarding the spousal support. Therefore, because it did not appear to the Supreme Court the District Court clearly erred in awarding the spousal support it did, the support order was affirmed.
Rocky Mountain Steel Foundations, Inc. v. Brockett Co., LLC, 2018 ND 96, 909 N. W. 2d 671
Rocky Mountain was a subcontractor at an oil well construction site. It sold and delivered materials for installation on certain oil wells. Rocky Mountain recorded and perfected liens on the well leaseholds for the value of the materials it delivered, which were to be utilized in the construction of the wells, because even though the subcontractor Rocky Mountain delivered the materials to was paid in full by the project general contractor, Rocky Mountain was not, in turn, paid by that same subcontractor. Thus, Rocky Mountain sued to enforce its lien.
The primary issue in the case was whether N. D. C. C. § 35-24-04 permits recovery on the lien of subcontractor Rocky Mountain when the project owner has fully paid the general contractor, and allowing recovery of Rocky Mountain’ s lien would result in the project owner being liable for a greater amount than its agreed upon contract price with the original contractor. The Supreme Court said the subcontractor’ s lien was valid, even though allowing it increased the owner’ s ultimate liability to an amount greater than the original contract price, because the owner was aware of Rocky Mountain’ s lien before the owner paid its original contractor, without ensuring the Rocky Mountain lien would be paid from that payment. In that situation, N. D. C. C. § 35-24-04 provides that the risk of payments made to the original contractor is upon the owner after it receives notice a lien is claimed by a person other than the original contractor the owner pays.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court reversed the District Court judgment invalidating Rocky Mountain’ s lien and remanded the case back to the District Court.
Bjerk v. Anderson, 2018 ND 124, 911 N. W. 2d 343
In this unfortunate case, a young man consumed illegal drugs in a Grand Forks home owned by the defendant. Shortly after consuming the drug, the young decedent, along with two others, were directed to leave the property. The decedent collapsed outside of the home and his body was found later on a sidewalk near the defendant’ s home.
Decedent’ s parents commenced a wrongful death action against the property owner based on premises liability, on the theory the owner failed to exercise reasonable care to keep the house owned by him in a reasonably safe condition, free from illegal and dangerous activity, and free of drugs and illegal substances. The homeowner filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing he could not be held liable because he had no control over the residence he owned on the date of the decedent’ s death because he had not lived there for approximately three years and a former girlfriend and her children were in fact occupying the home at the time of the incident. Summary judgment was granted by the District Court to the homeowner and the wrongful death suit was dismissed with prejudice. On appeal, the North Dakota Supreme Court affirmed, concluding the homeowner,
Michael J. Morley received his juris doctor with distinction and was admitted to the Order of the Coif upon graduation from the University of North Dakota School of Law in 1979. That same year, he was admitted to practice law in North Dakota State Courts and the United States District Courts for the District of North Dakota. In 1981, he was admitted in the Minnesota State Courts and the United State District Court for the District of Minnesota, as well as the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He is a member of the State Bar Associations of North Dakota and Minnesota and is currently president and shareholder of Morley Law Firm, Ltd., in Grand Forks.
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