Turner v. Massie MHP

81 Va. App. 600

904 S.E.2d 329

Tori TURNER, et al.

v.MASSIE MHP, LLC

Record No. 1508-23-3

Court of Appeals of Virginia, Lexington.

August 6, 2024

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Robert M.D. Turk, Judge Kristi J. Murray (Southwest Virginia Legal Aid Society, on briefs), for appellants.

Kathryn A. Poe (John D. Eure; Bryan Grimes Creasy, Roanoke; Johnson, Ayers & Matthews, on brief), for appellee.

Present: Judges O’Brien, Ortiz and Senior Judge Humphreys

OPINION BY JUDGE ROBERT J. HUMPHREYS

In an issue of first impression with respect to a relatively recent statute, in this appeal we are asked to construe the intent of the General Assembly in its use of the word "willfully" in the context of Code § 55.1-1243.1(A).

Twelve current and former tenants of a mobile home park¹ sued the park’s owner, Massie MHP, LLC, under Code § 55.1-1243.1 for willful interruption of an essential service. The circuit court dismissed the tenants’ claims after concluding that they failed to prove Massie willfully interrupted their water service. The tenants contend that the circuit court misapplied the governing legal standard.

Background

Massie purchased the mobile home park in August 2022. The tenants were all then residents of the park. The same month, Massie applied to the Montgomery County Public, Service Authority (the "utility") for water and sewer services for the park. Massie’s application requested that utility billing statements be sent by both mail and email. The utility recorded Massie’s email address correctly but, due to confusion over the handwriting in the application, recorded Massie’s mailing address incorrectly.

The utility then began sending Massie water bills at the correct email address but an incorrect mailing address. On September 15, 2022, the utility sent Massie an invoice showing "current" charges of $4,282.97, with a due date of October 5, 2022. The invoice stated that "[f]ailure to pay delinquent accounts by the due date will result in termination of service," and listed November 5, 2022, as the "disconnect date for current charges." On October 15, 2022, the utility sent an invoice showing "current" charges of $8,912.29 and a total amount due of $13,621.06. The invoice listed a "due date" of November 5, 2022, and a "disconnect date for current charges" of December 5, 2022. Finally, on October 20, 2022, the utility sent a delinquent utility payment notice listing a "total due" of $13,621.06 and an "amount past due" of $4,708.77. The notice stated that the mobile home park’s water "[s]ervice will be disconnected by November 07, 2022, or soon thereafter," unless Massie paid the past due amount of $4,708.77 "on the business day prior to November 07, 2022." The utility sent each of the three notices to Massie’s correct email address and the incorrectly recorded mailing address.

On November 3, 2022, Charles Campbell, the director of the utility, called Massie’s office and left a voicemail message requesting that Massie contact the utility regarding its outstanding balance. In the message, Campbell told Massie that the mobile home park would "be on the cut-off list" and that the water would "be cut off if payment was not made," but did not specify the cut-off date.

As of November 7, 2022, Massie had not paid its bill or otherwise responded to the invoices, delinquency notice, or Campbell’s voicemail. Still, the utility did not shut the water off.

On November 10, 2022, Massie employee Mikelle Greenburg called the utility and spoke with Sarah Reed, an accounting technician for Montgomery County Finance, which manages the billing, collection, and reporting for the utility. Greenburg asked Reed to send another copy of the October 15 invoice to the same email address which Massie had listed on its water and sewer application, and to which the utility had sent all the previous notices and billing statements. Reed emailed another copy of the invoice that day. In an email response the same morning, Greenburg noted that the utility had listed an incorrect mailing address for Massie in the bill, provided the correct address, and asked the utility to correct it. The same day, Reed replied that she had updated the address.

Around 10:00 a.m. on November 15, 2022, the utility shut off water service to the mobile home park because Massie had not paid the outstanding balance. Within approximately three hours, Massie learned that the water had been shut off and paid the past due amounts in full. Reed acknowledged by an email at 1:12 p.m. on November 15, 2022, that full payment had been made. The utility restored water service to the park within an hour of the payment. In total, the water was turned off for approximately four hours.

The tenants filed claims seeking recovery of damages² under Code § 55.1-1243.1 of the Virginia Residential Landlord and Tenant Act ("VRLTA") for Massie’s "willful" interruption of their water service. The case proceeded to a bench trial in the circuit court. Several of the tenants testified that their water had been shut off without warning on November 15, 2022, and that the lack of water had obstructed them from performing certain housekeeping functions, routine hygiene maintenance, and proper childcare. Campbell and Reed also testified, explaining the efforts they had made to communicate with Massie about the outstanding bill. When the trial judge asked whether Massie was informed that the water would be cut off on November 15 if it failed to pay the bill before that date, Campbell admitted, "I don’t think that was relayed to anybody who may have been on that list that day."

Massie’s Operations Manager, Deandre Singleton, acknowledged that the utility had sent the bills to the email address Massie had listed in its application, and he did not deny that Massie had received the emails. Singleton testified, however, that he did not personally receive the emails and did not know whether anyone else in the company had received them. Singleton did not explain why Massie did not respond to the bills and delinquency notice that the utility sent before November 10. Nor did he explain why Massie failed to pay the bill between November 10 and November 15. But he testified that Massie never intended to interfere with the tenants’ water service. When asked whether Massie had "purposefully not pa[id] the bills so that they would go into default to have the water cut off," Singleton replied, "No."

After taking the matter under advisement, the circuit court issued a letter opinion and later entered judgment for Massie. Noting that the VRLTA does not define the term "willful" and that no court had interpreted the word as it is used in Code § 55.1-1243.1, the circuit court applied the definition of "willful" the Supreme Court of Virginia enunciated in Etherton v. Doe, 268 Va. 209, 213-14, 597 S.E.2d 87 (2004) (addressing a claim of "willful and wanton negligence"). The circuit court found there was "no dispute that despite verbal and email warnings from [the utility] regarding the possibility of a water shut-off, [Massie] failed to pay the outstanding balance until approximately three hours after the [utility] followed through on its warnings of a water shut-off." But the court also found that the tenants presented no evidence that Massie "intentionally or maliciously acted to discontinue [their] utility service." Thus, the circuit court concluded that Massie merely "acted negligently in its failure to timely pay the utility invoices related to its recently acquired mobile home property." The circuit court held that Massie’s actions did "not rise to the level of willfulness envisioned by [Code § 55.1-1243.1]." Accordingly, it dismissed the actions with prejudice.

On appeal, the tenants argue that the circuit court identified the correct legal standard—"willful"—but erroneously applied the standard by imposing an intentionality requirement to Massie’s conduct, and by concluding that Massie’s interruption of their water services was merely negligent.

Analysis

[1–4] When a circuit court decides a case without a jury, the judgment "will be set aside only if ‘it appears from the evidence that such judgment is plainly wrong or without evidence to support it.’ " Callison v. Glick, 297 Va. 275, 287, 826 S.E.2d 310 (2019) (quoting Code § 8.01-680). In such a case, we "review all factual findings in the light most favorable to the prevailing part[y] below," but "[t]he circuit court’s application of law to facts … is reviewed de novo." Id. at 287-88, 826 S.E.2d 310. Additionally, "[w]hether a lower court has correctly defined and applied a legal standard is a question of law reviewed de novo," Alexandria City Pub. Schs. v. Handel, 299 Va. 191, 196, 848 S.E.2d 816 (2020), as are "issues of statutory interpretation," Taylor v. Commonwealth, 77 Va. App. 149, 162, 884 S.E.2d 822 (2023).

Code § 55.1-1243.1 provides a right of action by which a tenant "shall recover" damages from his landlord upon presenting "evidence establishing that his landlord has willfully and without authority from the court … interrupted or caused the interruption of an essential service to the tenant." Essential services under the VRLTA include "heat, running water, hot water, electricity, and gas." Code § 55.1-1200. Massie concedes that its failure to pay the water bill caused the four-hour interruption of water service to the tenants. Thus, the only issue is whether the circuit court correctly concluded that Massie did not "willfully" cause the interruption. As noted, the VRLTA does not define the word "willfully" for determining liability under Code § 55.1-1243.1, and neither our Supreme Court nor this Court has previously construed this statutory term in the context in which it is used here.

[5–7] When construing a statute, "our primary objective is to ascertain and give effect to the legislative intent, which ‘is initially found in the words of the statute itself.’ " Chaffins v. Atl. Coast Pipeline, LLC, 293 Va. 564, 568, 801 S.E.2d 189 (2017...