Baratta v. Polk County Health Services

Decision Date21 January 1999
Docket NumberNo. 97-95,97-95
Citation588 N.W.2d 107
PartiesSandra Joyce BARATTA, Appellee, v. POLK COUNTY HEALTH SERVICES, INC., Appellant. Polk County Health Services, Inc., Appellant, v. Sandra Joyce Baratta, her unknown spouses, heirs, devisees, grantees, assigns, successors in interest and unknown claimants of the following described real estate situated in Polk County, Iowa: Lot 87 Wakonda Manor, Plat 5, included in and forming a part of Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa, Appellees.
CourtIowa Supreme Court

Mark V. Hanson and David L. Phipps of Whitfield & Eddy, P.L.C., Des Moines, for appellant.

Clifford S. Swartz of Brick, Gentry, Bowers, Swartz, Stoltze, Schuling & Levis, P.C., Des Moines, for appellee.

Considered en banc.

SNELL, Justice.

Defendant Polk County Health Services (PCHS) appeals from summary judgment granted to plaintiff Sandra Baratta in her action to foreclose a judgment lien. We conclude the district court should have granted the motion of PCHS for summary judgment on its counterclaim to quiet title and therefore erred in granting Sandra's motion for summary judgment. We therefore reverse and remand for entry of judgment in favor of PCHS.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings

A Nebraska court dissolved Sandra and Frank Baratta's marriage by a decree issued June 10, 1970. The divorce decree granted Sandra custody of the couple's daughter, and ordered Frank to pay $110 per month in child support. Frank failed to pay support and Sandra alleges he is $63,632.69 in arrears, including accrued interest.

Frank subsequently moved to Polk County and married Rose, his current wife. In 1989 they purchased a home in Polk County as joint tenants, which they claimed as their homestead. This property is the subject of the current litigation. In 1992, in an attempt to collect the unpaid child support, Sandra registered the Nebraska divorce decree in the Polk County District Court clerk's office pursuant to Iowa Code section 626A.2 (1991) (providing for filing and status of foreign judgments). The record does not reveal anything further was done to collect the outstanding support at that time.

In December 1995, Frank and Rose Baratta sold their homestead property to PCHS. Although Sandra's judgment against Frank for the unpaid child support had been recorded in Polk County at the time it was filed in 1992, it was inadvertently omitted from the abstract and was not uncovered as a cloud on the title at the time of sale. On April 12, 1996, Sandra filed a foreclosure petition against PCHS in an attempt to enforce the judgment lien. Along with its answer, PCHS filed a counterclaim seeking to quiet title in the property and requesting attorney fees. Both parties filed motions for summary judgment. The district court granted Sandra's motion, concluding she had a valid lien against the property which could be enforced against PCHS. The court denied PCHS's motion. The court foreclosed the lien, rendered judgment in favor of Sandra for $63,632.69, and ordered special execution to issue for sale of the property. PCHS appeals.

II. Issues on Appeal

PCHS contends the district court erred in granting the foreclosure. It argues that Sandra did not have a judgment against Rose and that Rose's homestead interest in the real estate prevented Sandra's judgment lien against Frank from attaching to the property. In the alternative, it maintains the district court should have denied Sandra's motion because genuine issues of material fact exist regarding which, if any, of the support payments are still valid judgments due to the passage of twenty-six years since entry of the decree, what interest Frank has in the real estate, what priority other recorded liens have on the real estate, and whether Sandra has exhausted all other property subject to execution.

III. Scope and Standard of Review

Sandra Baratta filed a petition in equity for foreclosure of a judgment lien. As a counterclaim to Sandra's foreclosure action, PCHS brought an action to quiet title. Actions to quiet title also lie in equity. See Iowa Code § 649.6 (1995); accord Moser v. Thorp Sales Corp., 312 N.W.2d 881, 886 (Iowa 1981). Our review of a foreclosure action and an action to quiet title would typically be de novo. See Iowa R.App. P. 4 (providing for de novo review of equity actions). Despite the nature of these causes of action, however, "we cannot find facts de novo in an appeal from summary judgment." Moser, 312 N.W.2d at 886. Therefore, we review the district court's grant of Sandra's motion for summary judgment and the denial of PCHS's motion for summary judgment for the correction of errors at law. See Iowa R.App. P. 4.

Summary judgment is appropriate only when the entire record including pleadings, discovery and affidavits on file shows that there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Iowa R. Civ. P. 237(c). A "genuine" issue of material fact exists if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party. Fees v. Mutual Fire & Auto. Ins. Co., 490 N.W.2d 55, 57 (Iowa 1992). A fact is "material" only when its determination might affect the outcome of the suit. Id. In reviewing the grant or denial of a motion for summary judgment, we examine the evidence in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Mewes v. State Farm Auto. Ins. Co., 530 N.W.2d 718, 721 (Iowa 1995).

The district court granted Sandra's motion for summary judgment on her petition for foreclosure. The court denied PCHS's motion for summary judgment on its quiet title action. The district court did not address the objections made by PCHS in its resistance to Sandra's motion for summary judgment, particularly whether the judgment against Frank was still valid after the passage of twenty-six years, whether Sandra had exhausted other property subject to execution, and the priority of other liens against the subject property.

IV. Discussion
A. Action to Quiet Title

We consider first the claim by PCHS that the district court erred in denying its motion for summary judgment on its action to quiet title pursuant to Iowa Code chapter 649 (1995). Section 649.1 provides:

An action to determine and quiet the title of real property may be brought by anyone, whether in or out of possession, having or claiming an interest therein, against any person claiming title thereto, though not in possession.

As part of its counterclaim, PCHS sought attorney fees under Iowa Code section 649.5, which states as follows:

If a party, twenty days or more before bringing suit to quiet a title to real estate, requests of the person holding an apparent adverse interest or right therein the execution of a quitclaim deed thereto, and also tenders to the person one dollar and twenty-five cents to cover the expense of the execution and delivery of the deed, and if the person refuses or neglects to comply, the filing of a disclaimer of interest or right shall not avoid the costs in an action afterwards brought, and the court may, in its discretion, if the plaintiff succeeds, assess, in addition to the ordinary costs of court, an attorney's fee for plaintiff's attorney, not exceeding twenty-five dollars if there is but a single tract not exceeding forty acres in extent, or a single lot in a city, involved....

To determine whether PCHS's motion for summary judgment on its action to quiet title should have been granted, we must determine whether Sandra's judgment lien can be enforced against the property.

B. Iowa Law on Judgment Liens and the Homestead Exemption

PCHS contends the judgment lien never attached to the property in question because Rose's homestead interest in the property prevented attachment. We begin by reviewing relevant statutes and our prior cases involving the issue of judgment liens attaching to homestead property.

Iowa Code section 624.23(1) addresses the attachment of judgment liens to the debtor's real property. It provides as follows:

Judgments in the appellate or district courts of this state, or in the circuit or district court of the United States within the state, are liens upon the real estate owned by the defendant at the time of such rendition, and also upon all the defendant may subsequently acquire, for the period of ten years from the date of the judgment.

The homestead exemption is found in Iowa Code section 561.16 and declares: "The homestead of every person is exempt from judicial sale where there is no special declaration of statute to the contrary." In one of our early cases, we construed the predecessors to sections 624.23(1) and 561.16 and concluded that the general terms of section 624.23(1) regarding judgment liens are limited by the exemption provided in section 561.16. See Lamb v. Shays, 14 Iowa 567, 570 (1863) ("Construing the two sections together, having been passed at the same time by the Legislature, we think that it could not have been designed that the lien should ever attach upon property that was declared exempt from judicial sale." ); see also Brown v. Vonnahme, 343 N.W.2d 445, 449-50 (Iowa 1984) (relying on Lamb in construing sections 624.23 and 561.16). Therefore, a judgment lien generally cannot attach to land used and occupied as a homestead and land designated as a homestead generally cannot be executed upon to enforce a judgment lien.

However, there are exceptions to the general homestead exemption. See Iowa Code § 561.16 (1995) ("The homestead of every person is exempt from judicial sale where there is no special declaration of statute to the contrary." ) (emphasis added). Section 561.21 sets forth several types of debts for which homestead property is liable. The section provides:

The homestead may be sold to satisfy debts of each of the following classes:

1. Those contracted prior to its acquisition, but then only to satisfy a deficiency remaining after exhausting the other property of the debtor, liable to execution.

2. Those created by...

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