A fraternity-house dispute is headed back to Douglas County court after the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled a local judge abused her discretion and “did not have due regard for what was just and fair” in a decision about the case.

The appeals court on Friday overturned a 2004 ruling by Judge Paula Martin that favored Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity Inc. in its dispute with Alpha Omicron Pi, a sorority no longer active at Kansas University. The fraternity had leased the old Alpha Omicron Pi home at 1501 Sigma Nu Place and filed suit in summer 2003, alleging it needed $850,000 in mold remediation and mechanical repairs.

The fraternity planned to exercise an option to buy the home, then demolish it and build a new one on site. But it said the sorority kept the sale from happening by failing to get a required appraisal.

When the sorority’s Nashville-based attorney, Carson Stone III, failed to file a timely response to the lawsuit by Dec. 26, 2003, Martin granted a default judgment in favor of the fraternity.

The sorority asked Martin to reconsider, saying one reason for the delay was that Stone’s father was on his deathbed as the deadline approached – a fact he said he didn’t want to share with opposing attorneys at the time.

Martin, however, did not believe Stone’s claim that he overlooked the lawsuit while preoccupied with a family emergency. She pointed out that an obituary said Stone’s father had died “unexpectedly” on Jan. 8, 2004, which she said was inconsistent with the description Stone had given of the death.

“In fact, during much of this Mr. Stone has made much of his … father’s death. And I don’t mean to diminish that in any way,” Martin said, according to a transcript. “But I think that it is … disingenuous of him to say he didn’t want to share his family issues, because certainly he is now heavily relying on that.”

Martin declined the sorority’s request to set aside her default judgment, and the sorority appealed.

In an unpublished decision Friday, the appeals court found Martin should have set aside her default judgment, noting “defaults are not favored in law.” It found the sorority had valid defenses it could have used, and Stone’s delays should have been considered “excusable neglect.”

“(A)llowing the default judgment to stand would show more concern for finality in litigation than for what was right and equitable under the circumstances,” the court wrote.

The court vacated the default judgment and ordered the case back to Martin for further action.

Martin has been the subject of controversy in recent years. In 2004, she won retention despite an effort to vote her off the bench. Her critics took issue with her sentencing record and pointed to numbers showing that she was overturned on appeal more frequently than any other Douglas County judge.

Her supporters described her as a thoughtful, fair-minded judge. Her retention committee chairman said the percentage of cases overturned was miniscule compared to her overall caseload.