Abel & Sons Concrete, LLC v. Juhnke

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This appeal stemmed from a dispute over equipment owned by Tri-State Concrete Contracting, an unincorporated sole proprietorship. Abel Ramirez worked at Tri-State, and when its proprietor, DuWayne Juhnke, died. Ramirez entered an agreement with Juhnke's wife to continue operating Tri-State and to make payments to purchase Tri-State and its equipment. After making some payments, Ramirez stopped, opened Abel & Sons Concrete, LLC, and started doing Tri-State's jobs with Tri-State's equipment without paying for the use of that equipment. In response, Mrs. Juhnke and the administrator of Mr. Juhnke's estate ("Appellees") sued Ramirez and Abel & Sons ("Appellants") along with Dollar Concrete Construction Company, the company that was storing the equipment and allegedly letting Appellants use it without Appellees' permission. Appellees and Dollar filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The trial court denied both motions for summary judgment, explaining that it was undisputed that Dollar did not own the equipment and that Appellees did not have access to it, but there was a genuine factual dispute as to the ownership of the equipment and whether Dollar had refused Appellees' demand for its return. The trial court's order that although Appellees and Dollar had asked at a hearing for time to resolve how Dollar would relinquish the equipment, they had not presented a consent order, so the court sua sponte required Dollar to place the equipment outside its locked storage yard within 30 days and after giving seven days' notice to Appellants and Appellees to allow them to "arrange to retrieve and store same pending determination as to ownership." The order further directed Appellants and Appellees not to "transfer, damage, or use the property pending determination as to ownership" and to equally share the costs of moving and storage. The Supreme Court concluded that those portions of the order comprised, in substance, an interlocutory injunction, and Appellants filed this appeal to challenge the injunction against them on the ground that they were not given notice before the court imposed it. Because Appellants did not have proper notice of the interlocutory injunction, the trial court abused its discretion in imposing it against them, and the portion of the court's order issuing equitable relief binding Appellants was vacated. View "Abel & Sons Concrete, LLC v. Juhnke" on Justia Law