Pelfresne v. Village of Williams Bay

917 F.2d 1017 (1990)

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Pelfresne v. Village of Williams Bay

United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
917 F.2d 1017 (1990)

RW

Facts

The Schiessle property was located in the incorporated village of Williams Bay, Wisconsin (the village) (defendant). Lommen Eley and John Koch held title on behalf of Michael Schiessle, the property’s beneficial owner. The village sued all three men to raze four dilapidated houses that stood on the property. The county clerk properly recorded a lis pendens notice of the suit and removed the notice when the county court dismissed the suit on a technicality. The village promptly refiled suit but neglected to file a new lis pendens. The village won its case. The county court awarded monetary damages and granted the raze order. The clerk recorded the monetary award in the court’s judgment docket but neglected to record the raze order in the county land records. Schiessle, Eley, and Koch sold the Schiessle property to someone who then resold the property to Donald Pelfresne (plaintiff), Schiessle’s nephew and a resident of Michigan. By the time Pelfresne closed on the sale, the raze order was already three years old. Pelfresne filed a federal district-court diversity suit seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the village from carrying out its long-neglected execution of the raze order. Pelfresne claimed to be a bona fide purchaser who had bought the Schiessle property in good faith, unaware of the raze order’s existence. The district court denied the injunction as barred by the federal Anti-Injunction Act. Pelfresne appealed to the Seventh Circuit.

Rule of Law

Issue

Holding and Reasoning (Posner, J.)

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