Court Finds Lumber Supplier Acted With Malice Toward Plymouth Homeowners, Voids $17,443 Lien and Awards Homeowners Attorneys’ Fees for Slander of Title
EDINA, Minn., October 20, 2026. A Hennepin County District Court judge has ruled that a corporate lumber supplier acted with malice when it recorded and kept a mechanic’s lien on the homestead of two Plymouth homeowners who owed it nothing. Hellmuth & Johnson attorney Daniel J. Sathre represented the homeowners.
In US LBM Operating Co 3009 LLC d/b/a Lampert Lumber v. Mark King Construction Inc., et al., Judge Lois R. Conroy dismissed the supplier’s foreclosure claim with prejudice, declared its $17,443.17 lien void, and ordered it discharged of record. The court also entered judgment for the homeowners on their counterclaim for slander of title and awarded them their attorneys’ fees, costs, and disbursements.
The homeowners had paid every invoice from their deck contractor in full. When that contractor abandoned the project, they paid a second contractor to finish it. The supplier then recorded a lien for materials it claimed to have sold to the first contractor.
After trial, the court found that the supplier failed to prove that its materials ever reached the property, failed to prove that it served the required prelien notice, and claimed more than five times the maximum amount the law would allow. The court further found that the supplier ignored the homeowners’ repeated efforts to correct the error, sued them twenty days after receiving their payment records, and maintained the lien in reckless disregard of the probable falsity of its claim.
Courts rarely find malice in slander of title cases. Here, that finding allows the homeowners to recover the legal fees they spent clearing their title.
“My clients did everything right. They paid their contractor in full and on time, and they were still forced into court to defend their home,” said Sathre. “This ruling confirms that Minnesota’s lien laws protect homeowners. They are not a collection tool to be used against innocent homeowners who have already paid their general contractor in full.”