Coastal Development Group, Inc. of Greater New Orleans v. Christopher I. Lund and Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae)

COASTAL DEVELOPMENT * NO. 2022-CA-0598
GROUP, INC. OF GREATER
NEW ORLEANS *
COURT OF APPEAL
VERSUS *
FOURTH CIRCUIT
CHRISTOPHER I. LUND AND *
FEDERAL NATIONAL STATE OF LOUISIANA
MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION *******
(FANNIE MAE)

APPEAL FROM
CIVIL DISTRICT COURT, ORLEANS PARISH
NO. 2020-05093, DIVISION “B-5”
Honorable Rachael Johnson,
******
Judge Rosemary Ledet
******
(Court composed of Judge Rosemary Ledet, Judge Tiffany Gautier Chase, Judge
Nakisha Ervin-Knott)

Kyle Salvador Sclafani
SCAFIDEL LAW FIRM, L.L.C.
4130 Canal Street
New Orleans, LA 70119

COUNSEL FOR PLAINTIFF/APPELLEE

Gregory Swafford
ATTORNEY AT LAW
4734 Franklin Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70122--6112

COUNSEL FOR DEFENDANT/APPELLANT

AFFIRMED
January 11, 2023

RML This is an action to quiet title to a property interest purchased by the

TGC appellee, Coastal Development Group Inc. of Greater New Orleans (“Coastal”) at a

NEK tax sale. The appellant, Christopher I. Lund, appeals the trial court’s partial

summary judgment declaring Coastal’s full ownership of its property interest and

the trial court’s judgment denying Mr. Lund’s motion for new trial of the summary

judgment motion. For the following reasons, we affirm.

PROCEDURAL AND FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Coastal purchased an undivided ninety-nine percent interest in immovable

property bearing municipal address 3420-3422 Bienville Avenue in New Orleans

(“the Property”) at a 2018 tax sale. Coastal paid the outstanding taxes on the

Property and recorded the tax sale certificate in the Orleans Parish conveyance

records in May 2018. In June 2020, Coastal filed a petition to quiet title and to

partition the Property, naming Mr. Lund, the owner of the remaining one-percent

interest in the Property, as a defendant.

Coastal alleged the Property was blighted and thus subject to an eighteen-

month delay to redeem the Property under La. Const. art. 7, §25(B)(2). Coastal

alleged that the redemption period expired before it filed the quiet title action.

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Coastal served the petition and citation personally on Mr. Lund. Mr. Lund

answered Coastal’s petition in December 2020, denying the allegations of

Coastal’s petition and raising several affirmative defenses.1

Other than filing his December 2020 answer to Coastal’s petition, Mr. Lund

took no steps to redeem the Property or to defend against Coastal’s action. In

April 2021, Coastal filed a motion for partial summary judgment. In its summary

judgment motion, Coastal argued that it was entitled to a judgment declaring it

owner of a ninety-nine percent interest in the Property due to Mr. Lund’s failure to

redeem the Property within the redemption period. Coastal served Mr. Lund

personally with the motion for partial summary judgment. Mr. Lund did not

oppose Coastal’s summary judgment motion and failed to appear at the November

2021 hearing on Coastal’s motion. The trial court granted Coastal’s summary

judgment motion and declared Coastal owner of an undivided ninety-nine percent

interest in the Property.

In April 2022, Mr. Lund, now represented by counsel, filed a motion for new

trial of Coastal’s motion for partial summary judgment.2 Mr. Lund argued the

partial summary judgment was contrary to the law and evidence, because genuine

issues of material fact remained as to whether the applicable redemption period

was eighteen months—reserved for properties deemed blighted or abandoned—or

three years—applicable to all other property. Coastal opposed the motion for new

trial, maintaining that the eighteen-month redemption period applied. Regardless,

Coastal argued, the issue was moot, because the three-year redemption period
1 Mr. Lund filed his answer in proper person.

2 Mr. Lund asserted that his motion for new trial was timely despite filing it more than five

months after the signing of judgment, because the clerk of court sent notice to an old address for
Mr. Lund. The parties do not dispute the timeliness of Mr. Lund’s motion for new trial on
appeal.

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elapsed before the trial court issued its summary judgment in favor of Coastal,

extinguishing Mr. Lund’s redemption rights under either redemption period.

Agreeing with Coastal, the trial court denied Mr. Lund’s motion for new trial.3 Mr.

Lund’s appeal followed.

STANDARD OF REVIEW AND GOVERNING LEGAL PRINCIPLES

Mr. Lund’s assignments of error on appeal are directed to the trial court’s

ruling on his motion for new trial. “The applicable standard of review in ruling on

a motion for new trial is whether the district court abused its discretion.” Davis v.

Witt, 02-3102, p. 19 (La. 7/2/03), 851 So.2d 1119, 1131 (internal citations

omitted). “[A] motion for new trial based on the contention that a judgment is

contrary to the law and evidence should be denied if the trial court’s ruling is

supportable by any fair interpretation of evidence, and a trial court judgment

denying a motion for new trial should not be reversed unless the appellate court

finds that the trial court abused its great discretion. 1137 N. Robertson, LLC v.

Jackson, 19-0553, p. 4 (La. App. 4 Cir. 11/20/19), ___ So.3d ___, ___, 2019 WL

6200294, **7–8.

A redemption period is “the period in which a person may redeem property

as provided in the Louisiana Constitution.” La. R.S. 47:2122(11). Property sold

for non-payment of taxes “shall be redeemable for three years after the date of

recordation of the tax sale, by paying the price given, including costs, five percent

penalty thereon, and interest at the rate of one percent per month until redemption.”

La. Const., art. VII, § 25(B)(1). But, an exception to the three-year redemption

period is set forth in La. Const., art. VII, § 25(B)(2), which provides:

3 The trial court also denied a motion to annul the quiet title judgment filed by Mr. Lund and

granted Coastal’s motion to partition the Property by private sale. Mr. Lund has not appealed
these judgments.

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In the city of New Orleans, when such property sold is residential or
commercial property which is abandoned property as defined by R.S.
33:4720.12(1) or blighted property as defined by Act 155 of the 1984
Regular Session, it shall be redeemable for eighteen months after the
date of recordation of the tax sale by payment in accordance with
Subparagraph (1) of this Paragraph.

It is well settled that the redemption periods provided in the Louisiana

Constitution are peremptive. Smith v. Brumfield, 13-1171, p. 12 (La. App. 4 Cir.

1/15/14), 133 So.3d 70, 78 (citing La. R.S. 47:2241 and Harris v. Estate of Fuller,

532 So.2d 1367, 1371 (La. 1988)). “Peremption is a period of time fixed by law

for the existence of a right. Unless timely exercised, the right is extinguished upon

the expiration of the peremptive period.” La. C.C. art. 3458. “Peremption may not

be renounced, interrupted, or suspended.” La. C.C. art. 3461. Peremption differs

from prescription in two respects: “(1) the expiration of the peremptive time period

destroys the cause of action itself; and (2) nothing may interfere with the running

of a peremptive time period.” Naghi v. Brener, 08-2527, p. 11 (La. 6/26/09), 17

So.3d 919, 926.

DISCUSSION

On appeal, Mr. Lund assigns two errors. First, Mr. Lund argues that the trial

court erred in denying his motion for new trial, because factual issues remain as to

whether the eighteen-month or the three-year redemption period applied. Mr.

Lund further argues that, assuming the three-year redemption period applied, his

December 2020 answer interrupted or suspended the redemption period. For the

following reasons, we find no error in the trial court’s judgment.

In support of his first argument, Mr. Lund contends that, despite the blight

judgment against the Property upon which Coastal relied in seeking application of

the shorter, eighteen-month redemption period, factual disputes precluded

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summary judgment. Mr. Lund claims there is a genuine dispute as to whether the

Property was sold pursuant to the statute authorizing sale of properties for non-

payment of taxes or whether the Property was sold pursuant to the statute

authorizing sale of blighted properties. According to Mr. Lund, if the Property was

sold for non-payment of taxes, the three-year redemption period applied, regardless

of the outstanding blight judgment against the Property. Thus, Mr. Lund claims,

the trial court’s summary judgment, allegedly premised upon expiration of the

eighteen-month redemption period, was contrary to the law.

In support, Mr. Lund cites In re Flag Boy Properties, LLC, 21-0644 (La.

App. 4 Cir. 3/10/22), ___ So.3d ___, ___, 2022 WL 714334. This court in Flag

Boy found that the trial court erred in applying the eighteen-month redemption

period, rather than the three-year redemption period, to a property sold at a tax sale

for non-payment of taxes, because the property was sold pursuant to the statutory

authority to sell properties for non-payment of taxes. Id., 21-0644, p. 4, ___ So.3d

___, ___, 2022 WL 714334, **9.

Flag Boy is distinguishable from the instant case. First, the blight on the

property at issue in Flag Boy was abated before the tax sale, thereby precluding

application of the eighteen-month redemptive period. Here, regardless of whether

the Property was sold pursuant to the statute authorizing the sale of property for

non-payment of taxes or the statute authorizing the sale of blighted property, there

is no dispute that the blighted condition of the Property remained unabated through

the tax sale, supporting application of the eighteen-month redemptive period.

Moreover, the former owner of the property in Flag Boy redeemed the property by

paying the applicable taxes, penalties, and interest before the expiration of the

three-year redemption period. Here, as discussed elsewhere in this opinion, Mr.

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Lund took no steps to redeem the Property before the expiration of the three-year

redemption period. Thus, even if the three-year redemption period applied, Mr.

Lund failed to avail himself of redemption before peremption extinguished his

right to redeem the Property. We therefore find this assignment of error

unpersuasive.

In Mr. Lund’s second assignment of error, he argues that, assuming the

three-year redemption period applied, his answer to Coastal’s petition filed in

December 2020 suspended the peremptive redemption period. In support of this

contention, Mr. Lund cites Harris v. Guardian Funds, Inc., 425 So.2d 1322 (La.

App. 4th Cir. 1983). In Harris, this court held that a petition to redeem property

filed by the plaintiffs within the three-year redemption period interrupted the

redemption period, based on the plaintiffs’ representation that the parties had been

in negotiations for several months before filing suit. 425 So.2d at 1325. The

Harris court considered equity in recognizing that a tax purchaser might use

dilatory tactics to defend his ownership and prevent redemption of property and

that La. Const. art. VII, § 25(B) did not mandate the consummation of redemption

within the three-year period but only that “the property shall be redeemable for

three years . . . .” Id. (emphasis in original). Thus, initiating redemption of the

property by way of a demand for redemption through a lawsuit constituted

redemption within the three-year period.

The equitable considerations at issue in Harris are not present here. Unlike

the Harris plaintiffs, Mr. Lund took no efforts to initiate the redemption process

within the redemption period. Nor is there evidence that Mr. Lund was prevented

from initiating redemption by either Coastal or the tax collector. Moreover, the

Harris plaintiffs’ act of initiating a lawsuit for redemption of the property is

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distinct from the answer filed by Mr. Lund. “A civil action is a demand for the

enforcement of a legal right.” La. C.C.P. art. 421. Thus, the Harris plaintiffs’

lawsuit constituted a demand to enforce their legal right to redemption. By

contrast, Mr. Lund’s answer did nothing to demand enforcement of his right to

redemption. Mr. Lund’s answer thus failed to suspend or interrupt the redemption

period. Accordingly, we find this assignment of error unpersuasive.

DECREE

For the foregoing reasons, the trial court’s judgment is affirmed.

AFFIRMED

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