This appeal primarily addresses the issue of whether appellant Elizabeth Studenic was given adequate opportunity to respond to issues not previously addressed by the parties but raised by the trial court on the day trial was scheduled to begin. Basing its conclusion on legal issues never raised by the parties before that time, the trial court entered judgment against Studenic. Because we conclude that the trial court’s decision constituted a sua sponte grant of summary judgment to the opposing party and that Studenic was not given adequate opportunity to respond to the issues raised by the trial court, we reverse. This action arose after Wise Designs, Inc. and Jeffrey Birk as trustee for Duane Weise Children’s Trust collectively “defendants” sought to levy and foreclose on certain real property owned by Studenic, in an attempt to collect the outstanding portion of a 1992 judgment. Studenic filed the complaint in this case seeking to enjoin defendants from levying on the property on the basis of an alleged settlement. She contended that she had previously filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy action to protect the property from attachment by defendants and that by a certain letter, defendants had offered to settle the claim against her for $48,300 if she would allow the bankruptcy to be dismissed. According to Studenic, in reliance on this offer, she agreed that she would not appear at the hearing to oppose the motion. In her complaint she alleged that after she “relied to her detriment on her acceptance of defendants’ offer of settlement, defendants then changed their minds and refused to accept the money.” Studenic sought a restraining order preventing the sale of her property and a declaratory judgment that the settlement agreement was enforceable.1
The trial court referred the case to mediation, but the parties reached an impasse, and the case was returned to the trial court. Meanwhile, temporary injunctive relief was granted to Studenic, and she was ordered to, and did, pay $48,300 into the registry of the court. The parties engaged in discovery, and the case was placed on at least three trial calendars between September 2000 and March 2001. On March 19, 2001, after the case did not go to trial on its scheduled date of March 12, 2001, Studenic filed a motion for summary judgment.
