Tag: judicial activism

Contempt of court HOA legislation

Most current HOA reform laws inexcusably assume  that the HOA and its attorney will act in good faith; common homeowner complaints across the states have proven this to be grossly false.

It seems that meaningful HOA enforcement can be attained by filing contempt of court complaints. A “contempt” is disobedience to a court order in which the homeowner can seek jail time and personal financial penalties for the contempt. VERY POWERFUL!   

“A judge may impose sanctions such as a fine, jail or social service for someone found guilty of contempt of court, which makes contempt of court a process crime. Judges in common law systems usually have more extensive power to declare someone in contempt than judges in civil law systems.” (Wikipedia).

Disclaimer; I am not a lawyer and I am not giving legal advice or opinion. Please consult your attorney. Your state certified paralegal may be able to assist you in filing the contempt motion.

Here’s how the legal system works for HOA-Land.  The board as a whole, or president, or individual directors violate the governing documents or state laws. They refuse to correct the violations so you must sue to force compliance.  When you win in court it issues an order or an injunction to perform, etc. to the wrongdoers.  The court says in effect, I’m done.  Continued violations occur; what can the homeowner do?

The homeowner can file a contempt of court motion with the same court specifying the failure to obey the court and want you want the court to do. You can seek court punishment of the violators through financial penalties and/or jail time. The original complaint must be against the HOA individuals in order  for the contempt to be feared.

Check with your attorney or get the state/county specified contempt motion form;  follow the procedure and complete the motion.

Let’s give the Board something to fear. File those contempt motions!  No one can solve your HOA problem unless you act as required. You must act or continue to live at the suffrage of the board , or move out.

Below are examples.

To file a contempt of court, you need to1234:

Biden must order law colleges to uphold HOA content-neutral free speech

“We must make the injustice visible” Mahatma Gandhi

Can Americans look forward to any improvement in the application of the 14th Amendment equal protection of the laws and due process protection of their constitutional rights as a citizen?   I do not think so when college law students, especially those wishing to be competent and knowledgeable constitutional lawyers, are not educated in the unconstitutional aspects of the presumptively invalid declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&Rs). The CC&Rs are in reality the HOA subdivision/condo “constitution.”

Justice Ginsburg stated in her equal pay for women dissent that,

“Title VII [Employment equal pay for women discrimination act] was meant to govern real world employment practices and that world is what the court [US Supreme Court] ignores today.”

This is very same attitude by the courts with respect to what is really happening in the real world of HOA-Land; the courts do not have any understanding of homeowner constitutional issues.  Otherwise how could it deny constitutional protections?  What are the factors that blinds them to the ab initio unconstitutional CC&Rs?

I keep waiting for an illustrious constitutional lawyer or political scientist to rise to the level of Ginsburg and uphold the original intents and purposes of the US Constitution as stated in its Preamble.

Could it be that the law colleges are also intentionally blind to the constitutional issues plaguing HOAs since 1964 when the “bible,” The Homes Association Handbook, was published?  For example, ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law does not provide library references to these issues and insists on only listing the materials based on the CAI School of HOA Governance; by the national lobbying arm supporting the HOA legal scheme of today.

Have the law schools been indoctrinated into accepting CAI’s self-interest perspective and treat HOA-Land as an institution, accepting that is the way it has always been?  The judicial system, the law colleges, the legislatures, the Uniform Law Commission (UCIOA), the media, and the public in general all need to be deprogrammed!

I do not believe other prestigious law colleges include HOA unconstitutionality as an item in their degree programs. Unconscionable!

For more information on deprograming and reorienting HOA-Land indoctrination, see my publications and web page Commentaries:

HOA bill of rights history updated
ASU Law ignores content-neutral free speech for HOAs
Uniform Law Commission rejects subjecting HOAs to Constitution
The HOA-Land Nation Within America (publication, 2019)
A Plan Toward Restoring the HOA Model of Governance (publication, 2020)
See restoring HOA Constitution Plan FAQ

Does the Constitution support the will of the HOA no matter what?

A rogue board is operating at Terravita HOA in Scottsdale, AZ. In short, the HOA attorney saw no problem in adding a restrictive covenant that would allow OAH attorney fees regardless of the law that OAH is not allowed to award attorney fees.[1] It was properly passed by the Terravita members. Since the validity of the covenant was not challenged, the following scenario evolved.

Based on the wording of the covenant, the sole target was a resident, Mr. Brown, the only person who meets this classification in Terravita. Section 17.01, Article XVII, of the Terravita Declaration reads,

[I]n bringing claims against Owners or defending claims brought by Owners in an administrative action or proceeding, including but not limited to, proceedings before an Administrative Law Judge, and any appeal thereof; the Association shall be entitled to recover its attorneys’ fees and costs from the Owner involved in the administrative proceeding if the Association is a prevailing party in such action, and the amount of such attorneys’ fees . . . .

The battle between Brown and the board also involved CAI attorney Ekmark, where there is plenty of history, Brown having filed several suits and won them and publicized the amount of HOA funds spent on minor litigation.

In this instance, Brown was seeking access to board minutes at a meeting alleged to be an executive meeting where the minutes are exempt from disclosure. The problem, according to Brown, was that he was not allowed to present evidence that the meeting was not an executive meeting.  The court simply took Ekmark’s word that it was an executive meeting.

Being the prevailing party, the HOA then claimed attorney fees for the OAH appellate costs, the basis of Brown’s current appeal (CA-CV 14-000455, Division 1). (I avoid the other pertinent legal issues involved in this case and focus on the validity of the covenant.)

The question I raise is that the covenant was invalid, being an unconstitutional deprivation of due process and the equal protection of the law. Once again, like the CC&Rs, can a private organization draft a document or rule that conflicts with state law and yet be held legally binding by the courts? (When does it stop?) And since the covenant was enforced by the courts, there are grounds for filing a deprivation of rights suit under 41 USC 1983[2] (“under color of any statute”) and claiming state action by Terravita.

Understand that, in general, court enforcement of a CC&Rs agreement to abide by the majority decision under a valid amendment procedure alone fails to uphold the principals of our democracy.  The Constitution does not say that the majority is always right.  The 5th and 14th Amendments do not contain exceptions like, “

no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law (5th & 14th Amendments) . . . nor deny the equal protection of the law (14th Amendment) unless approved by a majority or supermajority vote as contained in the governing documents.

The case before us is another example of judicial populism that holds that the will of the majority shall prevail no matter what.  How far have the courts gone in ignoring the Constitution and allowing unrestricted private individual or group “rewrites” of the Constitution to be binding? 

By such court activism, the America of today not the America of your father or your grandfather.

References

[1] OAH, the Office of Administrative Hearings, is an executive agency obtaining it powers and authorities from the legislature’s enabling act.  The statutes (ARS 41-1092 et seq.; 41-2198 et seq.) and Administrative Code (R2-19-101 et seq.) do not grant the OAH the power to award attorney fees.

[2] 42 USC 1983, Section 1983. Civil action for deprivation of rights

 “Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such    officer’s judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted  unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was    unavailable.”