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Carrollsburg v. Anderson2/14/2002
e entitled to "the reasonable right of passage," that is, convenient and safe access to the garage through the lobby and elevators of the Carrollsburg Condominium, rather than by way of the allegedly unsafe automobile ramp.
"In reviewing a trial court order granting a summary judgment motion, we conduct an independent review of the record . . . ." Tavakoli-Nouri v. Gunther, 745 A.2d 939, 941 (D.C. 2000) (citing Sherman v. District of Columbia, 653 A.2d 866, 869 (D.C. 1995)). "Summary judgment is appropriate if, viewing the record in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Id. (citing Super. Ct. Civ. R. 56 (c); American Cont'l Ins. Co. v. Pooya, 666 A.2d 1193, 1197 (D.C. 1995)); see also Lund v. Watergate Investors Ltd. P'ship, 728 A.2d 77, 81 (D.C. 1999). "Whether the trial court correctly applied res judicata principles to the facts of this case is a legal issue that we decide de novo." Shin v. Portals Confederation Corp., 728 A.2d 615, 618 (D.C. 1999) (referencing Osei-Kuffnor v. Argana, 618 A.2d 712, 713 (D.C. 1993)).
As we recognized in Taylor, supra, the District of Columbia and the Redevelopment Land Agency, and the Carrollsburg Square Corporation, "agree[d in the decade of the 1960s,] to provide legal access to and from [specified] accessory parking spaces in underground garage . . . ." Accessory Parking Covenant ("the Covenant"), at 4; see also Taylor, supra, 482 A.2d at 355. In interpreting the Covenant, we said:
The ovenant specifically states that the owners granted the parking rights in the servient estate (now Carrollsburg) in exchange for the zoning exception which allowed them to develop the dominant estate (now Carrollsburg Square). Taylor, supra, 482 A.2d at 358.
We concluded that the Covenant discussed "compensation," and that the Carrollsburg Square owners "did pay for the parking spaces when they bought their units." Id. at 358. In addition, we declared that:
The subsequent owners of the servient estate cannot now claim a right to additional compensation for a pre-existing easement. To grant them the rental value of appellants' parking spaces would give them a windfall without any basis in the parking covenant. Id. at 359.
Consequently, we "h ld that [the Carrollsburg Square owners], not [the Carrollsburg Condominium Association], were entitled to summary judgment." Id.
Applying our decision in Taylor, supra, to the case now before us, we see no material difference for res judicata purposes between "the monthly rental fee" for the underground parking spaces that was the subject of Taylor and "the monthly maintenance fee" for parking which the Carrollsburg Condominum Association imposed on the Carrollsburg Square owners. Like the monthly rental fee, the monthly maintenance fee may be characterized as "compensation" for a pre-existing easement for which the Carrollsburg Condominium Association already had been paid.
Since there is no material difference between the monthly fee for parking, which we considered in Taylor, supra, and the monthly maintenance fee imposed in this case, we next examine the question as to whether the trial court erred by applying res judicata principles sua sponte. In Johnson v. Capital City Mortgage Corp., 723 A.2d 852 (D.C. 1999), we reiterated the principle that: "Under the doctrine of res judicata, 'a final judgment on the merits . . . precludes relitigation in a subsequent pr ce ding of all issues arising out of the same cause of action between the same parties or their privies, whether or not the issues were raised in the first proceeding.'"
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