UPDATES & ANALYSIS

8.01

Iowa Court of Appeals July 2024 Published Opinion Roundup

by Rox Laird | August 1, 2024

The Iowa Court of Appeals selects certain opinions for publication in the Northwestern Reporter. On July 3, 2024, the Court of Appeals selected four opinions for publication. Following are summaries of those opinions.

 

In the Matter of the Estate of Lorraine S. Schultz, deceased. Katrina Moreland, Keyli Kiefer, and Krista Nebendahl, appellants (22-1671)

Opinion date: March 6, 2024

On appeal from the Iowa District Court for Allamakee County

Issue: Is a Family Settlement Agreement signed by beneficiaries of their mother’s estate prior to her death valid?

Following the death of her husband Cloy, Lorraine Schultz and her son Blaine met with an attorney in 2003 to revise Lorraine’s 1998 will that would upon her death have divided her farmland in three counties equally among her four children. Under the revised 2003 will, Blaine stood to inherit four times as much land as each of the other three siblings.

When Blaine’s sisters Annette, Debbie, and Jacquelyn learned of the new will in 2014, they sought to restore their mother’s original 1998 will. Because the attorney felt Lorraine lacked testamentary capacity to make the change, the four siblings instead signed a Family Settlement Agreement under which the farmland would be distributed equally among the four upon their mother’s death.

Over the next five years, Blaine and Debbie died, followed by Lorraine. Annette was appointed executor and she divided the estate’s property with equal shares allocated to Cloy and Lorraine’s four children. Debbie’s and Blaine’s children were to receive their parents’ shares. Blaine’s three children, who stood to inherit a larger share of farmland under the 2003 will signed by Lorraine and Blair, challenged the validity of the 2014 Family Settlement Agreement and asked that the estate be distributed on the basis of the 2003 will.

The Allamakee County District Court ruled that the settlement agreement was valid and denied the objectors’ request that the estate be distributed on the basis of the 2003 will. Blaine’s children appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, which transferred the case to the Court of Appeals.

In a March 6 decision, written by Judge Tyler Buller joined by Judge Mary Tabor and Senior Judge Patrick Carr, the Court of Appeals disagreed.

The court cited two reasons:

First, a Family Settlement Agreement cannot bind hypothetical or contingent beneficiaries whose interests vest only after the death of the original beneficiaries, the court said, and because Lorraine was still alive when the parties signed the agreement, their interests had not yet vested.

Second, because Blaine and Debbie died before Lorraine, their expectancy interests passed to their respective children before the court admitted Lorraine’s 2003 will to probate, and the children were not parties to the Family Settlement Agreement.

“For these two reasons, the FSA was not valid and the estate should not have been distributed according to its provisions,” Judge Buller wrote. “The district court’s ruling otherwise was in error and we reverse.”

Because the Court of Appeals reversed the district court on the validity of the Family Settlement Agreement, it remanded the question of the validity of the 2003 will to the district court for further action.

 

Saul v. Seaboard Triumph Foods (23-0402)

 Opinion date: May 8, 2024

On appeal from the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County

Issue: Can a temporary staffing agency employee collect workers’ compensation benefits from his employer for a workplace injury and still sue the employer where he was assigned to work?

Under Iowa’s workers’ compensation law, employees injured on the job are eligible to be compensated for injuries in exchange for forfeiting their right to sue their employers.

But in this case, Emerson Saul was employed by a temporary staffing agency and assigned to work at Seaboard Triumph’s Sioux City pork processing plant where he suffered a workplace injury. The question is whether Saul had two employers, and if so is he entitled to collect workers’ compensation benefits for his injury from the staffing agency and sue Seaboard Triumph?

The answer, the Court of Appeals said in a decision written by Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Langholz joined by Senior Judge Thomas Bower and Judge Gina Badding, depends on the unique facts of the case, and in this case there were strong arguments on both sides. As a result, the Court of Appeals reversed the district court summary-judgment dismissal and remanded for further proceedings.

When Saul was injured at his job at Seaboard Triumph, he filed a workers’ compensation claim against his staffing agency and its insurer, which was settled. Saul subsequently sued Seaboard Triumph claiming his injury was caused by a negligent coworker and Seaboard Triumph was liable for negligent hiring, training and retaining the coworker.

Seaboard Triumph filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing Saul’s suit was barred by the workers’ compensation statute because Saul was an employee of Seaboard Triumph at the time. The Woodbury County District Court granted the motion and dismissed the case. Saul appealed and the case was transferred to the Iowa Court of Appeals.

At the outset, the three-judge panel observed that it was bound by the Iowa Supreme Court’s 1994 decision in Parson v. Procter & Gamble Mfg. Co., which held that cases such as Saul’s are resolved case by case based on the facts of each case.

Reviewing the facts in Saul’s case, the Court of Appeals said there were strong arguments on both sides on the record from the district court. While Saul and Seaboard did not have an express contract, the company argued it had an implied contract evidenced by the fact that he was supervised exclusively by plant managers and treated as other plant workers with regard to work rules, shifts, protective gear, and locker rooms.

On the other hand, Saul did not receive the same benefits as Seaboard’s employees, from health insurance and short-term disability to earned time off. Asked whether Saul was eligible for any of those benefits, Seaboard’s human resources manager testified: “No. He was not our employee.”

“We recognize that reasonable minds could draw contrary inferences from the evidence too,” Judge Langholz wrote. “But we are here on Seaboard Triumph’s summary judgment motion — not Saul’s. And so, because “reasonable minds can differ,” summary judgment is improper.”

 

Reyes v. International Van Lines Inc.; Justin Hischke; Noelle Moving & Sales Inc.; and IVL Transportation Inc. (23-1034)

Opinion date: May 8, 2024

On appeal from the Iowa District Court for Jasper County

Issue: Did a plaintiff sue the wrong corporate defendant, or did he sue the right corporate defendant under the wrong name?

David Reyes was working for a moving company, Noelle Moving & Sales Inc., when Justin Hischke, a coworker, driving a van leased by Noelle Moving, crashed the van in which Reyes was a passenger. Reyes sued for his resulting injuries, naming Hischke, Noelle Moving & Sales Inc., Joshua Shawn, Inc. dba International Van Lines, IVL Transportation Inc., and Budget Truck Rental LLC.

IVL Transportation and Joshua Shawn Inc. moved for summary judgment, arguing they were the wrong parties and were incorporated after the crash and that International Van Lines Inc. was the correct party. Reyes, seeking to correct the “misnomer,” moved to “substitute” International Van Lines Inc. for IVL Transportation and Joshua Shawn Inc. The Jasper County District Court granted his motion, and International Van Lines filed an interlocutory appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, which transferred the case to the Iowa Court of Appeals.

The company argued the district court erred in granting Reyes’s motion to substitute International Van Lines Inc. in place of Joshua Shawn Inc. dba International Van Lines and IVL Transportation Inc. Reyes argued in response the correct party was before the court the entire time and that it had discretion to correct the misnomer in his original pleading.

As an initial matter, the Court of Appeals, in a decision written by Court of Appeals Judge Mary Tabor joined by Judges Sharon Soorholtz Greer and Julie Schumacher, noted that the term “substitute” in this case is itself a misnomer. A substitution occurs when the wrong party is named and the district court must replace the wrong party with the correct party, the Court of Appeals said, whereas a district court may correct a misnomer if the plaintiff shows the right corporation was served by the wrong name.

“After reviewing the case law on misnomers, we find no abuse of discretion in the district court allowing Reyes to amend his petition to name International Van Lines, Inc. as a defendant,” Judge Tabor wrote, quoting from the Iowa Supreme Court’s 1971 ruling in Hickman v. Hygrade Packing Co. that said: “When an individual or corporation does business under a trade or other assumed name and the notice is addressed to that very name, the defendant will not be heard to say on special appearance that such name is not his name.”

 

State v. Bol (22-0158)

Opinion date: Nov. 8, 2023

Appeal from the the Iowa District Court for Polk County

Question: Was a defendant wrongly convicted of attempted murder and related charges by errors at trial?

Owo Robin Nyal Bol was convicted by a Polk County jury of attempted murder, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, and willful injury causing serious injury for his role in a drive-by shooting in Des Moines that left a two-year-old boy with permanent brain damage.

In his appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court, Bol raised six arguments: that the jury verdicts were not supported by sufficient evidence; that the jury’s verdicts were inconsistent; that the district court erred in failing to sever his case from two of his co-defendants; that the court erred in admitting the recorded statements of defendants whose cases had been severed; that the court erred in admitting a detective’s testimony as an expert on group crimes; and that the court erred in failing to remove a juror or failing to determine whether the juror could remain impartial.

Bol’s appeal was transferred to the Iowa Court of Appeals, which affirmed the district court in a Nov. 8, 2023, ruling written by Court of Appeals Judge Julie Schumacher joined by Judges Sharon Soorholtz Greer and Paul Ahlers.

The Court disagreed with all of Bol’s arguments.

The Court concluded there was substantial evidence for a trier of fact to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Among the evidence: Bol was found in a vehicle matching the description of the one involved in the shooting; he was in possession of two of the firearms consistent with weapons used in the shooting; he was surrounded by spent casings from those firearms; and he was featured in a video brandishing the weapons taken after the shooting.

The Court disagreed that the jury was inconsistent in rendering a not-guilty verdict on two attempted murders and a guilty verdict on willful injury causing serious injury. The Court said it is plausible or likely the jury determined that Bol or someone he aided or abetted intended to injure someone at the home but they did not specifically intend to injure two of them, and giving deference to jury verdicts the panel concluded the verdicts are not inconsistent.

The Court said there was no abuse of discretion in denying Bol’s request to sever his case from that of his two co-defendants, saying Bol failed to show that he was unfairly prejudiced by a joint trial.

The Court held that the district court did not err in admitting the recorded statements of two defendants who had been severed from the case. “Because the recorded statements were not offered to show the truth of the matter asserted, the court did not err in admitting them,” Judge Schumacher wrote. “The statements were non-hearsay.”

Bol argued that allowing a police detective to testify regarding “complex crimes” or “complex criminal investigations involving multiple co-defendants” would violate the trial court’s prohibition on testimony about gang activity. The Court of Appeals, however, agreed with the trial court that testimony on crimes involving multiple suspects is different from testimony on gang affiliation “and our precedent establishes that where a defendant is not painted as a gang member, there is no prejudice.”

Finally, the Court of Appeals held the district court did not err in not removing a juror who cried when a 911 recording of the two-year-old victim’s aunt was played during the trial. “A juror expressing empathy for the victims of a crime does not merit disqualification for bias,” Judge Schumacher wrote, quoting from a 2015 Iowa Supreme Court ruling that said, “If we disqualified jurors because they empathized with the family of crime victims, we would have no jurors.”

 

Tags: Iowa Court of Appeals