EDWARDSVILLE – Madison County Circuit Judge Dennis Ruth must decide who owned a spot for a billboard along Interstate 70 while Eberhart Sign and Lighting paid $21,546 in rent for the spot.
Plaintiff Timothy Compton and defendant Debra Herzog own adjacent properties on Lower Marine Road near Highland.
Compton sued Herzog in 2021, seeking restitution, trespass damages, and punitive damages.
Compton’s counsel Wayne Skigen of the Tressler firm in Edwardsville claimed Herzog entered a lease with Eberhart in 2011.
Skigen claimed Herzog purported to grant Eberhart the right to maintain signs for ten years, and Eberhart agreed to pay her quarterly.
“Herzog expressly represented that she was the owner of the property that was the subject of the sign lease,” he wrote.
Skigen claimed Herzog knew she wasn’t the owner.
He claimed Compton bought residential property at 11481 Lower Marine Road in 2016.
He added that Eberhart terminated the lease and stopped paying Herzog in 2020, after learning she had no interest in the property.
Skigen claimed Herzog “admitted to Compton that she knew that the location of the billboard signs that were the subject of her sign lease was not her property.”
Compton moved for summary judgment on May 2.
Herzog’s counsel Thomas Maag of Wood River responded on May 24 that she intended to keep the billboard for herself when she gave her son and daughter-in-law some land to live on.
Maag claimed undisputed testimony was that she didn’t intend to convey it to anybody.
He claimed Compton’s written title wasn’t enough to show he was a bona fide purchaser without notice of claims of rights or interests of others.
He added that Compton bought the property at what was in essence a forced bank sale.
Maag wrote that even if he was a bona fide purchaser, Compton couldn’t claim to be without notice.
“The subject of this lawsuit, the billboard, ought to make someone at least a little curious, especially when it is not mentioned anywhere in any of the real estate purchase papers Compton received,” he wrote.
Maag claimed Compton admitted he was aware of the billboard when he bought the lot.
“In fact, it would be a poor billboard if it was not seen,” he wrote.
“Mr. Compton does not claim that anyone lied to him or misled him,” he added.
“Mr. Compton did not think he owned the sign or the land it was on, which, coincidentally, is true,” Maag continued.
Compton’s counsel Alexander Rozett of Chicago responded, “Assuming that Herzog intended to retain ownership of the land upon which the billboard is located, her failure to so is solely attributable to her own carelessness and laziness.”
Rozett claimed Maag’s reference to forced sale ignored the fact that Compton paid $320,000.
He claimed Herzog failed to identify anything in a title search that would have put Compton on inquiry notice to a competing claim of ownership.
He added that Herzog stated without any legal basis that Compton had an affirmative obligation to ask someone because the billboard was readily visible.
Herzog asserted a claim against Highland Community Title as part of the proceedings, and the title company moved to dismiss it.
Counsel for the title company, Sandra Tatoian of Goldenberg Heller in Edwardsville, filed a brief on the motion on June 12, claiming all facts proved Herzog knew she didn’t retain an interest.
She asked how Highland Community Title could have known Herzog meant to keep title to a parcel “for which there was no legal description, that was not platted, and had no record of existing.”
A hearing on Highland Community Title's motion to file a reply beyond the appropriate date was held on June 16 in Ruth's courtroom. He granted the motion and accepted the defendant's reply brief filed June 12.