Twaddle v. Twaddle, 96-1800

• Decision Date: 29 May 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-1800,96-1800
• Citation: 582 N.W.2d 518
• Parties: Joan TWADDLE, Appellant, v. Donald TWADDLE, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Court of Appeals

Page 518

582 N.W.2d 518

Joan TWADDLE, Appellant, v. Donald TWADDLE, Appellee.

No. 96-1800.

Court of Appeals of Iowa.

May 29, 1998.

Matthew G. Woods of Peters Law Firm, P.C., Glenwood, for appellant.

Kristopher K. Madsen of Stuart, Tinley, Peters, Thorn & Hughes, Council Bluffs, for appellee.

Considered by CADY, C.J., and HUITINK and VOGEL, JJ.

VOGEL, Judge.

Joan Twaddle appeals the district court's ruling dismissing the breach of contract and promissory estoppel action against her son, Donald Twaddle, a Minnesota resident, for lack of personal jurisdiction. As we determine Donald did not have sufficient minimum contacts with Iowa, we find the suit was properly dismissed.

Background facts. Donald was born in Iowa in 1942 but moved in 1976 to Minnesota. Joan's residence is Mills County, Iowa. By April 1989, Donald was having difficulty repaying a loan to the Farmers' Home Administration ("FmHA") for the purchase of his Minnesota farm. After Joan discussed loaning Donald the money he needed, Donald indicated in a letter to Joan that he was willing to accept a loan from her at eight and one-half percent interest. Joan claims that on the basis of the letter, she sent a cashier's check in the amount of $35,136 to FmHA. Donald subsequently made three loan payments to Joan during the summer of 1989, totaling $900. He failed to make additional payments on the loan. Joan claims that the parties had various telephone conversations since 1989 regarding the loan and that Donald has maintained contact with her in Iowa.

In April 1996, Joan commenced an action against Donald for breach of contract and promissory estoppel based on his failure to repay the loan. Joan sought a judgment against Donald for the unpaid amount of the loan plus eight and one-half percent interest from May 1989.

Donald filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction which Joan resisted. After a hearing, the district court granted the motion to dismiss, determining that the court did not have personal jurisdiction over Donald. The court reasoned that Donald was a resident of Minnesota and that there were insufficient contacts for Iowa to be a proper forum for this lawsuit. The court noted that the only significant contact was that Joan's residence was in Iowa and the money for the loan came from Iowa.

Joan appeals.

Scope of review. When reviewing a ruling on a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, the trial court's findings of fact have the effect of a jury verdict and are subject to challenge only if not supported by substantial evidence in the record, but we are not bound by the trial court's application of legal principles or its conclusions of law. Hagan v. Val-Hi, Inc., 484 N.W.2d 173, 175 (Iowa 1992).

Formerly, Iowa courts engaged in a two-step process for determining personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the federal constitution. See OmniLingua, Inc. v. Great Golf Resorts of World, Inc., 500 N.W.2d 721, 723 (Iowa App.1993) (stating a court must first determine whether jurisdiction is authorized by statute under Iowa law, and then it must determine whether there were sufficient minimum contacts consonant with due process to assert jurisdiction over the nonresident defendant). Iowa courts now collapse the two steps into one as "Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 56.2 expands Iowa's jurisdictional reach to the widest due process parameters of the federal constitution .... equivalent to the outer limits of due process." ¹ Hodges v. Hodges, 572 N.W.2d 549, 552 (Iowa 1997) (citations omitted).

Minimum contacts. For Iowa to assert personal jurisdiction over Donald, he must have had "certain minimum contacts with [Iowa] such that maintenance of the suit [in Iowa] does not offend 'traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.' " International Shoe v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316-17, 66 S.Ct. 154, 158-59, 90 L.Ed. 95, 102-03 (1945); Meyers v. Kallestead, 476 N.W.2d 65, 67 (Iowa 1991); accord Hodges, 572 N.W.2d at 551. In order to determine whether a court possesses personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant, we examine five factors, the first three of which are most heavily weighed: (1) the quantity of contacts the party has with the state seeking to exercise jurisdiction; (2) the nature and quality of the contact; (3) the source and connection of the cause of action with these contacts; (4) the interest of the forum state; and (5) the convenience of the parties. See Bankers Trust Co. v. Fidata Trust Co., 452 N.W.2d 411, 413 (Iowa 1990) (citing Larsen v. Scholl, 296 N.W.2d 785, 788 (Iowa 1980)). We apply the constitutional minimum contacts standard on a case-by-case basis. Heslinga v. Bollman, 482 N.W.2d 921, 922 (Iowa 1992).

In In re Marriage of Crew, 549 N.W.2d 527, 530 (Iowa 1996), our supreme court held family contacts unrelated to the cause of action were not sufficient to establish personal jurisdiction. In that case, a nonresident father, who had never been in Iowa, but whose former wife and children were Iowa residents, could not be haled into the courts of Iowa for purposes of modification of child support based solely on his contacts with his children over the phone and correspondence with them. Id. The court found that although the father had many contacts with his children in the State of Iowa, the contacts, important on a personal level, were not constitutionally sufficient to confer jurisdiction as the cause of action--modification of child support--did not stem from his personal contacts. Id; Cf. Hodges, 572 N.W.2d at 552 (distinguishing Crew case, and holding personal jurisdiction in Hodges was appropriate where the alleged contacts with the State of Iowa--false representations in letters and phone calls--were the basis of the claims being asserted).

Similarly, while Donald has maintained contacts with his mother in Iowa over the past twenty-two years, he long ago relinquished his legal ties to Iowa when he chose Minnesota as his official domicile and residence. His only remaining tie to Iowa was with his mother, a resident of Iowa, who he has spoken to repeatedly over the years, but not for the sole purpose of soliciting money.

The contacts Donald made regarding the loan were either by phone or mail. Such communications typically are not the type of contact alone justifying assertion of jurisdiction over nonresident parties. See Fidata, 452 N.W.2d at 414 (holding phone calls and mailings were "not the type [of connections] that would have led [the nonresident party] to believe it would be haled into [the] court" of the plaintiff's home state); accord OmniLingua, Inc.

"[I]t is essential ... the defendant purposefully avails itself of the privilege of conducting activities within the forum State, thus invoking the benefits and protections of its laws." Hanson v. Denckla, 357 U.S. 235, 253, 78 S.Ct. 1228, 1240, 2 L.Ed.2d 1283, 1298 (1958) (citing International Shoe, 326 U.S. at 319, 66 S.Ct. at 161, 90 L.Ed. at 103) (emphasis added). The "purposeful availment" requirement prevents a nonresident defendant from being haled into a jurisdiction solely as a result of random, fortuitous, or attenuated contacts. See Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 475, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 2183, 85 L.Ed.2d 528, 542 (1985); State ex rel. Miller v. Baxter Chrysler Plymouth, Inc., 456 N.W.2d 371 (Iowa 1990).

It is critical in our analysis that the nonresident, Donald, did not actively solicit the loan from his mother. His letter to his mother dated April 25, 1989, stated in part:

When this whole thing [about a lack of funds] came up it never occurred to me to ask you for the loan because I know how you feel about your money. Then you called me and offered to loan me the money. Believe me, I was suspicious but after you offered me the loan the second time, I decided you must be serious, and I started planning what and how.

(Emphasis added.) Thus, Donald did not purposely inject himself into Iowa for the purposes of "doing business" with his mother; he merely accepted an offer by his mother to help him with financing the farm. See OmniLingua, 500 N.W.2d at 725 (holding the fact that...