Frohwein v. Haesemeyer, 60026
| Decision Date | 19 April 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 60026,60026 |
| Citation | 264 N.W.2d 792 |
| Parties | Raymond FROHWEIN, Appellant, v. W. L. HAESEMEYER, Administrator of the Estate of Ella Koehler, W. L. Haesemeyer and Joyce Buck, Appellees. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Critelli & Pille and Jerry R. Foxhoven, Des Moines, for appellant.
Cartwright, Druker & Ryden, Marshalltown, for appellees.
Considered by MOORE, C. J., and REES, UHLENHOPP, HARRIS and McCORMICK, JJ.
This is an appeal by plaintiff from an order sustaining defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissing plaintiff's petition for damages, in which he alleges defendants conspired to defraud plaintiff by tortiously causing Ella Koehler to execute a will in favor of the defendant Joyce Buck, contending he had been named as beneficiary in a prior will of the decedent. We conclude the trial court erred in sustaining defendants' motion for summary judgment; and, therefore, reverse and remand for further proceedings.
A detailed chronology of the entire proceedings is essential to a full understanding of the issues we confront in this appeal.
Ella Koehler died on September 4, 1975 and her last will and testament was admitted to probate in Marshall County on September 10, 1975. The defendant, W. L. Haesemeyer, who had been nominated as executor by the terms of decedent's will was appointed and qualified on September 10, 1975. He thereafter caused notice of the probate of the will and of his appointment and notice to creditors to be duly published.
On April 1, 1976 plaintiff filed in the probate proceedings a will contest in which he alleged Ella Koehler lacked mental capacity to make a will and that the will was procured by the undue influence of defendants Haesemeyer and Buck. In answer to plaintiff's petition defendants alleged that the action had been commenced more than six months after the second publication of the notice of probate of will, and that plaintiff's action to contest the will was barred by the provisions of § 633.309, The Code, 1975, as amended by § 8, chapter 208, of the Acts of the 66th General Assembly. Contemporaneously with the filing of their answer, defendants filed motion for summary judgment, referring to the statute of limitations as pled in their answer, which motion for summary judgment was supported by affidavits as by rule required. Thereafter, on April 26, 1976 defendants' motion for summary judgment was sustained on the grounds urged in the motion. No appeal was taken by plaintiff from such ruling.
On May 12, 1976 plaintiff commenced the within action against the defendants, William L. Haesemeyer, Administrator of the Estate of Ella Koehler, William L. Haesemeyer, individually, and Joyce Buck. Said petition was filed on the law side of the docket. In his petition plaintiff claimed defendants conspired to defraud him of a legacy or devise which he expected to receive from the prior will of the decedent, and asserted, "In the furtherance of said conspiracy or agreement, the defendants maliciously, fraudulently, and unlawfully through deceit and undue influence, caused the said Ella Koehler to revoke her prior will, and execute a new will leaving her entire estate to the defendant, Buck." He alleged in a separate division of his petition that the tendering of the alleged fraudulently procured will for probate was a fraud upon the court. Plaintiff prayed for money damages, actual and exemplary, and prayed that a constructive trust be established over the property of the estate for plaintiff's benefit.
On May 19, 1976 defendants filed in said cause, docketed on the law side, their motion to transfer the cause from the law docket to the probate docket, the probate proceedings in the estate of Ella Koehler still being open, on the ground that the plaintiff's law action was an action to contest the will and that the probate court was the only proper forum for the adjudication of the plaintiff's cause of action. To said motion, plaintiff filed his resistance on the ground his action was founded on "independent tortious conduct of the defendants toward this plaintiff", and that the estate of Ella Koehler was not involved therein. The court sustained the motion to transfer from the law docket to the probate docket on the ground that the probate of the will established its validity as against collateral attack and that the alleged undue influence and fraud was intrinsic to the will itself, and was, therefore, not available to the plaintiff in any proceedings other than the probate proceedings.
Following the transfer of the cause to the probate docket, defendants filed answer, again alleging that plaintiff's action was barred by the statute of limitations as in the original will contest, and in a separate division alleged plaintiff's action had been previously adjudicated by the court's ruling on the motion for summary judgment in the original will contest; that the sustaining of the motion for summary judgment in the will contest constituted a final judgment and decision of the court from which no appeal had been taken, and that the purported law action was barred by the doctrine of res judicata. Together with their answer, defendants filed motion for summary judgment based on the same grounds as set forth in their answer, viz., (1) the statute of limitations, and (2) the doctrine of res judicata. The motion for summary judgment was supported by affidavit. No resistance was filed to the motion for summary judgment, and following hearing the motion was sustained by the court on all the grounds urged by the defendants in the motion. From said ruling, this appeal was taken.
The plaintiff states the following issues upon which he relies for reversal:
(1) The trial court erred in transferring plaintiff's cause of action from law to probate, specifically contending an independent cause of action for damages in tort exists against one who fraudulently induces or procures a will to the exclusion or damage of another.
(2) The probate court does not have jurisdiction to hear a tort action based on the tortious interference of prospective advantage, even if such interference involved the execution of a will.
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