{
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  "name": "CAROL YEAGER, NG HOLDINGS, LLC., Plaintiffs v. DOUG YEAGER; FIRST LENDING GROUP, INC., Defendants",
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    "judges": [
      "Judges CALABRIA and DAVIS concur."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "CAROL YEAGER, NG HOLDINGS, LLC., Plaintiffs v. DOUG YEAGER; FIRST LENDING GROUP, INC., Defendants"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "STROUD, Judge.\nThe case before us on appeal is an action for declaratory judgment and to quiet title as to two parcels of real property in Mecklenburg County, which we will refer to as \u201cthe marital home\u201d and \u201cthe warehouse.\u201d But some factual background is required to understand the procedural posture and issue presented by this action.\nCarol Yeager (\u201cplaintiff\u201d) and Doug Yeager (\u201cdefendant\u201d) were married to one another in 1972, separated in 2007, and divorced in August of 2008. Continuously since 6 May 2008, when plaintiff filed a complaint for alimony, equitable distribution, and attorney\u2019s fees against defendant, the parties have' been engaged in a course of incessant litigation in several inter-related lawsuits in Mecklenburg County which have thus far resulted in numerous court orders addressing various issues including interim distribution, appointment of a receiver, contempt, sanctions, equitable distribution, and no less than eleven appeals to this Court, excluding the many petitions filed with this Court.\nThis litigation has been particularly rancorous \u2014 as an illustration, we note that at one point plaintiff filed a petition for certiorari with this Court requesting that we make the trial court punish defendant\u2019s counsel for \u201cmaking threatening and derogatory comments regarding Petitioner and her counsel,\u201d including comments that plaintiff\u2019s counsel is \u201cresponsible for the general public\u2019s view of attorneys as \u2018leg-chewing Sharks\u2019 and \u2018used-car salespersons.\u2019 \u201d Since only two significant items of property were in dispute \u2014 the martial home, which was ultimately distributed to plaintiff in the equitable distribution order, and a warehouse, which was determined in the equitable distribution order to be the separate property of defendant, one may wonder why this case has been so protracted and contentious.\nThe genesis of most of the disputation is two deeds of trust executed by plaintiff on 10 June 2009 (well after the date of separation and during the pendency of the equitable distribution action): one on the warehouse in the amount of $274,000 and one on the marital home in the amount of $270,000. Both deeds of trust were for the benefit of a Nevada company known as First Lending Group, Inc., also a named defendant herein. Much mystery surrounds First Lending \u2014 perhaps it is an alter ego of plaintiff herself, or perhaps it does not even exist \u2014 but it was served with the summons and complaint in this action, it has not claimed that it does not exist, and thus we will assume for purposes of this case that it does. In any event, First Lending failed to answer or appear, and to this day seems to be the only party to any of the Yeager lawsuits who has stood entirely silent.\nAll of these issues have been addressed ad nauseum in the equitable distribution action. In fact, the receiver in the equitable distribution action was appointed to accomplish the cancellation of the two deeds of trust and he in fact did so. Yet, despite the receiver\u2019s successful efforts, which extended over a period of a year and a half and ultimately cost the parties over $90,000, plaintiff filed this action. In the lawsuit now before us on this appeal, plaintiff brought claims for a declaratory judgment and to quiet title in the Superior Court, with the stated object of obtaining a declaratory judgment that the two deeds of trust to First Lending are \u201cinvalid and void\u201d and that they do not encumber the marital home and the warehouse.\nUpon First Lending\u2019s failure to answer or appear, Plaintiff filed a motion for entry of default against First Lending, and later filed a motion for entry of default judgment against it, though there is no indication in the record that plaintiff sought a ruling upon her motion for entry of default judgment or that default judgment was entered. The stated object of this action is to obtain a declaratory judgment that the two deeds of trust to First Lending are \u201cinvalid and void\u201d and that they do not encumber the real properties. This goal was actually already accomplished by the receiver\u2019s tenacious efforts in the equitable distribution action (08-CVD-10504).\nAfter plaintiff filed her complaint, defendant filed a motion to dismiss under N.C. Gen. Stat. \u00a7 1A-1, Rules 12(b)(6) and 12(b)(1), on the grounds of mootness, lack of standing, and failure to state a claim. The trial court denied defendant\u2019s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) by order entered 28 February 2012, but did not rule on his motion to dismiss under 12(b)(1), and only considered whether the complaint stated a claim on its face. After the motion was denied, defendant filed an answer and renewed his motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. He argued that the subject matter of this action was moot, that plaintiff lacked standing, and that this subject matter was \u201calready part of the ongoing Chapter 50 case\u201d and thus subject to dismissal under the prior pending action doctrine, noting that the receiver had already procured cancellation of the very same deeds of trust in the prior equitable distribution action. The trial court agreed with defendant and granted defendant\u2019s motion to dismiss. We agree with the trial court.\nOn appeal, the sole issue presented by plaintiff is whether the trial court erred by dismissing her action with prejudice. Her arguments are long, convoluted, and difficult to follow, but the gist seems to be that the documents which establish the extinguishment of the deeds of trust are \u201cillusory\u201d or somehow unreliable or fraudulent and that somehow the real estate is still encumbered. These arguments are addressed quite simply by the order entered by Judge Mann in the equitable distribution action on 13 December 2011, which finds as follows:\n13. On 16 August 2011 Receiver/Referee caused Satisfactions of Security Instruments to be recorded with the Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds to terminate the post-Complaint encumbrances, that had theretofore negatively affected the value of the parties\u2019 marital estate in this Equitable Distribution proceeding.\n14. Because of the Receiver/Referee\u2019s tenacity and follow-through, these encumbrances have been extinguished and the Court and Parties can now be satisfied that the marital estate is no longer going to be valued at approximately $544,000 less than when this litigation was initiated.\nThis order was entered by the District Court in the equitable distribution action and is not subject to review in this appeal. The Superior Court found that based upon the cancellation of the deeds of trust procured by the Receiver/Referee, plaintiff\u2019s action is moot.\nAlthough defendant did not indicate which subsection of Rule 12(b) he was relying on, he did properly raise mootness as an issue of subject matter jurisdiction. Because a moot claim is not justiciable, and a trial court does not have subject matter jurisdiction over a non-justiciable claim, mootness is properly raised through a motion under N.C. Gen. Stat. \u00a7 1A-1, Rule 12(b)(1). See McAdoo v. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,_N.C. App._,_, 736 S.E.2d 811, 814-15, disc. rev. denied,_N.C._, 740 S.E.2d 465 (2013); Sharpe v. Park Newspapers of Lumberton, Inc., 317 N.C. 579, 585-86, 347 S.E.2d 25, 30 (1986).\nIn deciding a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1), the trial court \u201cmay consider and weigh matters outside the pleadings.\u201d Emory v. Jackson Chapel First Missionary Baptist Church, 165 N.C. App. 489, 491, 598 S.E.2d 667, 670 (2004) (citation omitted).\n\u201cA case is \u2018moot\u2019 when a determination is sought on a matter which, when rendered, cannot have any practical effect on the existing controversy.\u201d Roberts v. Madison Cty. Realtors Ass\u2019n, 344 N.C. 394, 398-99, 474 S.E.2d 783, 787 (1996) (citation omitted). \u201cCourts will not entertain such cases because it is not the responsibility of courts to decide abstract propositions of law.\u201d Lange v. Lange, 357 N.C. 645, 647, 588 S.E.2d 877, 879 (2003) (citation and quotation marks omitted).\nHere, satisfactions for both \u201cnotes\u201d have been recorded and the deeds of trust have already been cancelled by Cynthia Reed, the paralegal who helped incorporate First Lending in Nevada and who is listed as President of First Lending. Ms. Reed was the only person anyone has been able to positively identify as affiliated with First Lending. Because of these recorded satisfactions and cancellations, the District Court has found that the properties are unencumbered. Moreover, no promissory note was ever presented to either the District or Superior Court. Indeed, there was no evidence that any funds were exchanged or that this \u201ctransaction\u201d was anything other than a sham.\nActually, there is no existing controversy about the validity of these deeds of trust. Yet another declaration that the deeds of trust are void and of no effect would not have \u201cany practical effect on the existing controversy.\u201d Roberts, 344 N.C. at 398-99, 474 S.E.2d at 787. The trial court quite properly dismissed the plaintiff\u2019s complaint as moot.\nAFFIRMED.\nJudges CALABRIA and DAVIS concur.\n. Defendant\u2019s name was listed on the complaint as \u201cGeorge D. Yeager,\u201d but on the order being appealed from he was listed as \u201cDoug Yeager.\u201d We will refer to him as the order under consideration does.\n. We denied this petition for certiorari on 23 August 2012.\n. Excluding some financial accounts and various items of personal property such as guns, ammunition, cars, household appliances, lawn and garden equipment, books, pictures, and wall hangings, which were also distributed in the equitable distribution judgment and are, thankfully, not yet the subject of additional litigation.\n. We recognize that it would be impossible for a company which does not exist to assert its non-existence, but we also assume that a nonexistent party would probably not mind having a judgment entered against it.\n. Except for the cancellation of the deeds of trust by Ms. Reed, as a representative of First Lending, as procured by the referee in Mecklenburg County Pile No. 08-CVD-10504.\n. Plaintiff herself executed the deeds of trust after the parties\u2019 separation, so to the extent that the marital home which was distributed to her might be encumbered, it is so encumbered because she encumbered it. Additionally, although it appears that plaintiff no longer has any interest in the warehouse, which the district court decreed is defendant\u2019s separate property, we note that it appears that defendant had transferred the property to NG Holdings at some point. The district court noted that it \u201cwas not provided any legal documents that NG Holdings was, or is, a valid legal entity.\u201d Indeed, it appears that plaintiff may be the only member/manager of that LLC and that she may be operating the LLC as an alter ego. See Timber Integrated Investments, LLC v. Welch,_N.C. App._,_, 737 S.E.2d 809, 817-18 (2013) (discussing alter ego in the context of piercing the corporate veil). It is telling that NG Holdings was not initially included as a plaintiff on the complaint but was added later. Thus, it is unclear who held title to the warehouse property at the time plaintiff filed her action and thereafter, so we will assume that plaintiff might have some reason to raise this issue.\n. Plaintiffs brief questions whether Ms. Reed had the authority to act on behalf of First Lending in cancelling the deeds of trust, though plaintiff herself seems to think that Ms. Reed is an adequate representative of First Lending, as she served her briefs and the record in this appeal on Ms. Reed as just such a representative.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "STROUD, Judge."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Aylward Family Law by Dr. RonkaAylward,forplaintiff-appellant.",
      "Leonard G. Komberg, Esq., for defendant-appellee, Doug Yeager.",
      "No brief filed for defendant-appellee, First Lending Group, Inc."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "CAROL YEAGER, NG HOLDINGS, LLC., Plaintiffs v. DOUG YEAGER; FIRST LENDING GROUP, INC., Defendants\nNo. COA13-86\nFiled 6 August 2013\nPleadings \u2014 mootness\u2014deeds of trust \u2014 canceled in another proceeding\nThe trial court properly dismissed a complaint as moot where the declaratory judgment complaint involved deeds of trust for two pieces of land that had been cancelled through the efforts of the receiver in an equitable distribution action. Yet another declaration that the deeds of trust were void and of no effect would not have any practical effect on the existing controversy.\nAppeal by plaintiffs from Order of Dismissal entered 1 June 2012 by Judge Robert T. Sumner in Superior Court, Mecklenburg County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 6 June 2013.\nAylward Family Law by Dr. RonkaAylward,forplaintiff-appellant.\nLeonard G. Komberg, Esq., for defendant-appellee, Doug Yeager.\nNo brief filed for defendant-appellee, First Lending Group, Inc."
  },
  "file_name": "0562-01",
  "first_page_order": 572,
  "last_page_order": 576
}
