AI Generated Opinion Summaries

Decision Information

Decision Content

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Facts

  • In the early 2000s, the plaintiffs, Gilbert Baldonado and Raymond Baldonado, entered into an oral contract with their uncles, the defendants, Eloy Romero, Antonio Romero (deceased), and Redolfo Romero. The agreement involved the plaintiffs conveying a front-end loader and assisting in constructing a road across a portion of the defendants' land. In return, the defendants would convey two parcels of land to the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs fulfilled their part of the agreement, but after several years of using the parcels, they received a no-trespass notice from the defendants in February 2014, leading to the breach of contract claim filed by the plaintiffs in September 2015 (paras 1, 3).

Procedural History

  • [Not applicable or not found]

Parties' Submissions

  • Plaintiffs-Appellees: Argued that they fulfilled their part of the oral contract by delivering the front-end loader and assisting in road construction, and that the defendants breached the contract by issuing a no-trespass notice, thus depriving them of their right to quiet enjoyment of the land (paras 3-4).
  • Defendants-Appellants: Contended that no enforceable oral contract existed due to lack of consideration and that the plaintiffs' claims were barred by the four-year statute of limitations for oral contract claims, asserting that the claims should have accrued when the road construction was completed in 2006 (para 5).

Legal Issues

  • Whether the parties entered into an enforceable oral contract.
  • Whether the plaintiffs' claims were barred by the statute of limitations.

Disposition

  • The district court's judgment in favor of the plaintiffs, ordering specific performance and the preparation and execution of appropriate deeds for the disputed parcels of land, was affirmed (para 1).

Reasons

  • The Court of Appeals, with Judge Megan P. Duffy writing the opinion, concurred by Judges Jennifer L. Attrep and Gerald E. Baca, found that the district court's findings of fact were binding on appeal and that the defendants waived any challenge to these findings by not directly challenging them or demonstrating that they were unsupported by substantial evidence (para 2). The court affirmed the district court's conclusion that clear, cogent, and convincing evidence supported the existence of an enforceable oral contract and that the defendants breached this contract by issuing a no-trespass notice in 2014. The court rejected the defendants' arguments regarding the lack of consideration and the statute of limitations, noting that the plaintiffs' claims were timely as they were filed within four years of the contract breach in 2014 (paras 3-9).
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