Rice v. Poppe
| Decision Date | 28 April 2016 |
| Docket Number | No. S–15–528.,S–15–528. |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
| Parties | Brenda R. Rice, appellant, v. Terrance A. Poppe, an individual, and Morrow, Poppe, Watermeier & Lonowski, P.C., a limited liability organization, appellees. |
James R. Welsh and Christopher Welsh, of Welsh & Welsh, P.C., L.L.O., Omaha, for appellant.
Randall L. Goyette and Colin A. Mues, of Baylor, Evnen, Curtiss, Grimit & Witt, L.L.P., Lincoln, for appellees.
Connolly
, J.
In 2011, the district court dissolved the marriage of Brenda R. Rice and Dale E. Rice. Attorney Terrance A. Poppe represented Brenda in the dissolution action. Later, Dale died and Brenda made a claim for the death benefits under life insurance policies owned by Dale. The court determined that Brenda was not entitled to the benefits, because she waived her beneficiary interest under the property settlement agreement. Brenda sued Poppe for legal malpractice, alleging that he had failed to advise her that the property settlement agreement waived her beneficiary interest in Dale's life insurance policies. The trial court sustained Poppe's motion for summary judgment, reasoning that Poppe had no duty to advise Brenda of the legal effect of an unambiguous agreement. We conclude that Poppe, the summary judgment movant, did not establish a prima facie case entitling him to judgment as a matter of law. We therefore reverse the judgment and remand for further proceedings.
In 2011, Brenda filed a complaint to dissolve her marriage to Dale. She retained Poppe to represent her.
Brenda and Dale ultimately signed a property settlement agreement drafted by Poppe. Brenda testified that before she signed the agreement, Dale told her that he was “ ‘going to keep [her] on as [his] beneficiary’ ” for the life insurance policies he owned. Brenda testified that Poppe never asked about the parties' life insurance beneficiary designations. Nor did she discuss Dale's intentions with Poppe before he drafted the agreement.
In the agreement, Brenda and Dale divided the marital estate and waived whatever interest they had in certain property owned by the other spouse. Paragraph VI provided:
Paragraph IX provided:
And, in relevant part, paragraph X provided:
Brenda reviewed the agreement drafted by Poppe, but, in her judgment, “[a]t no time did it ever mention anything about beneficiary designation and at no time did I ever believe that that language took away beneficiary designation.” She testified that Poppe did not tell her that the agreement could affect beneficiary designations on life insurance policies. She did not raise any concerns herself because
In August 2011, the district court dissolved Brenda and Dale's marriage. The court approved the property settlement agreement and incorporated it into the decree.
Dale died a week later. Brenda tried to claim the death benefit for two term life insurance policies owned by Dale, only one of which, with a death benefit of $250,000, concerns this appeal. The personal representative of Dale's estate argued that Brenda had waived her right to the death benefits in the property settlement agreement. The trial court agreed and ordered Brenda to withdraw her claim. Brenda appealed.
We affirmed the determination that Brenda had waived her interest as a beneficiary of Dale's life insurance policies in Rice v. Webb
.1 There, we explained that divorce does not affect a beneficiary designation in a life insurance policy. But a spouse may waive a beneficiary interest in the divorce decree. Synthesizing paragraphs VI, IX, and X of the property settlement agreement, we concluded that Brenda unambiguously gave up her right to claim the death benefits:
We find no ambiguity in the decree. Under paragraph VI, the life insurance policies in Dale's name were awarded to Dale, and under paragraphs IX and X(b), Brenda waived and relinquished all interest in property set aside to Dale.... Upon our independent review, we conclude as a matter of law that under the terms of the decree, Brenda unambiguously waived her beneficiary interest in Dale's life insurance policies.2
In 2014, Brenda filed this legal malpractice action against Poppe. She alleged that Poppe negligently failed to “advise [her] that the Agreement removed her as primary beneficiary on Dale's life insurance policy.”
Poppe moved to dismiss, arguing that the complaint did not state a claim upon which relief could be granted and that he was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Poppe submitted evidence in support of his motion, so the court converted the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment. It informed the parties of this conversion and gave Brenda the opportunity to offer evidence.
The court entered a summary judgment for Poppe, stating that “an attorney owes no duty to tell clients something that is readily apparent to that client.” It reasoned that Brenda did not need Poppe's help to interpret the property settlement agreement, because we determined in Rice v. Webb
that the agreement was unambiguous.
Brenda assigns, consolidated, that the court erred by sustaining Poppe's motion for summary judgment.
We affirm a lower court's grant of summary judgment if the pleadings and admitted evidence show that there is no genuine issue as to any material facts or as to the ultimate inferences that may be drawn from the facts and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.3 In reviewing a summary judgment, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the judgment was granted, and give that party the benefit of all reasonable inferences deducible from the evidence.4
The applicability of claim and issue preclusion is a question of law.5 When reviewing questions of law, we resolve the questions independently of the conclusion reached by the trial court.6
Brenda argues that Poppe committed malpractice by not asking what her and Dale's intentions were concerning their life insurance beneficiary designations and failing to explain the effect that the property settlement agreement would have on those designations. She contends that the “intricate rules of construction which may render a written settlement agreement that has been incorporated into a decree ‘unambiguous' to members of the Nebraska Supreme Court do not apply equally to the uninitiated layperson.”7 Poppe responds that he had no duty to inform Brenda that she was waiving her beneficiary status, because the “fact she was doing so was readily apparent from the clear language of the Agreement.”8
The main purpose of the summary judgment procedure is to pierce the allegations in the pleadings and show conclusively that the controlling facts are other than as pled.9 The party moving for summary judgment must make a prima facie case by producing enough evidence to show that the movant is entitled to judgment if the evidence were uncontroverted at trial.10 If the moving party makes a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the nonmovant to produce evidence showing the existence of a material issue of fact that prevents judgment as a matter of law.11
To succeed in a legal malpractice claim, a plaintiff must ultimately prove three elements: (1) the attorney's employment, (2) the...
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