Opinion
No. 5-081 / 04-1094
Filed February 24, 2005
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Pottawattamie County, Timothy O'Grady, Judge.
Plaintiff-appellant appeals following the district court's dismissal of his petition seeking to quiet title to himself in a one-third interest in all real estate and other assets owned or controlled by defendants-appellees. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Bruce Green of Willson Pechacek, P.L.C., Council Bluffs, for appellant.
Scott Jochim, Omaha, Nebraska, and Edward Noethe of McGinn, McGinn, Jennings Springer, Council Bluffs, for appellee.
Considered by Sackett, C.J., and Zimmer and Hecht, JJ.
Padgette J. Hoffman appeals following the district court's dismissal of his petition seeking to quiet title to himself in a one-third interest in all real estate and other assets owned or controlled by defendants Rita O. Hoffman Lands Ltd., Gary M. Hoffman, Casey J. Hoffman, Andrea L. Hoffman, Trustee of the Rita O. Hoffman Revocable Living Trust, and Andrea Hoffman. Defendants filed a motion to dismiss claiming (1) lack of subject matter jurisdiction, (2) lack of personal jurisdiction, (3) failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, and (4) in the alternative a stay of the proceedings. The district court found it had jurisdiction, denied the stay, and sustained defendants' motion finding plaintiff failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted and plaintiff's claim was barred by the statute of limitations. We reverse and remand.
Our review of rulings on motions to dismiss is limited. Haupt v. Miller, 514 N.W.2d 905, 907 (Iowa 1994). We review a district court's ruling on a motion to dismiss for correction of errors at law. Iowa R. App. P. 6.4; McCormick v. Meyer, 582 N.W.2d 141, 144 (Iowa 1998).
Iowa is a notice pleading state. Rieff v. Evans, 630 N.W.2d 278, 292 (Iowa 2001). Since the advent of notice pleading under former Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 69(a), it is a rare case which will not survive a motion to dismiss. As a result, disposition of unmeritorious claims in advance of trial must now ordinarily be accomplished by other pretrial procedures which permit narrowing of the issues and piercing of the bare allegations contained in the petition. Rieff, 630 N.W.2d at 292; Haupt, 514 N.W.2d at 909. Very little is required in a petition to survive a motion to dismiss. Reiff, 630 N.W.2d at 292. A petition gives "fair notice" if it informs the defendant of the incident giving rise to the claim and of the claim's general nature. Id.; Smith v. Smith, 513 N.W.2d 728, 730 (Iowa 1994). One is not required to plead ultimate facts that support the elements of the claimed cause of action. But facts sufficient to apprise the defendant of the incident must be included in the petition in order to provide "fair notice" of the claim asserted. Reiff, 630 N.W.2d at 292; Schmidt v. Wilkinson, 340 N.W.2d 282, 283 (Iowa 1983). A motion to dismiss is properly granted only if a plaintiff's petition "on its face shows no right of recovery under any state of facts." Schaffer v. Frank Moyer Constr., Inc., 563 N.W.2d 605, 607 (Iowa 1997). The petition is assessed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, and all doubts and ambiguities are resolved in plaintiff's favor. Below v. Skarr, 569 N.W.2d 510, 511 (Iowa 1997); Treimer v. Lett, 587 N.W.2d 622, 625 (Iowa Ct.App. 1998).
Plaintiff's petition alleges among other things that (1) he and his brothers, defendants Gary M. Hoffman and Casey J. Hoffman, are general partners of Rita Hoffman Lands, Ltd., (2) the last amendment to the Certificate of Limited Partnership was dated April 14, 1980, (3) defendant Andrea Hoffman is acting in some unknown capacity in handling the affairs of the partnership, (4) his mother Rita O. Hoffman executed a revocable living trust on July 5, 2002, which was last amended July 23, 2002, (5) his father died intestate on November 20, 1968 and was survived by his wife and three sons, (6) he inherited two-ninths of his father's estate, which he deeded to his mother, and she orally agreed she would make a will leaving one-third of her estate to him, (7) equitable principles make it wrongful to allow his mother to retain the property he conveyed to her without providing him with the benefits of the agreement, (8) he has requested copies of wills, trust documents and partnership agreements but has not been furnished copies, (9) he believes his mother breached her agreement with him by failing to provide him with one-third of her estate, and (10) he prays title be quieted in him to one-third of all assets his mother owned at the time of her death, including but not limited to her interest in the limited partnership, and that judgment be entered against such defendants as are found to have ownership or control of these assets or who have received proceeds of said assets, and that a constructive trust be imposed to enforce the relief requested.
Defendants' motion to dismiss claimed (1) the Iowa court lacked jurisdiction, (2) plaintiff's petition failed to state a claim under which relief could be granted as the claim is an alleged breach of an oral contract by Rita O. Hoffman, deceased, and her estate is not a party to the action, (3) the case should be stayed because there is litigation concerning the same parties and issues in Nebraska.
Plaintiff's petition in the Nebraska case entered in the record on the stay issue states, among other things, the following: (1) plaintiff is a general partner in Rita Hoffman Lands, Ltd. and has no less than an 11.2 percent interest in it and the other defendants also have an interest in the partnership, (2) under the terms of the Limited Partnership Agreement he and his brothers, defendants Casey Hoffman and Gary Hoffman, became the sole general partners on the death of his mother Rita O. Hoffman on February 7, 2003, that defendant Andrea Hoffman became a limited partner earlier, (3) under the partnership agreement the partnership should be managed by the general partners and no profits of the partnership should be distributed to any partner without the prior consent of partners having more than sixty percent of the combined voting power of all partners, (4) the partnership assets include certain specified property including fifty acres of real estate in Mills County, Iowa, (5) that on July 9, 2003 attorneys purportedly representing the partnership and/or defendant Andrea Hoffman claimed the assets of the partnership were owned by the Rita O. Hoffman Revocable Living Trust, not the partnership, and that on January 14, 2004 Andrea Hoffman, although acknowledging the assets identified in the petition belonged to the partnership, told plaintiff she had developed a strategy for disposing of the partnership assets though she had no right to act for the partnership, and (6) that despite demand, the partnership has failed to provide plaintiff access to the records of the partnership or with notice of the partnership meetings and action or provide plaintiff with an accurate account of the partnership assets. Plaintiff asked the court, among other things, to judicially determine the assets of the partnership.
The district court denied defendant's claim that the Iowa court did not have jurisdiction, finding that plaintiff claims a one-third interest in partnership assets, a part of which is land located in Mills County, Iowa. The court also denied the request for a stay pending the disposition of the Nebraska action. These findings are not challenged on appeal.
The district court found plaintiff's petition failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, reasoning that, even if plaintiff's mother did breach an oral contract with him, the defendants to this action did not breach an agreement or owe a duty to him. Plaintiff contends the district court mischaracterized his claim. He argues he did not claim the beneficiaries described by the district court, the defendants here, breached any contractual duty they owed him. Rather he says he is only asking the district court to quiet title in one-third of his mother's limited interest in the partnership based on his superior right of title. Furthermore, while he will be required in the quiet title action to prove the terms and provisions of his oral contract with his mother, this does not turn the case into a breach of contract action. We cannot say plaintiff's petition on its face shows no recovery under any state of facts. See Schaffer, 563 N.W.2d at 607. Therefore, we reverse the district court's decision dismissing it on these grounds.
The district court also found plaintiff's claim violated Iowa Code section 633.3108(1) (2003), which says: "Unless previously barred by adjudication, consent, or other limitation, a proceeding to contest the validity of a revocable trust must be brought no later than one year following the death of the settler." The district court noted plaintiff's mother died February 8, 2003 and the petition in this case was not filed until March 4, 2004, and also dismissed because the limitation period for filing a suit had elapsed.
Plaintiff contends this is not a claim contesting the validity of a trust. The face of the petition does not indicate that it is. Therefore, we also reverse the dismissal on this ground.