Hunter v. Des Moines Mun. Housing Authority
| Decision Date | 09 November 2007 |
| Docket Number | No. 05-0375.,05-0375. |
| Citation | 742 N.W.2d 578 |
| Parties | Charmaine HUNTER, Appellant v. CITY OF DES MOINES MUNICIPAL HOUSING AUTHORITY, Russell Underwood, Theresa Taylor and Tangela Weiss, Appellees. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Robert A. Wright, Jr. of Wright & Wright, Des Moines, for appellant.
Michael F. Kelley, Des Moines, for appellees.
This appeal is a culmination of a long and complex dispute between a landlord and a tenant. It began as an eviction action and eventually returned to district court as a claim and counterclaim for damages and other relief. The district court granted judgment for the landlord. The tenant appealed, and we transferred the case to the court of appeals. The court of appeals reversed the decision of the district court and remanded the case for a determination of damages and entry of judgment for the tenant. On our review, we vacate the decision of the court of appeals and affirm the decision of the district court.
Charmaine Hunter leased a house in Des Moines from the Des Moines Municipal Housing Agency (DMMHA). The DMMHA is a state agency that works in conjunction with the federal government to provide low-income housing for qualifying tenants. The term of the lease was for thirty days, beginning on November 1, 1988. The lease, however, automatically renewed for successive one-month terms. Among other terms, the lease required Hunter to accurately report her income and family composition each year and did not allow any unauthorized person to live in the dwelling unit. The DMMHA used this information to determine the amount of Hunter's rent and her continued eligibility for assisted housing, as well as to ensure the size of the dwelling was appropriate for the number of residents. Based on the information Hunter submitted, monthly rent was set at $12.
Hunter was permitted under the rental agreement to terminate the lease with fifteen days' notice. The DMMHA, however, was only permitted to terminate or refuse to renew the lease if the tenant committed a serious or repeated violation of material terms of the lease. Such a violation specifically included willful misstatement or concealment of information, as well as a failure to furnish accurate income and family composition information. The DMMHA was required to give thirty days' written notice of termination of the lease when based on grounds other than nonpayment of rent. The lease provided for a grievance procedure to address disputes between the parties, including disputes over termination of the lease.
Hunter resided in the dwelling for the next twelve years. She consistently reported only a modest amount of income to the DMMHA, largely in the form of public assistance and social security. She did not report any unauthorized persons living in the dwelling.
In 2001, DMMHA discovered an individual named Leo Clark had been living in the dwelling occupied by Hunter for numerous years. Clark was not approved to reside in the house. Moreover, Clark and Hunter had received substantial gambling winnings from Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino as regular patrons at the casino. None of this information was disclosed to DMMHA.1
Armed with this undisclosed information, the DMMHA served Hunter on April 27, 2001, with a "notice of lease termination" pursuant to Iowa Code section 562A.34(3). The notice requested Hunter to vacate the premises on or before May 31, 2001, based on numerous lease violations, including her alleged failure to accurately report income and permitting an unauthorized person to live with her.
Hunter pursued her rights under the lease to contest the termination by requesting a grievance hearing. On May 24, 2001, a hearing officer upheld the decision by the DMMHA to terminate the lease. The hearing officer found Clark was living in the dwelling in violation of the lease, and both Clark and Hunter failed to report income to DMMHA in violation of the lease.
Hunter refused to vacate the premises and sought judicial review of the decision of the hearing officer in federal district court. During this time the DMMHA served Hunter with a three-day notice to quit and initiated a forcible entry and detainer action in state small claims court. This proceeding was stayed pending the judicial review proceeding in federal court.
On July 23, 2001, the federal district court upheld the decision of the hearing officer. Hunter did not appeal this decision. On August 7, 2001, the small claims court granted judgment for the DMMHA in the forcible entry and detainer action. Hunter appealed the small claims decision to district court. On October 2, 2001, the district court reversed the small claims decision and dismissed the forcible entry and detainer petition. It held the action was required to be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction because the DMMHA had failed to follow the procedures in Iowa Code section 562A.27(1), which the district court found required the DMMHA to provide Hunter with a notice to cure the alleged violations.2
The DMMHA then served Hunter with a "notice of termination of month-to-month tenancy and nonrenewal of lease term" on January 16, 2002, pursuant to Iowa Code section 562A.34(2). The notice informed Hunter the lease would terminate on February 28, 2002, based on the prior grounds of failing to accurately report her income and permitting Clark to live in the house. It did not include a notice to cure under section 562A.27(1), and Hunter again contested the termination through a grievance hearing. The grievance hearing officer upheld the DMMHA's decision to terminate the lease and found the DMMHA did not have to provide Hunter with a notice to cure because Hunter's breaches were not amenable to cure.
Hunter again refused to vacate the house, and the DMMHA served Hunter with a three-day notice to quit and brought another forcible entry and detainer action against her. The district court, however, granted Hunter's motion to dismiss the action based on the DMMHA's failure to give Hunter a notice to cure.
Hunter then filed an action against the DMMHA, and others, for breach of contract and abuse of process. Hunter sought damages, injunctive relief, and attorney fees based on the conduct of DMMHA in terminating the lease and bringing the forcible entry and detainer action without first providing a notice to cure. DMMHA filed a counterclaim against Hunter for breach of contract. It sought to recover the amount of rent Hunter would have been required to pay over the years if she had disclosed the information as required under the lease.
Hunter and the DMMHA both moved for summary judgment. The claim for summary judgment by Hunter was largely predicated on her position that the DMMHA was required to provide her with a notice to cure before terminating her lease and utilizing the court system to remove her from the premises. She asserted the district court rulings in the FED actions established her claim that notice to cure was required as a matter of law, and the parties were precluded from relitigating the notice-to-cure issue under the doctrine of res judicata. The DMMHA claimed it was not required to provide the notice, and the two prior administrative grievance proceedings between the parties conclusively established Hunter failed to disclose the required information, resulting in its damages of $20,294. Hunter submitted an affidavit in which she denied any gambling income and indicated that Clark was only in her house as a paid caretaker.
The district court granted summary judgment for the DMMHA and dismissed Hunter's claims as a matter of law. It determined Hunter could not recover on her claim for breach of contract without first establishing she had performed all the terms under the lease. The district court determined Hunter could not meet this predicate to recovery because the prior grievance proceedings between the parties conclusively established she failed to disclose required information. Accordingly, the district court found the doctrine of issue preclusion prohibited relitigation of the issue. Additionally, the district court found DMMHA was not required to give Hunter a notice to cure under the statute.3 This conclusion also supported the determination by the district court that Hunter could not establish her abuse-of-process claim as a matter of law. The district court additionally found Hunter failed to produce any evidence of an improper purpose by the DMMHA in pursuing the forcible entry and detainer action.
After the district court ruled on Hunter's claims, the parties entered into a stipulation regarding the DMMHA's breach-of-contract claim. Among other things, the stipulation stated the DMMHA had calculated Hunter owed them over $20,000 in past rent. Relying on its previous findings during summary judgment and on the stipulated facts, the district court entered judgment for the DMMHA on its counterclaim, awarding the DMMHA $20,294 in damages.
Hunter appealed the decision of the district court, and we transferred the case to the court of appeals. The court of appeals reversed the district court decision and remanded the case for a determination of damages for Hunter. Although it agreed with the district court that there was no evidence of an improper purpose to support the claim for abuse of process, it determined Hunter was entitled to a judgment as a matter of law in the breach-of-contract claim based upon its holding that the findings made in the prior grievance decisions involving the parties could not be used in this action to establish that Hunter failed to perform her obligations under the lease. Consequently, the court of appeals found the evidence set forth in Hunter's affidavit was sufficient to support her breach-of-contract claim. The court of appeals held the findings from the grievance proceedings that the DMMHA relied upon to support its claim had no preclusive effect because of the absence of a notice to cure. It also...
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