This case has been here before.
Pellerin v. 1915 16th St., N.W. Coop. Ass’n,
I.
These cases stem from the termination of Pellerin’s mother’s proprietary lease and cooperative membership by 1915 16th Street Cooperative Association (the “Cooperative”). Pellerin’s mother, Melissa Sawyer, resided in a cooperative apartment in northwest Washington, D.C., until her illness and death in April 2000. Upon Sawyer’s death, the Cooperative notified Pelle-rin, the personal representative of her mother’s estate, that the Cooperative would terminate her mother’s proprietary lease and cooperative membership unless
Members of the Cooperative held a meeting on April 2, 2002, to address Pelle-rin’s non-payment of her mother’s arrear-ages. Pellerin was notified of the April 2 meeting in advance. Pellerin’s attorney was present when the Cooperative voted by seventeen to one, with one abstention, to terminate Sawyer’s proprietary lease and cooperative membership. The Cooperative gave Pellerin until May 1 to pay the outstanding balance or relinquish her mother’s membership and possession of the apartment.
Pellerin sued the Cooperative for breach of contract and adverse possession. The trial court granted the Cooperative’s motion to dismiss the adverse possession count but left the breach of contract counts intact. The Cooperative then counterclaimed for maintenance fees, non-occupancy fees, and related charges owed by Sawyer, as well as attorneys’ fees pursuant to Article 3 of Sawyer’s lease. After the close of discovery, the Cooperative moved for summary judgment on the breach of contract counts and for partial summary judgment on its counterclaim. Pellerin opposed these motions.
The Cooperative filed motions in limine, one of which sought to limit Pellerin to the claims articulated in her complaint. The trial court did not rule on these motions. While the Cooperative’s motion for summary judgment was pending, the parties filed a joint pretrial statement. For the first time, Pellerin claimed that the April 2 meeting was invalid for want of a quorum, as defined in the Cooperative’s by-laws. According to Pellerin, seven or eight members had voted by proxy, which she argued was prohibited under D.C.Code § 29-914 (2001).
The trial court granted summary judgment for the Cooperative on Pellerin’s breach of contract claims. Following a bench trial on the Cooperative’s counterclaim, the court found Sawyer’s estate liable for most of the assessed fees and charges. The trial court then awarded attorneys’ fees to the Cooperative in the amount of $18,574.
On remand, the trial court denied Pelle-rin’s motion to file an amended complaint to assert the quorum claim and reduced the award of attorneys’ fees to $14,057.67 from the $18,574.00 originally awarded. This appeal followed.
II.
A. Quorum Issue
Because Pellerin’s attorney was present at the April 2 meeting and failed to raise the quorum issue at that time, Pellerin has waived this claim.
See Jones & Artis Constr. Co. v. District of Columbia Contract Appeals Bd.,
Furthermore, even if Pellerin’s quorum claim was not waived, she would not prevail. As noted by Pellerin, the trial court may exercise its discretion in considering whether to grant a motion for leave to amend.
See Johnson v. Fairfax Village
We have noted that “[s]uch a determination may rest on findings that the moving party has not put forth any satisfactory reason for the delay (e.g., new information which could not have been uncovered earlier) and that an ‘unduly delayed’ amendment would mean a large additional expenditure of effort and money by the opposing party in discovery on a new aspect of the case after substantial discovery already has taken place.”
Id.
As recognized by the trial judge on remand, and as we stated in the first round of this litigation, Pellerin “included [her quorum claim] at the eleventh hour in the Joint Pretrial Statement....”
Pellerin, supra,
We have upheld a trial court’s denial of a motion to amend in similar circumstances to those present here.
See, e.g., Howard Univ. v. Good Food Servs., Inc.,
B. Attorneys’ Fees
Pellerin argues that the trial court should not have included certain billing entries in its award of attorneys’ fees because “[t]he description of the services rendered under these dates pertained to collaboration with defense counsel who was responsible for defending against [Pelle-rin’s] lawsuit,” and “[t]hese services did not relate to the prosecution of the counterclaim. ...” In his ruling, however, the trial judge modified and reduced the award to $14,057.67 to limit the award to “legal costs generated from the pursuit of
Affirmed.
