Horner v. Carver CA3

Filed 3/24/25 Horner v. Carver CA3 NOT TO BE PUBLISHED California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT (Nevada) ----

MICHAEL W. HORNER, C100619

Plaintiff and Respondent, (Super. Ct. No. CU21086089)

v.

DEBORAH J. CARVER,

Defendant and Appellant.

Plaintiffs Michael W. Horner (son) and his now deceased father, George L. Horner (father), sued defendant Deborah J. Carver seeking partition of real property located in Grass Valley (the property). Following a two-day bench trial, the trial court ordered partition of the property by sale. Defendant appeals the judgment in propria persona. With no record of the testimony at trial, defendant challenges plaintiffs’ complaint, the absence of a court reporter at trial, the court’s admission, exclusion, and consideration of certain evidence, and the correctness of the judgment. Because defendant fails to meet her burden to show error, we affirm. We also deny son’s request for sanctions.

1

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND In December 2021, plaintiffs filed a complaint against defendant seeking partition of the property by sale. Father passed away a few months later and was dismissed as a plaintiff. In a trial memorandum, son claimed that defendant moved to the property in 2004 and lived there with father’s friend. Father’s mother owned the property at that time until 2007 when father inherited it. Father agreed that neither he nor son would live at the property. Defendant paid to live at the property by making payments ranging from $450 per month in 2007 to $1,000 per month in 2015. Father understood these payments were for rent. In 2015, father deeded a one-sixth ownership interest in the property to defendant. The remaining five-sixth interest was owned by father and son and later solely by son after father’s death. In 2019, defendant stopped making monthly payments and refused to vacate or sell the property. Asserting that the property was not susceptible to division in kind, son sought partition by sale. Represented by counsel, defendant admitted she started paying father on a regular basis in late 2004 but argued that she understood those payments would be applied to her purchase of the property. Defendant also claimed she bore the maintenance and improvement expenses at the property since the time she moved there and calculated her payments as totaling $256,688. Father represented to defendant that the money she spent on repair, replacement, maintenance, and other household expenses would go towards purchase of the property. Defendant acknowledged that a purchase agreement could not be found or produced. She argued son had no ownership interest in the property and should be equitably estopped from denying defendant her ownership based on father’s unclean hands and the promises father made to induce defendant to invest money in the property. She also argued that the statute of frauds did not bar her claim to the property because she had performed under an oral contract with father to purchase the property.