Background
Everitt Airport, LLC owns the tract containing a private airfield in Rocky Mountain Airpark Estates. Lot owners who wished to use the airfield were required to belong to Everitt Airfield Association, LLC and pay monthly assessments designated for airfield operation and maintenance.
After acquiring the airfield in 2013, Everitt Airport allowed association members to use it and maintained it. The Association continued collecting the assessments but, with limited exceptions, did not reimburse Everitt Airport. Everitt Airport sued, and the Association counterclaimed.
The Court’s Holding
The Colorado Court of Appeals affirmed. The district court acted within its discretion in finding that the Association was unjustly enriched and ordering it to turn over the assessments it had collected since Everitt Airport bought the airfield, less amounts already paid. The record supported a finding that the Association received the benefit of maintenance while retaining funds collected specifically to pay for that work.
The court also rejected the Association’s argument that restitution had to be limited to Everitt Airport’s costs or to three years before suit. A timely unjust-enrichment claim was not subject to a separate three-year cap on the remedy period, and Everitt Airport’s alternative monetary requests in the trial management order were not binding factual judicial admissions. The Association could not challenge alleged easement rights of nonparty lot owners, and the district court had resolved the Association’s implied-contract and prescriptive-easement counterclaims.
Key Takeaways
- Restitution for unjust enrichment may be measured by the defendant’s retained benefit, not solely by the plaintiff’s costs.
- A limitations period governing when an unjust-enrichment claim must be filed does not necessarily limit the period covered by restitution.
- An association cannot assert nonparty members’ property rights on appeal without establishing a basis for third-party standing.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the broad equitable discretion Colorado trial courts have when an entity collects funds earmarked for a service but does not pay the party providing it. It also distinguishes a timely claim’s filing deadline from the period that may be considered in crafting restitution.