Christensen v. Board of Sup'rs of Woodbury County

• Decision Date: 19 September 1960
• Docket Number: No. 50006,50006
• Citation: 251 Iowa 1259,105 N.W.2d 102
• Parties: William & Sophia CHRISTENSEN, Individually and as a Partnership, Appellants, v. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF WOODBURY COUNTY, Iowa, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 102

105 N.W.2d 102

251 Iowa 1259

William & Sophia CHRISTENSEN, Individually and as a Partnership, Appellants, v. BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF WOODBURY COUNTY, Iowa, Appellee.

No. 50006.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Sept. 19, 1960.

W. A. Dutton, Sioux City, for appellants.

Robert E. Beebe, Kindig, Beebe & McCluhan, Sioux City, for appellee.

GARFIELD, Justice.

The question presented is whether the district court lacked jurisdiction of the subject matter of this action. We must disagree with the trial court's determination there was such lack of jurisdiction.

Plaintiffs own two noncontiguous eighty-acre tracts, farmed as a unit, on an east and west secondary road in Woodbury County. New Interstate Highway 29 runs generally north and south between the two tracts. Defendant board of supervisors, acting under Chapter 306, Code 1958, I.C.A., entitled 'Establishment, Alteration, and Vacation of Highways', held a hearing on March 19, 1958, on the matter of closing the part of the secondary road crossed by the new 29. Due to the limited access character of 29 plaintiffs must travel three miles farther than formerly in going from one of their tracts to the other. All the buildings are on the west tract. Thus in a round trip from the buildings to the east tract additional travel of six miles is required.

Plaintiffs appeared at the hearing and filed written objections to the closing and claim for damages therefrom. It is not suggested they were not entitled under the Code, § 306.8, I.C.A. to file such objections and claim for damages. Plaintiffs' attorney personally appeared before the board and orally presented the objections and claim for damages.

The board took no action on March 19 on plaintiffs' objections and claim. It did not continue the hearing or set a date when it would again consider the matter. September 29, 1958, six months and ten days after the hearing, the board overruled the objections and denied the claim for damages but plaintiffs had no knowledge of such action until July 25, 1959, when defendant barricaded the portion of the road it belatedly vacated. August 12, 1959, plaintiffs filed in the district court their 'Petition at Law for Declaratory Judgment; Appeal from Highway Closure.' Notice of the action was duly served August 13.

Section 306.11 provides: 'Any claimant for damages may, by serving, within twenty days after the said final order has been issued, a written notice upon the * * * board * * *, appeal as to the amount of damages, to the district court of the county in which the land is located, in the manner and form prescribed in chapter 472 with reference to appeals from condemnation * * *.' Section 472.22, in chapter 472, states a petition shall be filed, setting out the items of damage claimed and the amount thereof.

Section 306.10, relating to the board's final order in such a road matter, provides, 'Said order thus entered shall be final except as to the amount of the damages.' So there can be no doubt as to the right to appeal to the district court from the disallowance of damages.

Notice of this action was not served within 20 days from the entry of the board's order. But the petition alleges facts designed to excuse this delay. It states by reference to their claim, made part of the petition, the items of damage claimed and the amount thereof. It asks that their damages be ascertained and for a declaratory judgment setting forth their rights, granting all equitable and declaratory relief to which they are entitled, a jury being demanded upon any fact issue raised by defendant's denial. Thus plaintiffs seek to appeal from denial of their claim for damages and ask equitable relief from their failure to serve notice of the appeal within the 20-day period.

Defendant filed a special appearance to the petition under Rules 66 and 104(a) Rules of Civil Procedure, 58 I.C.A., mainly on the ground plaintiffs failed to appeal from the ruling filed on September 29, 1958, within 20 days thereafter as required by section 306.11 and therefore the court has no jurisdiction of the subject matter. Plaintiffs' appeal is from the dismissal of their petition following the sustaining of the special appearance upon this ground.

It is clear there would be no basis for the special appearance if plaintiffs had served notice of appeal within 20 days after the board's order was issued. We think it is also clear there is no basis for the special appearance, notwithstanding the delay in serving the notice, in view of plaintiffs' allegations designed to excuse such delay and entitle them to equitable relief therefrom. If such allegations are insufficient to excuse the delay in serving the notice that is a matter going to the merits of the case and not to the court's jurisdiction of the subject matter. In such event the petition might be vulnerable to a motion to dismiss but the special appearance should not have been sustained upon the ground of lack of jurisdiction of the subject matter.

Aside from what has already been stated, plaintiffs' petition alleges by way of excuse for delay in serving notice of this action: '* * * plaintiffs made inquiry after inquiry at the office of the county auditor respecting what action had been taken by defendants as to plaintiffs' protest and claim for damages, but were told none had been taken.

'On July 25, 1959, upon making further inquiry, the county auditor was unable to locate any ruling upon plaintiffs' protest and claim for damages.

'On or about July 28, 1959, plaintiffs' attorney was notified by defendants' attorney that plaintiffs' claim had been denied but he could not name the date and upon searching the resolutions of the board it was found to have been denied September 29, 1958 * * *.

'Plaintiffs inquired at the auditor's office from week to week for six weeks for the ruling by defendant board and frequently thereafter, finally deciding to await the physical closing of the road. The barricade was not placed on said road until July 25, 1959.

'* * * on September 29, 1958, defendant board again took up the matter for consideration and denied plaintiffs' claim and declared the road vacated; the board had held 25 meetings subsequent to the original hearing.

'* * * no notice was ever given plaintiffs of defendants' plan to again take up said matter; plaintiffs were given no notice of the decision reached respecting same and had no knowledge of said action until the barricade was erected across said road on July 25, 1959.

'Plaintiffs contend defendants had no right or power under the statute to continue the hearing or their decision thereon.

'Plaintiffs contend that with the holding of 25 intervening meetings by defendant board before again considering plaintiffs' claim for damages, defendants lost jurisdiction of said matter.

'Plaintiffs state they have not been guilty of laches and should not be deprived of their right of appeal herein * * *.

'Plaintiffs now appeal from the decision entered by the defendant board on September 29, 1959.'

It appears the board's order of September 29 was first published on November 26 (1958), in a newspaper published at Anthon (1950 population 770) rather than in one published in Sioux City (1950 population about 84,000), the county seat, where plaintiffs' attorney was located.

Authorities need not be cited for the proposition that upon this appeal well-pleaded allegations of fact in plaintiffs' petition must be taken as true. This is the effect of Rule 102, Rules of Civil Procedure.

It is the county auditor's duty to record all proceedings of the board. Code, § 333.1, I.C.A.

The leading Iowa precedent on what jurisdiction of the subject matter means is State ex rel. Cairy v. Iowa Co-op. Ass'n, 248 Iowa 167, 170, 79 N.W.2d 775, 776. There an order sustaining a special appearance for want of jurisdiction of the subject matter was reversed because the ground asserted really went to plaintiff's right to relief rather than to the jurisdiction of the court to afford it. We think the trial court here fell into the same error the trial court did in the Cairy case.

The Cairy decision, supra, states: 'In the language of 14 Am.Jur. , 364, Courts, section 160, 'Jurisdiction of the subject matter does not mean simply jurisdiction of the particular case then occupying the attention of the court, but jurisdiction of the class of cases to which that particular case belongs, of the nature of the cause of action, and of the relief sought.''

See also The J. R. Watkins Co. v. Kramer, 250 Iowa 947, 950, 97 N.W.2d 303, 305; Harvey v. Prall, 250 Iowa 1111, 1116, 97 N.W.2d 306, 309, which states: 'Jurisdiction of the subject matter is the power to hear and determine cases of the general class to which the proceedings belong.'

Monroe Township School District v. Board of Education, 250 Iowa 1324, 1327-1328, 98 N.W.2d 888, 890, cites the Cairy case, supra, and the authorities therein cited and then says: '* * * All of these are to the general effect that a court has jurisdiction of the subject matter of an action when it has a right to try the kind of proceeding, the general class of cases to which the one then before it belongs. It seems inescapable that the court had jurisdiction to try the class of cases which includes the present one, Section 275.15, Code of 1958, I.C.A., provides: '* * * within twenty days after the publication (of the order fixing boundaries of the proposed school corporation) thereof the decision rendered by the county board of education may be appealed to a court of record in the county involved by any school district affected.'' We think there can be no doubt the district court has jurisdiction of the class of cases to which this one belongs. Code, § 306.11, I.C.A., to which the principal ground of the special appearance refers, expressly provides for the right of appeal from the denial of a claim for damages. Plaintiffs' failure to serve notice of this action within 20 days after the board's order was...