Jeffrey J. Boelter, 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This opinion will be unpublished and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
A19-1151

Jeffrey J. Boelter,
Appellant,

vs.

Jeramie R. Steinert,
Respondent.

Filed April 27, 2020
Affirmed
Ross, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CV-18-1986

Peter Lind, Tewksbury & Kerfeld, P.A., Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Corinne G. Ivanca, Mark W. Hardy, Geraghty, O’Loughlin & Kenney, P.A., St. Paul,
Minnesota (for respondent)

Considered and decided by Ross, Presid ing Judge; Cochran, Judge; and Segal,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
ROSS, Judge
This is a legal-malpractice case. In the underlying quiet-title action, attorney Jeramie
Steinert represented property owner Jeffrey Boelter in Boelter’s lawsuit to reclaim
foreclosed property from a bank. We dismissed Boelter’s appeal from summary judgment
favoring the bank in that action because Steinert failed to timely file Boelter’s appellate

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brief. The district court in this malpractice suit against the attorney also granted summary
judgment against Boelter, reasoning that Boelter’s underlying quiet-title action was
doomed regardless of Steinert ’s failure to file Boelter’s appellate brief because the
action lacked a statutory basis. We affirm because Boelter’s property was not an
“owner-occupied, single-family dwelling,” a classification nece ssary to meet an element
of his underlying quiet-title action.
FACTS
The Mortgages and Foreclosures
The underlying foreclosure suit concerned appellant Jeffrey Boelter’s six parcels in
the City of McGregor. A gravel pit occupi ed five of them, and two residences—a
single-family home where Boelter lived and a small guest cabin that he rented to one of his
employees—sat on the other. Boelter encumber ed the property with two mortgages to
secure loans with State Bank of McGregor (n ow Grand Timber Bank). The first, in 2004,
encumbered the five gravel-pit parcels, and the second, in 2005, encumbered the residential
parcel. Boelter fell behind on his payments, and the bank initiated foreclosure proceedings
in 2011.
The bank issued a Notice of Mortgage Foreclosure Sale identifying the sale date of
July 28, 2011. The notice described Boelter’s right to redeem, saying, “The time allowed
by law for redemption by said mortgagors, their personal representatives or assigns is
twelve (12) months from the date of sale . . . .” And it described Boelter’s duty to vacate:
TIME AND DATE TO VACA TE PROPERTY: If the
real estate is an owner-occup ied, single-family dwelling,
unless otherwise provided by law, the date on or before which

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the mortgagor(s) must vacate the property if the mortgage is
not reinstated under section 5 80.30, or the property is not
redeemed under section 580.23, is 11:59 p.m. on July 28, 2012.
The sheriff administered a sale on July 28 , 2011, and the bank pur chased the property.
Twelve months passed without redemption, an d the bank successfully prosecuted an
eviction action against Boelter. Boelter vacated and the bank took possession.
The Underlying Quiet-Title Action
Boelter engaged resp ondent-attorney Jeramie Steinert to bring a quiet-title action
against the bank. Boelter’s civ il complaint asked the district court to declare that Boelter
was entitled to possess the property. The complaint alleged deficiencies in the bank’s notice
of foreclosure sale, asserting that the notice misrepresented the deadlines for Boelter’s right
to redeem and the date to vacate. It asserted specifically that the notice incorrectly listed
the redemption and vacation deadlines as Saturd ay, July 28, 2012, in stead of the correct
date of Monday, July 30, 2012, and that this error justified voidin g the foreclosure sale.
After discovery, the bank successfully mo ved for summary judgment. The district
court rejected Boelter’s argument that the notic e of foreclosure sale listed the incorrect
redemption deadline. Boelter appealed from summary judgme nt. Still represented by
Steinert, Boelter moved this court to extend the deadline for filing his appellant’s brief. We
granted the motion. Boelter then moved for another extension, and the bank asked us to
deny the motion and either affirm the distri ct court or dismiss Boelter’s appeal. We
concluded that Boelter failed to show good cause to exte nd the deadline further, and we
denied his motion. We then dismissed the appeal based on the lack of an appellant’s brief.

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The Current Malpractice Action
Boelter sued Steinert for legal malprac tice in January 2018 based on Steinert’s
allegedly negligent failure to timely file Boelter’s appellant’s brief in the quiet-title action.
He limited his complaint to the residentia l parcel. Both parties moved for summary
judgment. Steinert argued that he was entit led to summary judgment because Boelter’s
quiet-title action would have faile d. He argued specifically th at the statute that the bank
allegedly violated, Minnesota Statutes sect ion 580.04(b) (2010), did not apply to the
residential parcel because it is not an owne r-occupied, single-family dwelling, and that
Boelter suffered no cognizable damages because his debt exceeded the property’s value.
The district court granted Steinert’s summary-judgment motion based only on his
statutory argument, rejecting the alternative argument and dismissing Boelter’s malpractice
action. It reasoned that, even if this court had addressed the appeal and reversed summary
judgment in the quiet-title action, Boelter could not have prevailed in his effort to void the
foreclosure as to the residential parcel. It based this conclusion on the notion that the
residential parcel was not “an owner-occupie d, single-family dwelling,” which is the
requisite classification of real estate falling under the notice-to-vacate statute that Boelter
maintained the bank violated with its notice. See Minn. Stat. § 580.04(b).
Boelter appeals. Steinert also appeals, challenging the district court’s decision not
to grant summary judgment on his alternative argument.
D E C I S I O N
Boelter challenges the district court’s grant of summary judgment. We review a
district court’s summary-judgment decision de novo. Montemayor v. Sebright Prods., Inc.,

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898 N.W.2d 623, 628 (Minn. 2017). In doing so, we will affirm if Steinert established that
there are no genuine issues of material fact and that he is entitled to judgment as a matter
of law. See Minn. R. Civ. P. 56.01. We consider the evidence in the light most favorable
to Boelter, the party against whom summary judgment was granted. See STAR Ctrs., Inc.
v. Faegre & Benson, LLP, 644 N.W.2d 72, 76–77 (Minn. 2002). We apply this standard to
the summary-judgment dismissal of Boelter’s legal-malpractice claim.
Boelter can prevail in his legal malpractic e suit if, in addition to other elements, he
proves that but for Steinert’s alleged negligence, Boelter would have been successful in his
quiet-title action. See Blue Water Corp. v. O’Toole , 336 N.W.2d 279, 281 (Minn. 1983).
Failure to prove any of the malpractic e elements defeats the entire claim. Noske v.
Friedberg, 670 N.W.2d 740, 743 (Minn. 2003). We decide this case on this single element.
Boelter asks us to address this but-for i ssue narrowly, considering only whether we
would have reversed the district court’ s summary-judgment decision in the quiet-title
appeal, not broadly, considering whether he would have also then prevailed in winning the
case after a summary-judgment reversal. Boelter is mistaken. But-for causation requires a
legal-malpractice plaintiff to show that, but for the attorney’s negligence, he “would have
been successful in the prosecution or defense of the action.” Blue Water, 336 N.W.2d at
281 (emphasis added). So even if Boelter demonstrates that a timely and well-reasoned
brief would have led us to reverse summary judgment, he must go further and establish that
he would have also succeeded in prosecuting his action generally. Cf. Hyduke v. Grant ,
351 N.W.2d 675, 677 (Minn. A pp. 1984) (observing that the but-for standard in the
plaintiff’s legal-malpractice claim required him to show that the appeal would have

6
resulted in either outright reversal or a new trial, and that he likely would have been
successful had a new trial been ordered), review denied (Minn. Oct. 16, 1984). In our de
novo consideration of summary judgment, we therefore must decide whether Boelter
would have succeeded in his qu iet-title action to void the foreclosure after prevailing on
appeal from the summary-judgment decision.
The district court rightly concluded that Boelter would not have succeeded on his
quiet-title allegation that the bank failed to comply with the fo llowing notice-to-vacate
statute:
If the real estate is an ow ner-occupied, single-family
dwelling, the notice must also specify the date on or before
which the mortgagor must vacate the property . . . . The notice
must state that the time to vacate the property is 11:59 p.m. on
the specified date.
Minn. Stat. § 580.04(b). Boelter’s claim requires us to consider what the undisputed facts
in the record say about whether the conteste d real estate constitutes “an owner-occupied,
single-family dwelling” within the meaning of the statute and to discern the statute’s
meaning. We construe statutes de novo. Ruiz v. 1st Fidelity Loan Servicing, LLC ,
829 N.W.2d 53, 56 (Minn. 2013). We base our construction on the plain and ordinary
meaning of the words of the statute. Staab v. Diocese of St. Cloud , 813 N.W.2d 68, 72
(Minn. 2012). We are satisfied that the phrase, “is an owner-occupied, single-family
dwelling” lends itself to a single, straightforward interpretation.
Based on this language, we believe that the legislature intended the statute to apply
only to real estate with a single dwelling, not real estate with multiple single-family
dwellings with at least one being owner-occupied, as Boelter contends. The statute applies

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only if the subject real estate “is an owner-occupied, single-family dwelling.” Minn. Stat.
§ 580.04(b) (emphasis added). Boelter implicitly contends that the meaning of the phrase
depends upon what the meaning of the word “is” is. We can indeed decide the case
primarily on that question. If the legislature wanted the provision to apply to parcels
encompassing multiple dwellings, one or more of which is a single-family dwelling, we
are confident that the legislature would ha ve phrased it differently, using a word like
“includes” or “contains” instead of “is.” The use of singular language informs our
understanding that the statute encompasses prope rty that contains only one dwelling, and
only when that one dwelling is occupied by its owner. The language stands in contrast to
other foreclosure statutes, which plainly apply even when only a part of the property fits
the description. See, e.g., Minn. Stat. §§ 580.07, subd. 2 (applying “[i]f all or a part of the
property to be sold is classified as a homestead under section 273.124 and contains one
to four dwelling units” (empha sis added)), 582.041, subd. 1 (requiring notification of
homestead designation “[i]f a mortgage on real property is foreclosed and the property
contains a portion of a homestead” (emphasis added)) (2018). Based on the statute’s plain
terms, we reject Boelter’s position that the legislature intended the statute to apply to
property having multiple dwellings.
The undisputed facts about the residen tial parcel resolve the summary-judgment
dispute against Boelter. The property contai ns two residences, not one. An appraisal
identifies one as a “single-family home” and the other as a “guest cabin.” Boelter lived in
the single-family home, having three bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a dining room, and
a basement. The guest cabin constituted a differ ent residence, having a bedroom, a living

8
room, a bathroom, and a kitchen. The two residences had different addresses and separate
mailboxes. Boelter leased the guest cabin to one of his employees, who lived there for
years, until the bank initiated foreclosure proceedings. Based on these undisputed facts, the
real estate “is” not “an owner-occupied, single-family dwelling.” Boelter therefore could
not have prevailed in his un derlying quiet-title action clai ming that the bank failed to
provide the notice required to foreclose only on real estate that “is an owner-occupied,
single-family dwelling.”
Boelter argues that the district court erre d by considering this preliminary issue of
whether his property was an owner-occupied, single-family dwelling for two reasons: the
bank had not raised the argument during the summary-judgment proceedings in the
quiet-title action, and there was no evidence about it before the district court in that action.
It is true that the bank did not rely on section 580.04(b) when it moved for summary
judgment. But we are not here deciding whether the bank was entitled to summary
judgment in the quiet-title act ion based on the arguments it pr esented; we are deciding
whether Boelter would have prevailed in prosecuting his claim that the bank’s foreclosure
was void because it violated section 580.04(b). Regardless of the bank’s omission, nothing
would have prevented it from later raising this argument to defeat Boelter’s claim on any
remand. More important, the burden of proof would have been on Boelter, who could have
voided the foreclosure based on his notice-to-vacate argument only if he met his burden to
prove all elements to establish that the bank violated section 580.04(b). This includes the
prerequisite element of the nature of the r eal estate as an owner-occupied, single-family

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dwelling. Because his inability to prove this element in th e quiet-title action would have
barred his success, he fails to establish that his action would have succeeded.
We are not persuaded otherwise by Boelter’s assertion that the bank had referred to
the parcel as having been “improved by an owner occupied single family dwelling.” Saying
that a property “was improved by an owner occupied single family dwelling” is not an
admission that the only improvement to the property was erecting an owner-occupied,
single-family dwelling. And the undisputed ev idence demonstrates th at, to the contrary,
the property included two dwellings as improvements, not just one.
We do not intend to address whether the st atute applies to property containing one
single-family dwelling and other substantial nonresidential buildings. Answering only the
question before us, we are satisfied that the statute was not meant to apply here, where the
property contains two distinct residential dwellings, only one of which was occupied by
the owner. We hold then that Bo elter could not have prevaile d in his quiet-title action on
his claim that the bank failed to comply with the notice-to-vacate statute. We therefore
conclude that Boelter has not identified any disputed fact that could reasonably satisfy the
but-for element of his legal-malpractice action and that Steinert is entitled to judgment as
a matter of law. We need not address Steinert ’s cross-appeal conten tion that the district
court’s decision could rest on Steinert’s alternative argument.
Affirmed.