Anderson v. Anderson

1

RANDALL ANDERSON, JR., and KATIE ANDERSON, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. RANDALL ANDERSON and REBECCA ANDERSON, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 23-0133

Court of Appeals of Iowa

November 8, 2023

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Cass County, Amy Zacharias Judge.

Randall and Rebecca Anderson appeal the grant of summary judgment in favor of Randall Anderson Jr. and Katie Anderson on their claim of unjust enrichment.

Blake C. Miller of Crary, Huff, Ringgenberg, Hartnett &Storm P.C., Sioux City, for appellants.

Jonathan Mailander of Mailander Law Office, Atlantic, for appellees.

Considered by Greer, P.J., and Schumacher and Badding, JJ.

GREER PRESIDING JUDGE.

After coming out on the losing end of dueling motions for summary judgment, some members of this family ask that we sort out their feud over the building of a race shed.^[1] Randall Anderson Sr. and Rebecca Anderson (the Parents) appeal the grant of summary judgment in favor of their son and his wife, Randall Anderson Jr. (Randy) and Katie Anderson on their unjust enrichment claim and, following an evidentiary hearing on the appropriate amount of damages, entry of judgment for $84,000. The Parents argue that the five-year statute of limitations in Iowa Code section 614.1(4) (2021) precluded Randy and Katie's unjust enrichment claim. Alternatively, the Parents argue that if the claim is not time-barred, then summary judgment against them was inappropriate, adoption of opinion testimony by an appraiser about the race shed's value was in error, and the district court should have considered their affirmative defense of unjust enrichment instead of denying their motion to amend to add the defense. While we would like to resolve their issues, we cannot do so on the record developed. So, we reverse and remand for further proceedings as instructed below.

I. Issues with the Prior Proceedings.

We start at the end. The district court determined that the statute of limitations did not bar Randy and Katie's claim for unjust enrichment damages and the court proceeded to a determination of damages. Procedurally, this case started when Randy and Katie brought seven claims against the Parents generally premised on the fact that Randy and Katie paid for a race shed to be built on land owned by the Parents, which Randy and Katie alleged the Parents promised to give them but on which the Parents had not followed through. The Parents raised the statute-of-limitations defense in a motion for summary judgment in February 2022, asserting all claims brought were time-barred and that the undisputed facts did not support an unjust enrichment claim. At the same time, Randy and Katie moved for summary judgment in part, asserting that as to their claim for unjust enrichment, there was no issue of genuine material fact and they were entitled to judgment in their favor as a matter of law. After an unreported hearing held in March 2022, the court granted the Parents' motion for summary judgment on six of seven of Randy and Katie's claims, dismissing all but the claim for unjust enrichment. Randy and Katie have not appealed that ruling. But for some reason we are not privy to, the district court's summary judgment ruling is silent on the statute-of-limitations question developed in the summary judgment record. And, the Parents did not file a motion to reconsider or enlarge to direct the district court back to that specific issue for a ruling.

Before trial and within the deadline for amending pleadings, the Parents moved for leave to amend their answer to add other claims, including an affirmative defense that "[Randy and Katie] would be unjustly enriched if awarded the relief sought." While only mentioning an issue over a counterclaim involving criminal charges filed after commencement of the lawsuit, the district court generally denied the Parents' motion to amend. Following the direction from the summary judgment ruling "that the parties submit further evidence of the value of the shed," the district court set an October 2022 trial date. And as we view the record of that October trial, it appears that the district court defined the issues to consider as:

THE COURT: We are here this morning for a final hearing based upon a lawsuit that was filed back in, I believe, April of 2021. We have had several hearings and different things happen in this case. Ultimately I believe the issue from [Randy and Katie's] perspective that remains after summary judgment was filed is the value of the building that was put up on the property under the unjust enrichment claim. Is that your understanding also, [plaintiffs' attorney]?

PLAINTIFFS' ATTORNEY: Yes, Your Honor.

THE COURT: And [defendants' attorney]?

DEFENDANTS' ATTORNEY: Yes, Your Honor.

THE COURT: And I believe there are some counterclaims that the defendants filed. I have trespass, private nuisance, and the intentional interference with a prospect business advantage; is that right, [defendants' attorney]?

DEFENDANTS' ATTORNEY: Yes, Your Honor.

THE COURT: And that's your understanding?

DEFENDANTS' ATTORNEY: Yes, Your Honor.

Nothing was said about addressing the statute-of-limitations defense in the set up to the trial, although the Parents again raised the issue in their trial brief. The parties presented evidence at the reported October trial and, in January 2023, the district court entered a final ruling and judgment against the Parents. Tackling the task at trial the district court noted: "[t]he issue of value and the [Parents'] counterclaims^[2] were addressed at the trial on October 26, 2022." Yet, within this same ruling, the district court addressed the Parents' statute-of-limitations defense that previously was raised and developed in the summary judgment filings. Further, the district court denied each of the Parents' counterclaims, but also found the Parents waived their unjust enrichment affirmative defense because "it was not raised in their . . . pleadings."

The October trial was reported, and the evidence focused around the valuation of the building appraisal performed by a third-party appraiser, Fred Wohlenhaus, who testified and offered a written report setting out the value of the race shed as $84,182. Randy also testified, as did both of the Parents. Some of the testimony went towards counterclaims and affirmative defenses raised by the Parents, but there was also testimony about when the race shed was built. At the close of Randy's case, the Parents moved for a directed verdict and argued the unjust enrichment claim was barred by the applicable five-year statute of limitations. See Dolezal v. City of Cedar Rapids, 326 N.W.2d 355, 360 (Iowa 1982) (finding that unjust enrichment claims fall under the five-year statute of limitations). In the January ruling, for the first time, the district court ruled on the Parents' statute-of-limitations question. Citing Sanford v. Luce, the district court determined that because the building construction was ongoing through 2020 and because the statute of limitations did not accrue until the building was completed, the unjust enrichment claim was not time-barred. 60 N.W.2d 885, 886 (Iowa 1953) (finding when the defendant agreed to pay upon completion of the construction, the cause of action would accrue upon completion of plaintiff's performance of his part of the agreement); Foley v. City of Cedar Rapids, 110 N.W. 158, 160-61 (Iowa 1907).

The Parents appealed. But as we review the statute-of-limitations question on appeal, we are limited to the record made at the trial as the district court did not rule on the statute of limitations question at the summary judgment stage. We consider the lack of a ruling at the summary judgment stage an implicit denial of the issue for purposes of our review. See, e.g., Sandbulte v. Farm Bureau Mut. Ins. Co., 343 N.W.2d 457, 465 (Iowa 1984) (considering plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment on a count as being "implicitly denied by the trial court's entry of summary judgment for defendants"), overruled on other grounds by Langwith v. Am. Nat'l Gen. Ins. Co., 793 N.W.2d 215, 221-23 (Iowa 2010). And once we move past the summary judgment stage, "the previous denial of a motion for summary judgment merges with the subsequent trial on the merits when the trier of fact has fully reviewed the exhibits and listened to the testimony of the witnesses." In re Marriage of Johnson, 781 N.W.2d 553, 555-56 (Iowa 2010). After the Parents again raised the issue by moving for directed verdict at trial, a ruling on the issue followed.

When the district court denies a party's motion for summary judgment and the party appeals the final verdict, we review the issues raised in the unsuccessful motion for summary judgment based on the record made during trial and on the motion for directed verdict to determine if the district court committed error.

Jones v. Glenwood Golf Corp., 956 N.W.2d 138, 143 (Iowa 2021) (citation omitted). So, we review the question as a ruling on a motion for directed verdict.

Here, there was an extensive record made at the summary judgment level over the statute-of-limitations question and an extremely limited record made at trial on the same question. And now because we have that issue front and center, our problem is that we find that the parties and court focused on the wrong legal standard for the start of the accrual of the statute of limitations-which brings us to this question: when did the time accrue? See Shams v. Hassan, 905 N.W.2d 158, 164 (Iowa 2017) ("The key question is when those causes of action [under section 614.1(4)] 'accrue.'"); Sandbulte, 343 N.W.2d at 462 (Iowa 1984) ("Actual application of the appropriate statutory period to a particular case requires the determination of when the claim accrued.").

Unlike the district court, we...