Land contract dispute; Review of a trial court’s factual findings in a bench trial; Chelsea Inv. Group LLC v. Chelsea; Waiver; Varran v. Granneman (On Remand); Failure to raise an issue in the statement of questions presented; River Inv. Group, LLC v. Casab

Finding all of defendant-seller’s arguments unpersuasive, the court affirmed the trial court’s order granting judgment for plaintiff-buyer in this land contract dispute. All of her arguments boiled down to a contention “that the trial court’s factual findings made during the bench trial were in error.” The court noted that the trial court was permitted to consider the pleadings that she filed in the district-court forfeiture action and the assertions she made in those pleadings as to the amount due from plaintiff under the land contract. Further, the trial court was permitted to find that her “calculations of the amount due under the land contract were inconsistent and replete with errors. Giving the trial court’s factual findings the ‘great deference’ they are due, and acknowledging that the trial court was ‘in a better position to examine the facts’” than the court, it could not “say that the trial court’s rulings were clearly erroneous.” The court added that, to the extent defendant’s brief could “be construed as raising an argument that the trial court erred by considering at the bench trial claims not raised in plaintiff’s complaint,” defendant failed to raise the “issue in the statement of questions presented.” Thus, the court deemed it waived. Further, because she failed to brief the issue adequately, she abandoned it on appeal.