Court says Tempe can kick ‘squatter’ off land

He has waged a 15-year battleto stay on land he claims has been in his family for more than a century, a fight he has waged without the paperwork to definitively prove that claim.

But on Thursday, Steve Sussex lost yet another legal battle when an appellate court ruled the city of Tempe had the right to eject him from the land.

The fate of the parcel was not clear. Tempe did not immediately comment on its plans. Sussex’s attorney, Jack Wilenchik, said he intended to appeal the decision to the Arizona Supreme Court. “The battle is not over,” he said. Though Tempe won the legal argument to eject Sussex, it still is barred by a court order from doing so until appeals are exhausted.

The ruling was another in a string of legal losses for Sussex, who can trace his family ties to the land, and the historic adobe house on it, to the years before Arizona was a state.

Indeed, the legal arguments in the case involved documents that stretch to territorial days. The appellate court ruling issued Thursday quoted the General Railroad Right-of-Way Act of 1875.

But the case also centers on the site in present-day Tempe, where a growing number of residential towers are rising around the city’s center. That development has made the land in question increasingly valuable.

Even as its appearance has continued to resemble a junkyard, the parcel, perhaps in a nod to the trends of the area, has recently taken on an apparent residential use: a series of tarps and tents that suggest an encampment.

The parcel in dispute is near Tempe’s chief tourist attraction, Tempe Town Lake. It is along a road, Farmer Avenue, that the city is attempting to brand as an arts district. Just east of the land is the busy and buzzy downtown Mill Avenue district. To the west are new office buildings, luxury apartments and condominium towers with lakefront views.

Sussex, who has a business and hobby of auto racing, has proclaimed himself a “junker” in an interview with The

Arizona Republic and seemed to take delight in forcing those in the surrounding buildings to look at his collection of debris.

Sussex has argued that he owns the land through adverse possession, a legal term for squatters’ rights. His argument has been that he has openly used the land — allowing various people to either live, store vehicles or operate businesses there — and that neither the city nor state took action to kick him out.

Sussex lost his case against the state of Arizona in 2010, creating a legal boundary that bisected the parcel.

After that, Sussex moved as much property as he could to the eastern half of the parcel. The state has since put signs on fencing around the land claiming it as property of Arizona. In recent weeks, the state has placed a mini-trailer, large pipes and construction equipment on its half of the land.

Then Sussex went to battle with Tempe, which claimed to own the eastern half of the land.

He filed a court action in May 2015 demanding Tempe deed the property to him and helpfully included a $5 check to cover processing fees. Courts tossed out that action.

Tempe then went on the offensive. It filed an ejectment action in May 2016, asking the court for permission to boot Sussex from the land.

It was that action that was at issue before the Arizona Court of Appeals.

The ruling issued Thursday upheld Tempe’s right to eject Sussex from the parcel and denied Sussex’s counterclaims that the city had no valid title to the property.

“Because the City has demonstrated it has a valid subsisting interest in the contested property and the Sussexes have demonstrated none, we affirm,” read the unanimous ruling. Judge Jennifer Campbell authored the decision.

But the ruling does not conclude the legal machinations over the property.

Given that higher courts do not operate on any schedule and that civil cases move slower than criminal cases, the land could be in litigation for at least another year.