Womble Bond Dickinson Secures Landmark Victory in Five-Year Lake Tahoe Property Dispute, Recovers $3.1 Million in Fees and Costs

After more than five years of hard-fought litigation that captivated the Lake Tahoe community, the Womble Bond Dickinson litigation team led by partner Darren Lemieux secured a decisive victory for the Fialho Family Trust in a landmark property and easement dispute following a five-day bench trial in California's Placer County Superior Court.

The dispute—ignited when a neighbor declared ownership of part of the Fialhos’ lakefront property based on an alleged verbal agreement more than four decades old—involved numerous complex, nuanced, and novel legal issues at the intersection of real property law, fixture doctrine, and regulatory permitting. Piers and waterfront property rights at Lake Tahoe are among the most valuable and fiercely contested assets in the region, and the case was closely watched by the lakefront community as it raised questions of first impression about pier ownership, shorezone rights, and the interplay between state agencies.

Lucy Crow, who joined the case as a third-year associate and grew into the role of second chair at trial, was identified by the court alongside Mr. Lemieux as one of the Fialhos’ “two primary trial lawyers” who “prosecuted the complaint, and defended against the Polite cross-complaint, at a high level.” Sara Yates also contributed to the team’s success throughout the litigation.

In a comprehensive 40-page Statement of Decision, the Honorable Charles D. Wachob ruled that the Fialhos are the sole owners of the Tahoe City lakefront property and pier at the center of the case—a pier extending more than 300 feet into Lake Tahoe—and confirmed that Polite has “no right, title, estate, lien, real property interest, personal property interest or claim in or to the Fialho Property.” The court rejected each of Polite’s competing theories of joint ownership, finding that his rights are limited solely to those specifically granted under the parties’ pier access agreements.

In a separate ruling on post-trial motions, the court awarded the Fialhos $3,010,012.24 in attorney fees and $97,821.84 in costs—totaling more than $3.1 million and representing approximately 90 percent of the fees sought. In upholding the award, Judge Wachob wrote: “The court appreciates that this amount can be regarded as extraordinary; however, it is fully justified under the circumstances here and has been appropriately documented. Mr. Polite brought this result upon himself by his unrelenting insistence that he was a joint owner of his neighbor’s pier.”

Just as important, the court ruled against Polite on all six of his crossclaims, including claims for quiet title, declaratory relief, breach of contract, trespass to chattel, and nuisance. The judgment permanently bars Polite and his successors from bringing any future claims to the property based on issues that were or could have been litigated in the case.

The dispute was marked by the defendant’s reliance on witnesses whom the court systematically discredited under cross-examination led by Mr. Lemieux. In an extraordinary passage, Judge Wachob wrote of the defendant’s key witness: “Having presided over several hundred civil trials, this judge has only rarely encountered a trial witness who was so openly hostile, biased and disrespectful towards a party and counsel at both deposition and trial.” The court gave that witness’s testimony “no weight.” Another defense witness’s bias was found to be “clear,” while a third had a “near total lack of recall.” The defendant’s own designated expert—his former attorney—saw his testimony dismissed as “completely unpersuasive,” with the court finding that “the sum of the loose parts testified to by [the expert] does not equal joint ownership.” The defendant himself “was impeached on many things” and the court specifically disbelieved his testimony on key points.

Ms. Crow played a central role at trial in presenting the Fialhos’ affirmative case on ownership, examining key witnesses on the regulatory framework governing Lake Tahoe piers—including representatives from the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, the California State Lands Commission, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—and mastering the complex intersection of property and administrative law that defined this dispute. The court found the team’s hourly rates reasonable, noting the case “involved significant issues of real property law, a lengthy historical background to the dispute, easement and access disputes, quiet title litigation, as well as an underpinning of Lake Tahoe regulatory matters—including TRPA and State Lands Commission regulations.”

The case required the team to reconstruct more than four decades of property history, navigate a dense regulatory framework involving TRPA, the State Lands Commission, and the Army Corps of Engineers, and defeat an ever-expanding array of ownership theories—each of which the court ultimately rejected. The Fialhos’ counsel also prevailed on every substantive motion during the litigation, including obtaining emergency injunctive relief at the outset of the case and successfully defeating three separate attempts to dissolve that injunction.

The decision provides the Fialhos with clear confirmation of their ownership rights and brings long-running uncertainty over the property and pier access to a definitive end—a result that resonates far beyond this single case for lakefront property owners across the Lake Tahoe basin.