Foreclosure & sale of a condominium unit; Effect of failing to tender the redemption amount on tort claims; Whether plaintiff stated a claim for money damages

The court held that summary disposition on plaintiff’s claims for fraudulent misrepresentation, silent fraud, and conversion were not warranted under MCR 2.116(C)(7) or (8). Also, it rejected defendants’ claim that she did not state a cause of action for money damages. Plaintiff did “not dispute the trial court’s decision to dismiss her claims for quiet title, claim and delivery, constructive trust, and promissory estoppel on the basis of her failure to tender the redemption amount.” She only argued that her failure to do so “did not entitle defendants to summary disposition on her tort claims—fraudulent misrepresentation, silent fraud, and common law or statutory conversion.” The court noted that her tort claims were not dependent on her retaining rights in and to the property. “Thus, to the extent that the trial court dismissed plaintiff’s tort claims ‘based upon the failure to tender the amounts due for redemption,’ that decision was error.” Defendants next argued that her “complaint asked only for equitable relief—not money damages—and therefore her contention that her legal claims should have survived summary disposition” was disingenuous because she never raised any legal claims. They were correct to the extent they noted that her “request for relief in her complaint did not explicitly request money damages. Yet defendants ignore that plaintiff’s complaint specified what money damages she believed she was owed. For her fraudulent misrepresentation and silent fraud claims, plaintiff contended that her money damages were ‘a total loss of the equity value in the condominium unit less the redemption price.’” As to her statutory and common-law conversion claim, the complaint contended that she was “wrongfully deprived of said property and is therefore entitled to treble damages under the conversion statute.” Thus, the complaint “did specify that she was seeking damages.” Further, defendants ignored that, at the hearing on their summary disposition motion, “plaintiff repeatedly clarified that she was seeking money damages on her tort claims.” The court added that, while their confusion about whether she “was asserting a legal claim for her claims of fraud is perhaps understandable given that such claims can be equitable,” or legal, the same could not be said for her statutory and common-law conversion claim, which was “clearly a legal claim.” Reversed and remanded.