Swets Motor Sales, Inc. v. Pruisner, 2--57163

• Decision Date: 17 December 1975
• Docket Number: No. 2--57163,2--57163
• Citation: 236 N.W.2d 299
• Parties: 18 UCC Rep.Serv. 371 SWETS MOTOR SALES, INC., Appellant, v. M. R. PRUISNER, d/b/a Downtown Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge, Downtown Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., and Chrysler Credit Corporation, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 299

236 N.W.2d 299

18 UCC Rep.Serv. 371

SWETS MOTOR SALES, INC., Appellant, v. M. R. PRUISNER, d/b/a Downtown Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge, Downtown Chrysler-Plymouth, Inc., and Chrysler Credit Corporation, Appellee.

No. 2--57163.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Dec. 17, 1975.

Engelbrecht, Ackerman & Boveia, Waverly, for appellant.

Zastrow, Noah & Smith, Charles City, for appellee Chrysler Credit Corp.

Heard by MOORE, C.J. and LeGRAND, REES, REYNOLDSON and McCORMICK, JJ.

REES, Justice.

Plaintiff Swets Motor Sales, Inc., appeals from an order of trial court sustaining motion for summary judgment of defendant Chrysler Credit Corporation and therein adjudicating the latter's interest in certain automobiles to be superior to the interest of plaintiff. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for appropriate proceedings in conformity with this opinion.

Plaintiff Swets Motor Sales, Inc., (hereinafter Swets), an Illinois automobile 'wholesaler,' sold used cars and trucks to defendant Pruisner, a retail automobile dealer at Waverly. Pursuant to an oral arrangement, plaintiff delivered vehicles to defendant Pruisner with unencumbered certificates of title and was paid by Pruisner at the time of delivery of the cars. Chrysler Credit Corporation, joined as a defendant in this action, financed defendant Pruisner's inventory under a floor planning arrangement which the parties have stipulated was a valid security agreement with filed financing statements covering new and used vehicles in Pruisner's possession.

From July 1973 until the end of September of the same year, Swets sold to Pruisner approximately 60 vehicles which were resold by Pruisner under the foregoing arrangement. In September 1973 four of Pruisner's checks written to plaintiff Swets, totalling approximately $31,000, were dishonored. Swets filed his petition at law and obtained a writ of attachment for the seizure of the vehicles then in Pruisner's possession, then amended his petition to an action sounding in equity, seeking a declaration that his interest in the automobiles was superior to that of Chrysler Credit Corporation. Chrysler Credit answered and counterclaimed against Swets, asserting therein that its interest in the vehicles was superior to that of plaintiff. It was stipulated that at the time of the issuance of the writ of attachment Chrysler Credit had in its possession the unencumbered titles to the vehicles in question.

Trial of the action commenced January 18, 1974, and on January 21, apparently after a substantial portion of the evidence had been presented, defendant Chrysler Credit moved for a summary judgment on the issue of priority of its security interest. Swets thereafter filed a resistance to such motion, alleging the existence of genuine issues of material fact regarding the possibility that, through fraud or mutual mistake, Swets' contract with Pruisner might be determined to be void. Swets also alleged the existence of genuine issues of material fact with respect to the proper valuation of the vehicles in question and Chrysler Credit's failure to minimize or mitigate damages.

On January 24 trial court sustained Chrysler Credit's motion for summary judgment and made various findings of fact and reached conclusions of law. In its findings of fact pertinent to this appeal was the trial court's determination the value of the attached vehicles was $9,300 at the date of the attachment and $5,100 on the date of the hearing. Trial court concluded as a matter of law that defendant Chrysler Credit Corporation had a right to assume defendant Pruisner's ownership of the vehicles in question from the latter's possession of unencumbered certificates of title. Trial court also concluded § 554.2403, The Code, 1973, precluded Swets from prevailing.

Accordingly, trial court decreed Chrysler Credit was entitled to possession of the vehicles under attachment and held valid title to them (with the exception of a certain Ford Torino automobile with which we are not concerned). Trial court further found and adjudged the difference between the sum of $9,300 (which the court had determined to be the value of the vehicles at the time of attachment) and the subsequent sales price of the vehicles should be assessed against plaintiff Swets and paid out of its attachment bond.

Swets thereafter perfected a timely appeal by filing and serving notice on March 19, 1974. Defendant Chrysler Credit moved to dismiss the appeal since plaintiff did not apply for permission to appeal from what Chrysler Credit asserted was an interlocutory ruling. An order was entered by this court directing that the motion be submitted with the appeal.

Plaintiff states the following issues for review:

1. Is the appeal interlocutory, thereby requiring a grant of permission from this court under rule 332, Rules of Civil Procedure, in order for this court to assume jurisdiction?

2. Did trial court err in sustaining defendant's motion for summary judgment because there existed genuine issues of material fact with respect to:

(a) The existence of fraud by defendant Pruisner, d/b/a Downtown Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge, or mutual mistake by the parties to the sales contract?

(b) The failure of defendant Chrysler Credit Corporation to minimize damages despite the opportunity to do so?

(c) The reasonable value of the vehicles attached?

I. We first consider whether we may review the order of the trial court sustaining the motion for summary judgment as a final order, without the necessity of permission from this court to take an interlocutory appeal.

Neither party to the appeal treats this question in its brief. We will nonetheless dismiss on our own initiative any appeal not authorized. We view the question as one of jurisdiction. Harden v. Illinois Central R. Co., 254 Iowa 426, 429, 118 N.W.2d 76, 77--78.

When a ruling sustaining a motion for summary judgment is dispositive of the entire case, it is a final judgment for purposes of appeal. Rule 331(a), R.C.P.; Flynn v. Lucas County Memorial Hospital, 203 N.W.2d 613, 614 (Iowa 1973); 4 Am.Jur.2d Appeal and Error § 104, p. 621. An order overruling a motion for summary judgment is of course interlocutory. Flynn, supra; Rosmann v. Lawler, 257 Iowa 1292, 1295, 136 N.W.2d 513, 515.

In order to determine the question of the finality of the order, we must examine its scope and intent and the motion itself. Flynn, supra, 203 N.W.2d at 615.

We note initially that plaintiff's amended and substituted petition in equity prayed for relief against defendant Chrysler Credit only in the following respects:

(1) a prayer that the vehicles be returned to plaintiff;

(2) that an accounting be made for vehicles no longer in possession of defendant Pruisner, and additional sums be awarded for any sums due which the accounting might disclose;

(3) that a writ of attachment issue and levy on the vehicles;

(4) that the security interest of defendant Chrysler Credit be held to be junior and inferior to the interest of the plaintiff in the vehicles.

In its motion for summary judgment, Chrysler Credit prayed that the court 'enter a judgment on the legal claims and positions of the parties plaintiff versus that of the Defendant * * *.' In its order sustaining the motion for summary judgment, trial court held defendant Chrysler Credit was entitled to the possession and ownership of the vehicles under attachment, adjudicated their value on the date of attachment, made provisions for the protection of Swets in the sale of the vehicles, and ordered and decreed the difference between the value of the vehicles at the time of attachment and the sale price was to be paid from the proceeds of plaintiff's attachment bond. In its order and decree trial court disposed finally of every issue of litigation between Swets and defendant Chrysler Credit Corporation. We find nothing to indicate trial court intended or needed to do anything further to resolve the questions presented.

We are not inclined to the view that the fact defendant Chrysler Credit was but one of multiple defendants in the action should preclude our consideration of this appeal on grounds of nonfinality. Reuter v. City of Oskaloosa, 253 Iowa 768, 113 N.W.2d 716, involved an appeal from an order dismissing a negligence action as to one of two defendants. In Reuter, plaintiff's petition was pled in two divisions, in each of which negligence was asserted against both defendants. In that circumstance, we held the order dismissing the case as to one of two defendants was not a final order from which an appeal must be taken within 30 days without waiting for disposition of the case as to the other defendant. We there stated the general policy of the law is against piecemeal appeals and cited Am.Jur.2d and Corpus Juris Secondum for the proposition a judgment or decree is generally not final which settles the cause as to only one or more of several defendants.

In McGuire v. City of Cedar Rapids, 189 N.W.2d 592 (Iowa 1971), we made it clear the principles enunciated in Reuter are not to be applied without exception to every instance in which an order disposes of the case as to only one of multiple defendants. In McGuire a wife in her individual capacity and as guardian and conservator of her husband filed her petition in four divisions against the city of Cedar Rapids and a contractor to recover for injuries sustained by her husband in an accident in a sewage disposal plant. We there held the wife could appeal as final an order by trial court dismissing her cause of action as against the city only, even though other issues and parties still remained in the litigation. The rationale behind our conclusions in McGuire was that the claimed basis of liability asserted against the city was not in any way 'dependent on or intertwined with' the claimed basis of liability asserted against the contractor. 189 N.W.2d at 598. We there reasoned the order dismissing the action as against the city of Cedar Rapids was a...