AI Generated Opinion Summaries

This summary was computer-generated without any editorial revision. It is not official, has not been checked for accuracy, and is NOT citable.

Facts

• In 2009, the Defendant filed a foreclosure complaint against the Plaintiffs, leading to a default judgment against them and an order approving the sale of their property. The Plaintiffs later attempted to set aside this default judgment and filed a separate complaint alleging various torts and requesting declaratory relief to invalidate the default judgment. The district court dismissed this complaint, ruling that the claims were compulsory counterclaims that should have been brought in the original 2009 case (para 2-3).

Procedural History

• District Court Case No. D-820-CV-298: Default judgment entered against Plaintiffs on September 9, 2009, and an order approving the sale was entered on February 18, 2011. Plaintiffs' motion to set aside the default judgment was denied on May 29, 2013 (para 2).

Parties' Submissions

• Plaintiffs: Argued that summary disposition violates the New Mexico State Constitution, a foreclosure action is an in rem proceeding to which compulsory counterclaims cannot be a bar to subsequent claims, and the claims asserted were not compulsory counterclaims (para 4).
• Defendant: Supported the summary affirmance, presumably arguing that the Plaintiffs' claims were indeed compulsory counterclaims that should have been brought in the original foreclosure action.

Legal Issues

• Whether summary disposition violates the New Mexico State Constitution (para 5).
• Whether a foreclosure action is an in rem proceeding to which compulsory counterclaims cannot be a bar to subsequent claims (para 6).
• Whether the claims asserted in the current case were compulsory counterclaims in the 2009 case (para 6).

Disposition

• The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s order dismissing the Plaintiffs' complaint and the order denying Plaintiffs' motion to reconsider (para 1, 21).

Reasons

• Per BUSTAMANTE, J. (SUTIN, J., and ZAMORA, J., concurring):
  The court found that existing New Mexico case law has rejected challenges to the constitutionality of the summary calendar, thus upholding its validity against the Plaintiffs' constitutional arguments (para 5).
  The court disagreed with the Plaintiffs' contention that their in personam tort claims were not compulsory counterclaims to the Defendant's in rem foreclosure action, citing established law that allows a mortgagee to pursue all remedies simultaneously without double recovery on the debt (para 6-7).
  The court relied on precedent to affirm that the Plaintiffs' claims were indeed compulsory counterclaims under Rule 1-013(A) NMRA, which should have been brought in the original foreclosure action. The failure to do so barred these claims in the subsequent suit (para 8-15).
  The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Plaintiffs' motion to reconsider, as the Plaintiffs had the opportunity to litigate their defenses and counterclaims in the original foreclosure suit but chose not to do so (para 16-20).