{1} Dеfendant, Charlie Trujillo, appealed the denial of his claim for a homestead exemption in a foreclosure action. Plaintiff, Tasheena Grygorwicz, initiated the foreclosure action in partial satisfaction of a civil judgment she received for personal injuries resulting from sexual abuse. See Grygorwicz v. Trujillo,
FACTS
{2} Following a bench trial, the district court found in Plaintiffs favor on her sexual abuse claim and awarded her $1.3 million in damages. See Grygorwicz,
{3} The district court’s foreclosure decree, entered on November 30, 2006, granted Plaintiff the property to either keep or sell in partial satisfaction of the judgment debt. Grygorwicz,
{4} The Taos County Sheriff executed the writ of assistance by locking Defendant and his wife out of the house and putting Plaintiff in possession of the property. Id. On December 4, 2006, Defendant filed a claim of exemptions on еxecution in the district court pursuant to Rule 1-065.1 NMRA. Id. Defendant claimed that both he and his wife were entitled to homestead exemptions. Id. Plaintiff argued that Defendant could not claim a homestead exemption under Rule 1-065.1, which аpplies to writs of execution, when the
{5} The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s order of dismissal. Id. ¶20. The Court noted that Defendant properly had raised his homestead exemptiоn in response to Plaintiffs motion for foreclosure, as required by Section 39-4-15. Id. ¶ 6. The Court further concluded that the district court’s November 30 foreclosure decree was a final appealable judgment, however, and that Defendant’s failure to appeal from this judgment within thirty days, as prescribed by Rule 12-201(A)(2), constituted a waiver of his right to contest the district court’s denial of the homestead exemption. Id. ¶ 15.
{6} Defendant argued that his subsequent claim for exemptions on execution under Rule 1-065.1 preserved his right to a homestead exemption. The Court of Appeals rejected this argument, noting that Rule 1-065.1 is applicable only to writs of execution, not writs of assistance. Grygorwiсz,
DISCUSSION
{7} The issue before us is whether the Court of Appeals erred by holding that Defendant had “waived his homestead exemption claim by fаiling to pursue an appeal of the foreclosure decree within the time frame required by Rule 12-201(A)(2) NMRA.” Id. ¶ 1. The New Mexico Constitution, Article VI, Section 2, mandates that “an aggrieved party shall have an absolute right to one аppeal.” We have held that this constitutional provision “evinces the strong policy in this state that courts should facilitate, rather than hinder, the right to one appeal.” Govich v. N. Am. Sys., Inc.,
{8} We have held that the district court’s decree of foreclosure is both final and interlocutоry in its operation. The decree serves two functions: first, it determines the rights of the parties in the property; and, second, it fixes the manner and terms of the foreclosure sale. Speckner v. Riebold,
{9} Defendant properly asserted his homestead exemption in his answer to the foreclosure action. Section 39-4-15 (“The defendant,
The District Court Erred by Denying Defendant’s Claim for Homestead Exemption
{10} Having determined that Defendant’s appeal was timely, we next address the district cоurt’s denial of Defendant’s claimed exemption, which the Court of Appeals did not reach.
{11} The homestead exemption, Section 42-10-9 provides:
Each person shall have exempt a homestead in a dwelling house and land occupied by him or in a dwelling house ocсupied by him although the dwelling is on land owned by another, provided that the dwelling is owned, leased or being purchased by the person claiming the exemption. Such a person has a homestead of thirty thousand dollars ($30,000) exemрt from attachment, execution or foreclosure by a judgment creditor and from any proceeding of receivers or trustees in insolvency proceedings and from executors or administrators in probate. If the homestead is owned jointly by two persons, each joint owner is entitled to an exemption of thirty thousand dollars ($30,000).
We have held that the legislative purposes of the exemption is to benefit the debtor and to “prevent fаmilies from becoming destitute as the result of misfortune through common debts which generally are unforeseen.” Coppler & Mannick, P.C. v. Wakeland,
{12} In the present ease, the district court’s denial of Defendant’s requested homesteаd exemption is unsupported by the record. Plaintiff argued to the district court that the homestead exemption should be denied due to the punitive nature of the underlying judgment. However, we have held that a court may not deny the exemption on the basis of tortious or malicious conduct. Id. ¶ 12 (holding that courts may only impose an equitable lien against the homestead exemption under limited circumstances where malicious, fraudulent, or intentional tortious conduct involves the homestead itself). Though an allegation of waste may affect a debtor’s right to a homestead exemption, id. (“[T]he judgment in the waste action ... is not the type of debt the Legislature intended to shield.”), the district court issued a writ of assistance putting Plaintiff in immediate possession of the property in order to prevent the possibility of waste. The court’s issuance of the writ prior to any allegation of waste, and Plаintiffs failure to raise any such allegation, precludes any argument on appeal that could challenge Defendant’s homestead exemption. Defendant properly asserted his claim in answer to the foreclosure action, and there is no basis in the record on which the district court could have properly denied Defendant’s assertion of his homestead exemption. Therefore, we hold that Defendant is entitled to thе homestead exemption.
CONCLUSION
{13} Defendant’s appeal from the decree of foreclosure was timely. On the merits of
{14} IT IS SO ORDERED.
Notes
. The Court of Appeals did not consider whether the district court рroperly had denied Mrs. Trujillo's request for a homestead exemption, noting that "Mrs. Trujillo has not sought to assert any claim in this appeal” and, therefore, her "rights are not before us.” Grygorwicz,