Boehme v. Fareway Stores, Inc.

• Decision Date: 27 February 2009
• Docket Number: No. 07-2094.,07-2094.
• Citation: 762 N.W.2d 142
• Parties: James BOEHME, Appellant, v. FAREWAY STORES, INC. and Iowa Insurance Guaranty Association, on behalf of Home Insurance Company, in Insolvency, Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

762 N.W.2d 142

James BOEHME, Appellant, v. FAREWAY STORES, INC. and Iowa Insurance Guaranty Association, on behalf of Home Insurance Company, in Insolvency, Appellees.

No. 07-2094.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

February 27, 2009.

John E. Swanson of Hansen, McClintock & Riley, Des Moines, for appellant.

Michael L. Mock of Bradshaw, Fowler, Proctor & Fairgrave, P.C., Des Moines, for appellees.

STREIT, Justice.

James Boehme was injured while working at Fareway Stores when an ice cream cart fell on him. Without entering into a settlement agreement, Fareway provided Boehme with medical and weekly benefits. Six years later, Boehme settled with the manufacturer of the ice cream cart. That settlement resulted in a payment to Fareway for reimbursement of some of the past payments it had made to Boehme as well as a credit for future workers' compensation benefits. Accordingly, Fareway stopped paying weekly benefits, and Boehme began maintaining a record of the amount of weekly benefits and medical expenses that would have been owed by Fareway but for the settlement and the resulting credit. When, after a period of years, Boehme believed Fareway's settlement credit was exhausted, he filed a workers' compensation petition against Fareway claiming entitlement to medical and weekly benefits, and requesting reimbursement from Fareway for attorneys' fees incurred in the litigation that produced the third-party settlement. The deputy commissioner determined Boehme's claim for weekly benefits was barred by the statute of limitations and his claim for attorneys' fees was also barred. Boehme appealed, asserting, among other things, the statute of limitations did not apply because of the doctrine of equitable estoppel. The commissioner affirmed, determining Boehme had not preserved error on his equitable estoppel claim. The district court affirmed. Because Boehme's equitable estoppel claim is without merit and because he did not file his claim within three years of Fareway's last payment, Boehme's claim is barred by the statute of limitations. Further, Iowa Code section 515B.2(b) (2007) prevents Boehme from recovering attorney's fees from Fareway.

I. Background Facts and Prior Proceedings.

On December 6, 1983, James Boehme was injured while working at Fareway Stores, Inc. when an ice cream cart containing 900 pounds of ice cream tipped over on top of him. Fareway and its insurance carrier, Home Insurance Company, accepted the injury as compensable and provided Boehme with medical benefits, healing period benefits, and permanent partial disability benefits. Fareway and Boehme never entered into a settlement agreement pursuant to Iowa Code section 86.13 (2007) to establish weekly benefits, and the extent of Boehme's permanent disability was never determined by the commissioner. Boehme also pursued a third-party claim against the manufacturer of the ice cream cart. On February 9, 1990, Boehme settled that claim for $300,000. On February 20, 1990, Fareway and Boehme filed a Memorandum of Third-Party Settlement with the commissioner as required by Iowa Code section 85.22 (2007). In the agreement, Fareway and Boehme agreed Fareway (and Home Insurance) would receive a lump sum payment of $48,655.17 as indemnification for payments of workers' compensation benefits made through the date of the third-party settlement. (The gross amount of benefits paid by Fareway/Home Insurance to Boehme by that time was $82,906.74.) The settlement also provided that Fareway was entitled to a credit against any future payments of medical or weekly benefits in the total amount of $135,026.11. The agreement contained the following specific provision:

The parties, by their actions herein, do not stipulate or agree, or in any manner concede that the Claimant is entitled to any specified degree of permanent physical impairment or industrial disability, either now or in the future, such determination resting by law, with the Iowa Industrial Commissioner, upon contested case proceeding.

Fareway stopped making weekly benefit payments to Boehme at the end of February 1990.

Boehme maintained a detailed record of the amount of weekly benefits and medical expenses that would have been owed by Fareway but for the settlement of the tort action and the resulting credit. By Boehme's calculations, Fareway's settlement credit was exhausted in December 2002. On February 26, 2003, Boehme filed a review-opening petition with the commissioner seeking an award of additional medical and weekly benefits. Soon thereafter, Fareway's workers' compensation insurance carrier, Home Insurance Company, filed for bankruptcy. Iowa Insurance Guaranty Association (IIGA) appeared before the commissioner in the insolvent insurance carrier's place. Fareway and IIGA filed a motion for partial summary judgment asserting Boehme's claim was barred by the statute of limitations, Iowa Code section 85.26, because more than three years had passed since Fareway's last payment of weekly benefits. A deputy commissioner granted the motion, finding Boehme's claim for additional weekly benefits was barred by the statute of limitations. The deputy commissioner's decision did not address the issue of equitable estoppel raised by Boehme at the hearing. Boehme filed a motion of appeal to the commissioner.

While the appeal of the statute-of-limitations issue was pending, the commissioner entered an order directing an evidentiary hearing be held to address the other issues, including (1) the extent of Boehme's entitlement to past medical expenses, and (2) the effect of Iowa Code chapter 515B on Boehme's entitlement to reimbursement of attorneys' fees incurred by Boehme in the third-party litigation. In an arbitration decision, the deputy commissioner found (1) Boehme was entitled to past medical expenses incurred after the date of the third-party settlement in the amount of $13,520.87 (to be deducted from Fareway's third-party settlement credit), and (2) Boehme's claims for attorneys' fees and litigation expenses were barred by Iowa Code section 515B.2(b)(4) and (8) and by the express language of the Memorandum of Third-Party Settlement filed with the agency in February 1990.

Boehme filed a notice of intra-agency appeal, which was consolidated with the earlier appeal of the summary judgment ruling. The commissioner affirmed both rulings and also determined Boehme had failed to preserve error with respect to two issues: whether equitable estoppel precludes Fareway from asserting a statute-of-limitations defense, and whether future credits from a third-party settlement should be construed as a payment of weekly benefits that extended the statute of limitations under Iowa Code section 85.25. The commissioner also determined that, even if error had been preserved, Boehme's claims on these issues were without merit.

Boehme filed a petition for judicial review. The district court affirmed. Boehme appealed.

II. Scope of Review.

We review whether the commissioner correctly interpreted the agency's appellate procedural rules regarding preservation of error for an abuse of discretion. Iowa Code § 17A.19(10)(n) (2007). We review the commissioner's legal findings for errors at law. Iowa Code § 17A.19(10)(c), (m). We are bound by the commissioner's finding of facts so long as those findings are supported by substantial evidence. Excel Corp. v. Smithart, 654 N.W.2d 891, 896 (Iowa 2002); Iowa Code § 17A.19(10)(f).

III. Merits.

A. Statute of Limitations. Under Iowa Code section 85.26, an employee must bring a claim for workers' compensation benefits within two years from the date of the injury or, "if weekly compensation benefits are paid under section 86.13, within three years from the date of the last payment of weekly compensation benefits." Boehme's claim for weekly benefits should have been brought within three years of February 1990, when Fareway stopped making payments to Boehme.

1. Equitable estoppel. Boehme argues the commissioner erred in ruling he did not properly preserve the issue of whether equitable estoppel precluded Fareway's statute-of-limitations defense. Although Boehme did not mention equitable estoppel in his resistance to the defendant's motion for summary judgment, he did raise the issue of equitable estoppel at the hearing on the motion for partial summary judgment. In the arbitration decision, the deputy commissioner did not rule on the issue. Although Boehme's appeal to the commissioner acknowledged the lack of a ruling on the issue, he did not file a motion for rehearing requesting the deputy commissioner to enter a ruling on the issue. In the appeal decision, the commissioner determined Boehme "did not properly preserve the issue of whether equitable estoppel prevented the defendants' statute-of-limitations defense as there is no underlying ruling . . . to affirm, modify, or overrule." The commissioner also determined that, even if error had been preserved, the equitable estoppel claim was without merit. The district court affirmed the commissioner's appeal decision on both counts.

Under the Iowa Administrative Code rule 876-4.28(7) (2007), "An issue will not be considered on appeal if the issue could have been, but was not, presented to the deputy." (Emphasis added.) In the appeal decision, the commissioner interpreted this provision to require not only an issue be raised, but also the issue be decided in the ruling in order for a claim to be properly preserved on appeal. See, e.g., Meier v. Senecaut, 641 N.W.2d 532, 537 (Iowa 2002) ("It is a fundamental doctrine of appellate review that issues must ordinarily be both raised and decided by the district court before we will decide them on appeal."); Explore Info. Sevs. v. Iowa Ct. Info. Sys., 636 N.W.2d 50, 57 (Iowa 2001) (motion for reconsideration "necessary to preserve error only when the district court fails to resolve an issue, claim, or legal theory properly submitted for adjudication"). Although we give an agency substantial...