Background
This appeal represents the third chapter in a property dispute between Mary Roth and the Meyer family concerning a 10-acre parcel in Grant County, North Dakota. The property was originally owned by Anthony and Jean Ehrmantrout, who conveyed it to themselves as tenants in common in 1994. Following the deaths of the Ehrmantrouts in 2001 and their daughter Dolores Meyer in 1999, the property came to be held by the Jean L. Ehrmantrout Residuary Trust, with Gary Meyer’s three sons—Chet, Carlos, and Marty Meyer—serving as co-trustees. Gary Meyer, a rancher, lived on the property for decades and believed he owned it. In the early 2000s, Meyer began a relationship with Mary Roth, and they lived together on the property from approximately 2002 until 2022. During their relationship, they built a house and made other improvements to the land. In 2010, Meyer conveyed any interest he had in the property to Roth by quitclaim deed.
After the relationship ended in 2022, Roth and her son Aric sued the Meyers, asserting claims including quiet title, unjust enrichment, and conversion. The litigation has produced two prior Supreme Court opinions: Roth I (2024 ND 113) and Roth II (2025 ND 116). In Roth II, the Court reversed a judgment quieting title in the Roths, affirmed a $52,500 unjust enrichment award for loans Roth made to Gary Meyer, and remanded for consideration of remaining issues on the current record. On remand, the district court limited briefing to unjust enrichment and denied Roth’s claim for the value of improvements she made to the property. The court found that Roth’s evidence—including a $499,000 listing price, $110,042.54 in expenditures for building supplies and furnishings, and payments for property taxes and insurance—failed to establish the amount by which the defendants were enriched. The court also declined to make findings under N.D.C.C. § 32-17-10 regarding the value of improvements and the value of the land aside from improvements. The third amended judgment quieted title in the Meyer trustees and ordered Gary Meyer to pay Roth $52,500.
The Court’s Holding
The North Dakota Supreme Court, in an opinion authored by Justice Jensen, affirmed the district court’s judgment. The Court held that the district court did not clearly err in finding the evidence insufficient to establish the amount by which the defendants were enriched by Roth’s contributions. Applying the five-element test for unjust enrichment—enrichment, impoverishment, connection, absence of justification, and absence of legal remedy—the Court emphasized that the doctrine focuses on the benefit received by the defendant, not merely the cost incurred by the plaintiff. The Court found that Roth’s evidence was inadequate to prove enrichment: the $499,000 listing price was an asking price for the whole property (land and improvements combined) and did not isolate the value added by improvements; her proposed per-acre deduction for land value was unsupported by evidence; county tax assessments for agricultural property did not establish fair market value; and receipts for purchases showed expenditures but not the value added to the property, particularly where work was performed by non-professionals and some items had depreciated. Additionally, the Court found that Roth’s payment of property taxes and insurance was not an impoverishment because she received the benefit of living in the home.
Regarding N.D.C.C. § 32-17-10, which requires specific findings on the value of improvements and the value of land aside from improvements when a counterclaim for improvements is urged, the Court held that the statute could not be satisfied on the existing record. Because the remand in Roth II limited the district court to the current record, and that record contained no evidence of the market value of the land aside from improvements or the value the improvements added, the district court did not err in failing to make the required findings. The Court concluded that a remand for such findings would be futile. Having affirmed on these grounds, the Court did not reach the Meyers’ alternative arguments that the claim was barred by the quitclaim deed or the statute of limitations.
Key Takeaways
- Unjust enrichment requires proof of the benefit conferred on the defendant, not merely the plaintiff’s expenditures; receipts and listing prices for combined land and improvements are insufficient to establish the value added by improvements alone.
- District court findings on unjust enrichment are reviewed for clear error, and a listing price for the entire property cannot serve as a measure of enrichment without evidence separating land value from improvement value.
- N.D.C.C. § 32-17-10 requires specific findings on improvement value and land value, but such findings are impossible—and remand is futile—when the record contains no evidence of the land’s market value apart from improvements.
- Payments for property taxes and insurance may not constitute impoverishment for unjust enrichment purposes when the plaintiff received the benefit of residing on the property during the period of payment.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces the evidentiary burden facing plaintiffs in unjust enrichment claims involving real property improvements. Practitioners must ensure that valuation evidence specifically isolates the enhancement to the property attributable to the client’s contributions, rather than relying on gross expenditures or listing prices for the combined asset. The ruling also clarifies that statutory requirements for specific findings under N.D.C.C. § 32-17-10 cannot be satisfied without adequate record evidence, and appellate courts will not order futile remands when the necessary proof is absent. For litigants in equitable property disputes, the case underscores the importance of developing a complete factual record at trial, as appellate review is constrained by the evidence actually presented below.