Grefe & Sidney v. Watters

• Decision Date: 21 December 1994
• Docket Number: No. 93-1101,93-1101
• Citation: 525 N.W.2d 821
• Parties: GREFE & SIDNEY, A Partnership, Appellee, v. Lucille WATTERS, Appellant. Lucille WATTERS, Appellant, v. Henry A. HARMON and Grefe & Sidney, A Partnership, Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 821

525 N.W.2d 821

GREFE & SIDNEY, A Partnership, Appellee, v. Lucille WATTERS, Appellant.

Lucille WATTERS, Appellant, v. Henry A. HARMON and Grefe & Sidney, A Partnership, Appellees.

No. 93-1101.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Dec. 21, 1994.

Lawrence L. Marcucci and Ann M. Ver Heul of Shearer, Templer, Pingel & Kaplan, P.C., West Des Moines, for appellant.

Steven K. Scharnberg and Glenn Goodwin of Finley, Alt, Smith, Scharnberg & May, P.C., Des Moines, for appellees.

Considered by McGIVERIN, C.J., and LARSON, CARTER, NEUMAN, and SNELL, JJ.

McGIVERIN, Chief Justice.

This case involves issues arising from a petition by a law firm against its client for fees and a counterclaim by the client for alleged legal malpractice.

The ultimate question is whether a verdict and judgment in favor of the law firm on the malpractice counterclaim can render harmless a prior yet allegedly erroneous grant of summary judgment in favor of the law firm on its petition for fees.

We conclude no reversible error occurred in the trial of the client's legal malpractice counterclaim.

We also conclude under this record that, even if the trial court erred in granting the prior summary judgment to the law firm on its petition for attorney fees, any such error was rendered harmless or moot by the affirmed judgment on the counterclaim.

Accordingly, we affirm the district court judgment in favor of the law firm on the whole case.

I. Background facts and proceedings. Defendant Lucille Watters hired attorney Henry A. Harmon, a partner in the law firm of Grefe & Sidney of Des Moines, to represent her in a dissolution of marriage action. At their initial meeting on December 28, 1988, Harmon advised Watters that his fee would be $100 per hour and that the total fee and expenses would be approximately $30,000. Harmon represented Watters throughout the dissolution of marriage case, which concluded in a settlement agreement on May 31, 1989. A dissolution decree based thereon was filed on June 18, 1989.

The settlement agreement and decree basically divided the marital assets, including the homestead and several parcels of real estate, between the two parties. As to a significant marital asset, an automobile dealership named Watters Autoland, Inc. located in Indianola, the settlement agreement provided that Watters receive shares of stock in the close corporation, which represented one-half of a forty-nine percent interest in the dealership.

Watters agreed to the stipulated settlement in open court. She also agreed to pay her attorney fees, but she failed to pay Harmon's fees or the expenses, which together totaled approximately $30,000.

Watters has not tried to set aside the stipulation and dissolution decree.

Plaintiff Grefe & Sidney filed suit against Watters claiming that she owed them $30,570.65 for the provision of legal services and for expenses in obtaining a dissolution of marriage and property settlement for Watters.

Watters denied Grefe & Sidney's allegations and subsequently filed a counterclaim against Grefe & Sidney as well as a cross-petition against Harmon, a third-party defendant. ¹ The basis of Watters' counterclaim was her claim that Grefe & Sidney and Harmon breached their duty to exercise reasonable skill, care and learning on her behalf in their provision of legal services to her, that their services were thus of no value, and that as a proximate result of Grefe & Sidney and Harmon's negligence, Watters was damaged. In particular, Watters alleged that Harmon was negligent in recommending to her that she enter into a property settlement which contained no provision for the payment of alimony, the continuation of health insurance or use of a company car, and which provided her with shares of stock representing one-half of a minority interest in a closely held corporation where the only other two shareholders, her former husband and her son, were hostile to her interests.

Plaintiff Grefe & Sidney filed a motion for summary judgment against Watters for recovery of its attorney fees and costs as requested in its petition. Plaintiff claimed that it was undisputed: that Watters contracted with Grefe & Sidney to perform legal services for her in connection with obtaining a dissolution of marriage; that the fee was to be $100 per hour for time spent on the case plus expenses with the total being approximately $30,000; that such dissolution of marriage had been obtained; that a bill for legal services and out-of-pocket expenses in the amount of $30,570.65 had been presented to Watters; and that she had not paid any part of that amount. Watters admitted in a deposition and concedes on appeal that the fee was to be $100 per hour, with the total bill to be approximately $30,000.

Watters resisted Grefe & Sidney's motion. In her resistance, she contended that genuine issues of material fact existed as to whether she was obligated to pay attorney fees when her contract with Grefe & Sidney for the provision of legal services had been breached by their negligent performance of their professional duties to exercise reasonable skill, care and learning on her behalf. Watters also argued that Harmon's negligent performance of legal services resulted in a breach of contract such that she received no value for the services performed, constituting a failure of consideration to support any contractual obligation which she may have had to pay attorney fees to Grefe & Sidney.

The district court sustained plaintiff Grefe & Sidney's motion for summary judgment on the petition, ruling that no issue of material fact existed regarding Grefe & Sidney's claim for services because the work was completed when the dissolution of marriage was finalized.

Watters' counterclaim was tried before a jury which returned a verdict that Grefe & Sidney and Harmon were not negligent in their handling of Watters' dissolution of marriage case. Judgment was entered on the verdict against Watters on the counterclaim and cross-petition.

Watters appealed from the trial court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Grefe & Sidney on the petition, and from the adverse judgment on her counterclaim against Grefe & Sidney and Harmon.

II. Issues concerning Watters' counterclaim alleging legal malpractice. Watters contends that the district court erred in instructing the jury during the trial of her counterclaim alleging legal malpractice against Grefe & Sidney and Harmon. We conclude that each of Watters' assignments of error either was not preserved or is without merit.

A. Scope of review. Our scope of review on objections to instructions is on assigned error. Iowa R.App.P. 4. We may only consider on appeal those objections to instructions previously raised with the trial court. Iowa R.Civ.P. 196; Shepherd Components, Inc. v. Brice Petrides-Donohue & Assocs., Inc., 473 N.W.2d 612, 618 (Iowa 1991).

Objections to the court's instructions must specify the subject of the objection and the grounds of the objection. Iowa R.Civ.P. 196; Morgan v. Perlowski, 508 N.W.2d 724, 729 (Iowa 1993). Further, the objection must be sufficiently specific to alert the trial court to the basis for the complaint so that if error does exist the court may correct it before placing the case in the hands of the jury. Perlowski, 508 N.W.2d at 729.

We read the court's instructions as a whole when determining whether there has been error. State v. Jones, 193 N.W.2d 509, 513 (Iowa 1972). We review jury instructions to determine if they correctly state the law and are supported by substantial evidence. Johnson v. Interstate Power Co., 481 N.W.2d 310, 324 (Iowa 1992); see also Stringer v. State, 522 N.W.2d 797 (Iowa 1994). If instructions are erroneous, they must be prejudicial before we will order reversal. Edwards v. City of Des Moines, 349 N.W.2d 786, 788 (Iowa App.1984) (citing State v. Kern, 307 N.W.2d 22, 28 (Iowa 1981)).

B. Assignments of error. Watters argues that the district court erred in (1) instructing the jury that the attorney fees' issue had been previously determined, (2) instructing the jury on mistake in representation and good faith, and (3) submitting other instructions which invaded the province of the jury and unduly emphasized Grefe & Sidney and Harmon's theory of the case.

1. First, Watters contends that the trial court erred in instructing the jury that the attorney fees' issue had been previously determined. She argues that this alleged error occurred by the manner in which the trial court related the Statement of the Case to the jury. Specifically, she insists that language contained in the second paragraph of the Statement of the Case unduly emphasized Grefe & Sidney and Harmon's defense of retaliation in a manner which was prejudicial to her. The language involved was:

The matter of legal fees in this matter has previously been determined by the Court and is not an issue in this lawsuit. To simplify this matter for trial, Lucille Watters is referred to as the Plaintiff and Henry A. Harmon and Grefe & Sidney are referred to as the Defendants.

Watters did not preserve error on this issue sufficient to raise it on appeal. On appeal Watters argues that inclusion of the first sentence, combined with inclusion of the second sentence, is reversible error. At trial, however, Watters only objected to the second sentence of the aforementioned paragraph as prejudicing Watters' case and unduly emphasizing Grefe & Sidney's defense. She did not tell the court that she objected to any statement by the court that the legal fee matter had been previously determined.

"[A] specific objection, if overruled, cannot avail the objector [on appeal] except as to the ground specified." Porter v. Iowa Power & Light Co., 217 N.W.2d 221, 231 (Iowa 1974). See also Iowa R.Civ.P. 196 ("[n]o other grounds [but those raised to the trial court] ... shall be ... considered on appeal"). Since Watters' specific objection at trial was that inclusion of the second sentence was erroneous, her objection...