Ruffier

BACKGROUND

In a 1974 document that we will hereinafter refer to as “the Declaration,” multiple Amador County landowners, who proclaimed themselves to be “desirous of establishing a means of providing for the maintenance of certain private roads” that touched their properties, established a “Road Maintenance Committee” (Committee) and empowered it to charge annual assessments of $100 for each of the 22 parcels of land covered by the Declaration. The Declaration also (1) empowered the Committee to increase the assessment for each parcel “up to a maximum . . . of $200 per year per parcel” (“the $200 limit”) and (2) contemplated a successor body to which all the powers and duties of the Committee would pass. Four years later, the Association was formed and assumed the powers and duties of the Committee, as contemplated in the Declaration. The Association’s articles of association provide that there is only one class of voting membership—each parcel is entitled to one vote. The articles also provide that they may be amended “only by the vote or written consent of members representing ownership of sixty six and two thirds (66-2/3) percent or more of the property.”

2 Since the…