John Mullaney, Appellant,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2018).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A19-0964

John Mullaney,
Appellant,

vs.

University of St. Thomas,
Respondent.

Filed April 13, 2020
Affirmed
Cochran, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CV-18-16185

John Mullaney, Minneapolis, Minnesota (pro se appellant)

Jessica L. Klander, Jonathan P. Norrie, Ba ssford Remele, P.A., Minneapolis, Minnesota
(for respondent)

Considered and decided by Cochran, Presiding Judge; Bryan, Judge; and
Segal, Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
COCHRAN, Judge
In this appeal from summary judgment, appellant John Mullaney argues that the
district court erred in determining that ther e were no genuine issues of material fact
regarding his claim for conversion and that the district court failed to address his “claim”
for “dismissal of retaliatory sanctions,” a re medy sought in his complaint. Because we

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conclude that no genuine issues of material fact exist regarding Mullaney’s conversion
claim, and because we discern no basis to reverse based on a failure to address the remedy
sought for that claim, we affirm.
FACTS
In 2017, Mullaney was a graduate student at the University of St. Thomas (the
university). Mullaney was enrolled at the university’s business school. The university also
has a law school. Mullaney was not (and has never been) a law student. But it is undisputed
that in 2017, Mullaney was storing some of his personal property—specifically, personal
papers and textbooks—in a law school locker.
The law school cleans out the lockers ev ery year before assigning them to new
students in the fall. In May 2017, the law school posted signs near the law school lockers
that notified students that they must remove their property before August 4, 2017, or the
property would be discarded. The law school also sent an email to students who were
assigned lockers to notify them of the lock er cleanout. Mullaney did not remove his
property from the locker he was using before August 4, 2017. On August 8, 2017, the
university removed Mullaney’s property from the locker.
In September 2018, Mullaney initiated a lawsuit against the university claiming that
the university was liable for approximately $7, 500 for “remov[ing] and discard[ing]” the
property that Mullaney had stored in the locker. As a remedy for his unspecified cause of
action—which the district court interprete d as a claim of conversion—Mullaney sought
both monetary damages and “dismissal of any retaliatory sanctions for the [p]laintiff’s
claims.”

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In its answer to th e complaint, the university alle ged that Mullaney was not given
permission or authorized to use a law school locker—only law students were permitted to
use them. The university also noted that it had posted signs near the lockers indicating that
the lockers would be cleaned out.
The university moved for summary judgment. It submitted affidavits from
university employees that established that (1) the law school registrar who had the authority
to assign law school lockers (the registrar) did not give Mullaney permission to use a
locker; (2) the university posted signs near the law school lockers indicating that students
must remove their property before August 4 or their property would be discarded; (3) the
signs remained posted until the lockers were cleaned out; and (4) the university discovered
some of Mullaney’s property in an unemptied recycling bin and returned the property to
Mullaney in the course of the litigation. Th e university argued that there was no genuine
issue of material fact that Mullaney was not authorized to use a locker and no genuine issue
of material fact that Mullaney had abandone d his property when he did not remove his
property in compliance with th e signs that the university pos ted. At a hearing on the
university’s motion for summary judgment, Mullaney asserted that the registrar gave him
permission to use a law school locker and th at he had no intention of abandoning his
property.1 But Mullaney did not submit any evidence to support his assertions.

1 Mullaney only identified the re gistrar as the person who ga ve him permission to use a
locker after the university identified the registrar as the person with the authority to assign
lockers.

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The district court granted summary judgment to the university. It reasoned that it
was undisputed that Mullaney was not a law student, that Mullaney was using a law school
locker without authorization, that the law sc hool posted signs and sent an email to law
students with an assigned locker informing students that the lockers had to be cleaned out
by August 4, 2017, and that the lockers were in fact cleaned out on August 8, 2017. Based
on these undisputed facts, the district court c oncluded that the univers ity was justified in
discarding the property that Mullaney had left in the locker and that Mullaney’s conversion
claim failed. Alternatively, the district court concluded that Mullaney’s conversion claim
failed because Mullaney had abandoned his prope rty and therefore he lacked an
enforceable interest in the property.
Mullaney appeals.
D E C I S I O N
Mullaney argues that the district court e rred in granting summary judgment to the
university. He maintains that he had permis sion to use a locker and that the university
should have returned his property to him, rather than discarding it (and later finding some
of it). He also asserts that the university wr ongfully refused to retu rn his property. The
university argues that the district court properly granted summary judgment because there
were no genuine issues of materi al fact in dispute and the un iversity was legally justified
in discarding the property under the circumstances.
A district court must grant summary judgment if the “movant shows that there is no
genuine issue as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of
law.” Minn. R. Civ. P. 56.01. Appellate courts review the grant of summary judgment

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de novo to determine “whether there are genui ne issues of material fact and whether the
district court erred in its application of the law.” Montemayor v. Sebright Prods., Inc. ,
898 N.W.2d 623, 628 (Minn. 2017) (quotati on omitted). A “party resisting summary
judgment must do more than rest on mere averments.” DLH, Inc. v. Russ, 566 N.W.2d 60,
71 (Minn. 1997). A reviewing court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the
party against whom summary judgment was granted. STAR Ctrs., Inc. v. Faegre & Benson,
L.L.P., 644 N.W.2d 72, 76-77 (Min n. 2002). “All doubts and factual inferences must be
resolved against the moving party.” Montemayor, 898 N.W.2d at 628 (quotation omitted).
Summary judgment is “inappropriate when reasonable persons might draw different
conclusions from the evidence presented.” Id. (quotation omitted).
Mullaney’s complaint alleged a claim of conversion. Minnesota courts have defined
conversion as
an act of willful interference with the persona l property of
another, done, without lawful justification, by which any
person entitled thereto is depr ived of use and possession, and
the exercise of dominion and co ntrol over goods inconsistent
with, and in repudiation of, the owner’s rights in those goods.

Williamson v. Prasciunas , 661 N.W.2d 645, 649 (M inn. App. 2003) (quoting
Christensen v. Milbank Ins. Co. , 658 N.W.2d 580, 585 (Minn. 2003)) (other quotations
omitted). Put another way, “[c]onversion is the wrongful exercise of dominion or control
over the property of another.” Bates v. Armstrong , 603 N.W.2d 679, 682 (Minn.
App. 2000), review denied (Minn. Mar. 14, 2000).
Mullaney argues that the district court erred by granting summary judgment because
there was a genuine issue of material fact regarding whether a university employee gave

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him permission to use a law school locker. He maintains that the registrar gave him verbal
permission to use a law school locker. But, as the district court correctly determined,
Mullaney offered no evidence to support his cl aim that he had permission to use a law
school locker. Instead, he merely assert ed in pleadings and at the summary judgment
hearing that the registrar granted him permi ssion to use the locker. In other words,
Mullaney relied on mere averments. A “party resisting summary judgment must do more
than rest on mere averments.” DLH, Inc., 566 N.W.2d at 71.
Because Mullaney did not provide more than mere averments to support his claim
that he was given permission to use a law school locker, there did not exist a genuine issue
of material fact that he had permission. And Mullaney cites no authority to suggest that
the university acted without lawf ul justification when it disp osed of items stored in the
university’s locker without permission. Consequently, we conclude that the district court
did not err in granting summary judgment on the grounds that the university was justified
in discarding the property under the circumstances. And, because the district court did not
err in granting summary judgment on the gro unds that Mullaney’s affirmative claim for
conversion failed, we need not determine whether the district court erred in concluding that
summary judgment was appropriate on the alte rnative grounds that Mullaney lacked an
enforceable interest in the property.
We also do not reach the issue of whether the district court erred by not addressing
Mullaney’s “claim” for the dismissal of “reta liatory sanctions.” The primary issue that
Mullaney appears to raise in his appellate brief is that the di strict court failed to analyze
whether sanctions that the univ ersity imposed agains t Mullaney were justified. It is not

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clear from the record whether the sanctions that Mullaney takes issue with are related to
the locker incident. But in his complaint, Mullaney requested that the district court
“dismiss” these sanctions as a remedy to his claim for conversion. He did not raise a
separate legal claim based on the sanctions. Because the district court properly granted
summary judgment against Mullaney’s conversion claim, there was no need for the district
court to address the remedies that Mullaney sought for that claim.
Affirmed.