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Commitments and Contingencies | 3 Months Ended
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Mar. 31, 2013
Commitments and Contingencies Disclosure [Text Block] | Commitments and Contingencies California Rent Control Litigation As part of our effort to realize the value of our Properties subject to rent control, we have initiated lawsuits against certain localities in California. Our goal is to achieve a level of regulatory fairness in California’s rent control jurisdictions, and in particular those jurisdictions that prohibit increasing rents to market upon turnover. Such regulations allow tenants to sell their homes for a price that includes a premium above the intrinsic value of the homes. The premium represents the value of the future discounted rent-controlled rents, which is fully capitalized into the prices of the homes sold. In our view, such regulations result in a transfer to the tenants of the value of our land, which would otherwise be reflected in market rents. We have discovered through the litigation process that certain municipalities considered condemning our Properties at values well below the value of the underlying land. In our view, a failure to articulate market rents for sites governed by restrictive rent control would put us at risk for condemnation or eminent domain proceedings based on artificially reduced rents. Such a physical taking, should it occur, could represent substantial lost value to stockholders. We are cognizant of the need for affordable housing in the jurisdictions, but assert that restrictive rent regulation does not promote this purpose because tenants pay to their sellers as part of the purchase price of the home all the future rent savings that are expected to result from the rent control regulations, eliminating any supposed improvement in the affordability of housing. In a more well-balanced regulatory environment, we would receive market rents that would eliminate the price premium for homes, which would trade at or near their intrinsic value. Such efforts include the following matters: City of San Rafael We sued the City of San Rafael on October 13, 2000 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, challenging its rent control ordinance (the “Ordinance”) on constitutional grounds. We believe the litigation was settled by the City’s agreement to amend the ordinance to permit adjustments to market rent upon turnover. The City subsequently rejected the settlement agreement. The Court refused to enforce the settlement agreement, and submitted to a jury the claim that it had been breached. In October 2002, a jury found no breach of the settlement agreement. Our constitutional claims against the City were tried in a bench trial during April 2007. On April 17, 2009, the Court issued its Order for Entry of Judgment in our favor (the “April 2009 Order”). On June 10, 2009, the Court ordered the City to pay us net fees and costs of approximately $2.1 million. On June 30, 2009, as anticipated by the April 2009 Order, the Court entered final judgment that gradually phased out the City’s site rent regulation scheme that the Court found unconstitutional. Pursuant to the final judgment, existing residents of our Property in San Rafael would be able to continue to pay site rent as if the Ordinance were to remain in effect for a period of 10 years, enforcement of the Ordinance was immediately enjoined with respect to new residents of the Property, and the Ordinance would expire entirely ten years from the June 30, 2009 date of judgment. The City and the residents’ association (which intervened in the case) appealed, and we cross-appealed. On April 17, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued an opinion in which, among other rulings, it reversed the trial court’s determinations that the Ordinance had unconstitutionally taken our property and that we were entitled to an award of attorneys’ fees and costs, and affirmed the jury verdict that the City had not breached the settlement agreement and affirmed the award to the City of approximately $1.25 million of attorneys’ fees and costs on the settlement agreement claims. We intend to file a petition for rehearing with the Court of Appeals. City of Santee In June 2003, we won a judgment against the City of Santee in California Superior Court (Case No. 777094). The effect of the judgment was to invalidate, on state law grounds, two rent control ordinances the City of Santee had enforced against us and other property owners. However, the Court allowed the City to continue to enforce a rent control ordinance that predated the two invalid ordinances (the “Prior Ordinance”). As a result of the judgment we were entitled to collect a one-time rent increase based upon the difference in annual adjustments between the invalid ordinance(s) and the Prior Ordinance and to adjust our base rents to reflect what we could have charged had the Prior Ordinance been continually in effect. The City of Santee appealed the judgment. The City and the Homeowners’ Association of Meadowbrook Estates (“Tenant Association”) also each sued us in separate actions in the California Superior Court (Case Nos. GIE 020887 and GIE 020524) alleging that the rent adjustments pursuant to the judgment violated the Prior Ordinance, sought to rescind the rent adjustments, and sought refunds of amounts paid, and penalties and damages in these separate actions. As a result of further proceedings and a series of appeals and remands, we were required to and did release the additional rents to the Tenant Association’s counsel for disbursement to the tenants, and we have ceased collecting the disputed rent amounts. The Tenant Association continued to seek damages, penalties and fees in their separate action based on the same claims the City made on the tenants’ behalf in the City’s case. We moved for judgment on the pleadings in the Tenant Association’s case on Note 12 – Commitments and Contingencies (continued) the ground that the Tenant Association’s case was moot in light of the result in the City’s case. On November 6, 2008, the Court granted us motion for judgment on the pleadings without leave to amend. The Tenant Association appealed. In June 2010, the Court of Appeal remanded the case for further proceedings. On remand, on December 12, 2011, the Court granted us motion for summary judgment and denied the Tenant Association’s motion for summary judgment. On January 9, 2012, the Court entered judgment in our favor, specifying that the Tenant Association shall recover nothing. On January 26, 2012, the Court set March 30, 2012 as the date for hearing our motion for attorneys’ fees and the Tenant Associations’ motion to reduce our claim for costs. On March 26, 2012, the Tenant Association filed a notice of appeal. On August 16, 2012, we and the Tenant Association entered a settlement agreement pursuant to which the Tenant Association dismissed its appeal in exchange for our agreement to dismiss our claims for attorneys’ fees and other costs. Because the matter was a class action by the Tenant Association, on January 18, 2013 the Court held a fairness hearing to consider final approval of the settlement, and approved the settlement. In addition, we sued the City of Santee in United States District for the Southern District of California alleging all three of the ordinances are unconstitutional under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. On October 13, 2010, the District Court: (1) dismissed our claims without prejudice on the ground that they were not ripe because we had not filed and received from the City a final decision on a rent increase petition, and (2) found that those claims are not foreclosed by any of the state court rulings. On November 10, 2010, we filed a notice of appeal from the District Court’s ruling dismissing our claims. On April 20, 2011, the appeal was voluntarily dismissed pursuant to stipulation of the parties. In order to ripen our claims, we filed a rent increase petition with the City. At a hearing held on October 6, 2011, the City’s Manufactured Home Fair Practices Commission voted to deny that petition, and subsequently entered written findings denying it. We appealed that determination to the Santee City Council, which on January 25, 2012 voted to deny the appeal. In view of that adverse final decision on our rent increase petition, on January 31, 2012 we filed a new complaint in United States District for the Southern District of California alleging that the City’s ordinance effectuates a regulatory and private taking of our property and is unconstitutional under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. On April 2, 2012, the City filed a motion to dismiss the new complaint. On December 21, 2012, the Court entered an order in which it: (a) denied the City’s motion to dismiss our private taking and substantive due process claims; (b) granted the City’s motion to dismiss our procedural due process claim as not cognizable because of the availability of a state remedy of a writ of mandamus; and (c) granted the City’s motion to dismiss our regulatory taking claim as being not ripe. In addition, we also filed in the California Superior Court on February 1, 2012 a petition for a writ of administrative mandamus, and on September 28, 2012 a motion for writ of administrative mandamus, seeking orders correcting and vacating the decisions of the City and its Manufactured Home Fair Practices Commission, and directing that our rent increase petition be granted. On April 5, 2013, the Court denied our petition for writ of administrative mandamus. Colony Park On December 1, 2006, a group of tenants at our Colony Park Property in Ceres, California filed a complaint in the California Superior Court for Stanislaus County alleging that we had failed to properly maintain the Property and had improperly reduced the services provided to the tenants, among other allegations. We answered the complaint by denying all material allegations and filed a counterclaim for declaratory relief and damages. The case proceeded in Superior Court because our motion to compel arbitration was denied and the denial was upheld on appeal. Trial of the case began on July 27, 2010. After just over three months of trial in which the plaintiffs asked the jury to award a total of approximately $6.8 million in damages, the jury rendered verdicts awarding a total of less than $44,000 to six out of the 72 plaintiffs, and awarding nothing to the other 66 plaintiffs. The plaintiff’s who were awarded nothing filed a motion for a new trial or alternatively for judgment notwithstanding the jury’s verdict, which the Court denied on February 14, 2011. All but three of the 66 plaintiffs to whom the jury awarded nothing have appealed. The briefing on that appeal has been completed, but a date for oral argument remains to be set by the California Court of Appeal. By orders entered on December 14, 2011, the Superior Court awarded us approximately $2.0 million in attorneys’ fees and other costs jointly and severally against the plaintiffs to whom the jury awarded nothing, and awarded no attorneys’ fees or costs to either side with respect to the six plaintiffs to whom the jury awarded less than $44,000. Plaintiffs have filed an appeal from the approximately $2.0 million award of our attorneys’ fees and other costs. California Hawaiian On April 30, 2009, a group of tenants at our California Hawaiian Property in San Jose, California filed a complaint in the California Superior Court for Santa Clara County alleging that we have failed to properly maintain the Property and have improperly reduced the services provided to the tenants, among other allegations. We moved to compel arbitration and stay the proceedings, to dismiss the case, and to strike portions of the complaint. By order dated October 8, 2009, the Court granted our motion to compel Note 12 – Commitments and Contingencies (continued) arbitration and stayed the court proceedings pending the outcome of the arbitration. The plaintiffs filed with the California Court of Appeal a petition for a writ seeking to overturn the trial court’s arbitration and stay orders. On May 10, 2011, the Court of Appeal granted the petition and ordered the trial court to vacate its order compelling arbitration and to restore the matter to its litigation calendar for further proceedings. On May 24, 2011, we filed a petition for rehearing requesting the Court of Appeal to reconsider its May 10, 2011 decision. On June 8, 2011, the Court of Appeal denied the petition for rehearing. On June 16, 2011, we filed with the California Supreme Court a petition for review of the Court of Appeal’s decision. On August 17, 2011, the California Supreme Court denied the petition for review. Discovery in the case is proceeding. We believe that the allegations in the complaint are without merit, and intend to vigorously defend the litigation. Hurricane Claim Litigation On June 22, 2007, we filed suit in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois (Case No. 07CH16548), against our insurance carriers, Hartford Fire Insurance Company, Essex Insurance Company (“Essex”), Lexington Insurance Company and Westchester Surplus Lines Insurance Company (“Westchester”), regarding a coverage dispute arising from losses we suffered as a result of hurricanes that occurred in Florida in 2004 and 2005. We also brought claims against Aon Risk Services, Inc. of Illinois (“Aon”), our former insurance broker, regarding the procurement of our appropriate insurance coverage. We are seeking declaratory relief establishing the coverage obligations of our carriers, as well as a judgment for breach of contract, breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, unfair settlement practices and, as to Aon, for failure to provide ordinary care in the selling and procuring of insurance. The claims involved in this action are approximately $11 million. In response to motions to dismiss, the trial court dismissed: (1) the requests for declaratory relief as being duplicative of the claims for breach of contract and (2) certain of the breach of contract claims as being not ripe until the limits of underlying insurance policies have been exhausted. On or about January 28, 2008, we filed our Second Amended Complaint (“SAC”), which the insurers answered. In response to the court’s dismissal of the SAC’s claims against Aon, we ultimately filed, on February 2, 2009, a new Count VIII against Aon alleging a claim for breach of contract, which Aon answered. In January 2010, the parties engaged in a settlement mediation, which did not result in a settlement. In June 2010, we filed motions for partial summary judgment against the insurance companies seeking a finding that our hurricane debris cleanup costs are within the extra expense coverage of our excess insurance policies. On December 13, 2010, the Court granted the motion. Discovery is proceeding with respect to various remaining issues, including the amounts of the debris cleanup costs we are entitled to collect pursuant to the Court’s order granting us partial summary judgment. On August 6, 2012, we were served with motions by Essex and Westchester seeking leave to amend their pleadings, which the Court subsequently allowed, to add affirmative defenses seeking to bar recovery on the alleged ground that the claim we submitted for hurricane-related losses allegedly intentionally concealed and misrepresented that a portion of that claim was not hurricane-related, and to add a counterclaim seeking on the same alleged ground reimbursement of approximately $2.4 million Essex previously paid (the “Additional Affirmative Defenses and Counterclaim”). We believe that the Additional Affirmative Defenses and Counterclaim are without merit, and intend to vigorously contest them. The parties filed motions for partial summary judgment with respect to certain of the claims that remain in the case, on which the court heard oral argument on April 2, 2013 and took under advisement. On April 22, 2013, Essex and Westchester filed an additional motion for summary judgment, which relates to their Additional Affirmative Defenses and Counterclaim, as to which no schedule has been set. The case has been set for trial on August 19, 2013. We have entered settlements of our claims with certain of the insurers and also received additional payments from certain of the insurers since filing the lawsuit, collectively totaling approximately $7.4 million. Membership Class Action On July 29, 2011, we were served with a class action lawsuit in California state court filed by two named plaintiffs, who are husband and wife. Among other allegations, the suit alleges that the plaintiffs purchased a membership in our Thousand Trails network of campgrounds and paid annual dues; that they were unable to make a reservation to utilize one of the campgrounds because, they were told, their membership did not permit them to utilize that particular campground; that we failed to comply with the written disclosure requirements of various states’ membership camping statutes; that we misrepresented that we provide a money-back guaranty; and that we misrepresented that the campgrounds or portions of the campgrounds would be limited to use by members. Allegedly on behalf of “between 100,000 and 200,000” putative class members, the suit asserts claims for alleged violation of: (1) the California Civil Code §§ 1812.300, et seq.; (2) the Arizona Revised Statutes §§ 32-2198, et seq.; (3) Chapter 222 of the Texas Property Code; (4) Florida Code §§ 509.001, et seq.; (5) Chapter 119B of the Nevada Administrative Code; (6) Business & Note 12 – Commitments and Contingencies (continued) Professions Code §§ 17200, et seq., (7) Business & Professions Code §§ 17500; (8) Fraud - Intentional Misrepresentation and False Promise; (9) Fraud - Omission; (10) Negligent Misrepresentation; and (11) Unjust Enrichment. The complaint seeks, among other relief, rescission of the membership agreements and refund of the member dues of plaintiffs and all others who purchased a membership from or paid membership dues to us since July 21, 2007; general and special compensatory damages; reasonable attorneys’ fees, costs and expenses of suit; punitive and exemplary damages; a permanent injunction against the complained of conduct; and pre-judgment interest. On August 19, 2011, we filed an answer generally denying the allegations of the complaint, and asserting affirmative defenses. On August 23, 2011, we removed the case from the California state court to the federal district court in San Jose. On July 23, 2012, we filed a motion to deny class certification. On July 24, 2012, the plaintiffs filed a motion for leave to amend their class action complaint to add four additional named plaintiffs. On August 28, 2012, the Court held a hearing on our motion to deny class certification and on the plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend. Separately, on September 14, 2012, the plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification, on which the Court held a hearing on November 6, 2012. On March 18, 2013, the Court entered an order denying class certification and denying the plaintiffs’ motion for leave to amend their class action complaint. The individual claims of the two named plaintiffs remain pending. On April 1, 2013, the plaintiffs filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit a petition for leave to appeal from the order denying class certification, which is in the briefing stage and remains pending. Litigation Relating to Potential Acquisition of Certain RV Resorts On November 9, 2012, we entered a letter of intent with Morgan RV Resorts (“Morgan”), which granted us a right of exclusive dealing and a right of first refusal (“ROFR”) with respect to the purchase of 15 of Morgan’s RV resorts. On December 13, 2012, Sun Communities, Inc. announced in an SEC filing that certain of its affiliates (collectively, “Sun”) had entered into a contract with Morgan to purchase 11 of those same properties, as a result of which we subsequently exercised our ROFR. In a suit initiated by Sun on December 26, 2012 against us and Morgan in the Oakland County (Michigan) Circuit Court, the parties are litigating the issue of who has the right to the properties. On February 12, 2013, Sun announced in an SEC filing that it had closed its purchase from Morgan on ten of the 11 properties at issue. Other We are involved in various other legal and regulatory proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business. Such proceedings include, but are not limited to, notices, consent decrees, information requests, and additional permit requirements and other similar enforcement actions by governmental agencies relating to our water and wastewater treatment plants and other waste treatment facilities. Additionally, in the ordinary course of business, our operations are subject to audit by various taxing authorities. Management believes that all proceedings herein described or referred to, taken together, are not expected to have a material adverse impact on us. In addition, to the extent any such proceedings or audits relate to newly acquired Properties, we consider any potential indemnification obligations of sellers in our favor.

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