By Paul Fletcher
BridgeTower Media Newswires
DETROIT — All David Swanson wanted to do was pay off the loan on his home in Cedar Springs and get a quitclaim deed.
Three years and two lawsuits later, a panel of the Court of Appeals has granted his wish.
The appeals court upheld his victory in Kent County Circuit Court in Swanson v. Bradley, ordering the woman from whom he bought the home to refund his overpayment and provide the quitclaim deed.
The panel in the case consisted of Judges David H. Sawyer, Michael J. Kelly and Brock A. Swartzle.
In 2014, Swanson bought a piece of property with a house on it from Brenda Bradley. The price was $90,000; he paid $5,000 down and agreed to make monthly payments.
Things went well for nearly three years. Swanson told Bradley that he wanted to exercise his right under the land contract to prepay all the remaining balance and get a quitclaim deed.
According to the court’s recitation of the facts, she provided him a notice of default and refused to accept the prepayment.
Swanson filed suit for breach of contract, seeking specific performance. He tried to pay the remaining balance by tendering a check for $76,842.26.
She rejected it, claiming it was $8.31 short of the balance due. She went to district court, claiming he had failed to make payments. She got a judgment for about $5,100.
In the circuit court, after cross motions, the court ordered the parties to mediate. Swanson offered to stipulate a judgment and pay $75,000 to be done with.
He tendered a check in that amount in June 2018, which Bradley cashed without telling him. The case came to trial in January of last year. Despite the $5,000 initial down payment, three years of payments, the $5,100 district court judgment and the $75,000 payment, the defendant argued there was still a balance owed.
The court wasn’t buying it and ordered the defendant to provide the quitclaim deed and pay the plaintiff back the sum of $5,409. She appealed.
The appeals court wasn’t any more hospitable to her, observing on appeal that all her arguments “boil down to arguments that the trial court’s factual findings made during the bench trial were in error.”
That approach was “unpersuasive,” the court said, affirming the plaintiff’s victory and allowing him to tax costs since he “prevailed in full.”
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