World Teacher Seminar, Inc. v. Iowa Dist. Court for Jefferson County, 85-1287
| Citation | 406 N.W.2d 173 |
| Decision Date | 13 May 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-1287,85-1287 |
| Parties | 39 Ed. Law Rep. 1250 WORLD TEACHER SEMINAR, INC., Plaintiff, v. IOWA DISTRICT COURT FOR JEFFERSON COUNTY, Defendant. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Edwin F. Kelly, Ron W. Kelly and John A. Morrissey of Kelly & Morrissey, Fairfield, for plaintiff.
Dwight W. James and Dennis P. Ogden of James & Galligan, P.C., Des Moines, for defendant.
Considered en banc.
The plaintiff, World Teacher Seminar, Inc., brings this original certiorari action to challenge an order requiring it to indemnify Maharishi International University for attorney fees of $62,090 allegedly incurred in curbing violations by plaintiff of a consent decree entered in prior litigation between the parties.
Plaintiff is an Iowa corporation which previously brought an action against Maharishi International University and others affiliated with the transcendental meditation movement claiming damages and injunctive relief for alleged restrictions imposed against plaintiff's teaching practices. Plaintiff's president and chief executive officer, Robin Woodsworth Carlsen, was also a plaintiff in that action. That lawsuit was expanded when nine students of Maharishi International University intervened seeking relief from the University's efforts to expel them for their contacts with plaintiff. Maharishi International University counterclaimed against plaintiff seeking injunctive relief against its activities on the campus of the University in Fairfield, Iowa.
In July 1983, the parties to that litigation agreed to a procedure for resolving it by consent decree. This proposal contemplated the submission of four questions to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (the Maharishi) concerning the bona fides of plaintiff's activities within the transcendental meditation movement. Depending on the Maharishi's answers to these questions, the parties agreed to a form of consent judgment and order of permanent injunctive relief. If the Maharishi's answers were favorable to plaintiff's interests, one form of consent decree was to be entered, and if the answers were favorable to the interest of Maharishi International University, a different form of consent decree was to be entered.
The stipulation for consent decree provided that the Iowa District Court for Jefferson County was to listen to a tape recording of the Maharishi's answers and determine which group of litigating parties the Maharishi's answers favored. This stipulated procedure for consent decree was approved by the court, and in July 1983, the court, upon listening to the Maharishi's taped response to the four questions, determined that the answers disfavored the bona fides of plaintiff's activities within the transcendental meditation movement. As a result of that determination, the court, on July 16, 1983, approved and signed that form of consent decree which favored Maharishi International University. That decree enjoined plaintiff and Carlsen from entering the campus of Maharishi International University in Fairfield or engaging in acts which would foreseeably interfere with the functioning of the University's activities and programs. The decree further provided as follows:
In the event of any action to enforce this agreement or for breach of this agreement by any of the parties, the unsuccessful party or parties agree to indemnify and hold harmless the other parties against any loss, damage, or expense including reasonable attorneys' fees which may be sustained by reason of this breach or sustained as a result of having to enforce the stipulation or this judgment. The parties are entitled to bring an action for specific performance, damages at law or in equity....
All parties to this agreement and the related lawsuit ... agree and consent to the personal jurisdiction of the courts of the State of Iowa in any and all future disputes between and among them and shall only commence and maintain such lawsuits in courts of the State of Iowa, and only in the Jefferson County District Court of that State.
The consent decree was filed with the clerk of the Iowa District Court for Jefferson County and shown on the clerk's docket. The decree was then withdrawn from the court file and not formally entered in the record book. Such withdrawal was pursuant to a stipulation entered into by the parties and approved by the court. That stipulation provided that the decree could be returned to the court file and formally entered of record if it became necessary to seek its enforcement by judicial process.
On November 17, 1983, in contemplation of initiating contempt proceedings against plaintiff for alleged violations of the injunctive provisions of the decree, attorneys for Maharishi International University caused the consent judgment to be returned to the clerk of the district court for filing and entry of record. Plaintiff and Carlsen responded by filing a petition under Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 252 to vacate the consent decree. The court heard evidence on that petition and denied relief.
On January 3, 1984, Maharishi International University filed a request that plaintiff, Carlsen and one Vincent McCarthy show cause why they should not be found in contempt for violating the injunctive provisions of the consent decree. The court issued a rule to show cause on these allegations. Discovery was had and hearings were held on the contempt charges. These hearings began on February 7, 1984, and continued from time to time thereafter. The hearings were concluded in July. On October 17, 1984, the court found that plaintiff, Carlsen and McCarthy were all guilty of willfully violating the injunction contained in the consent decree. Plaintiff and Carlsen were fined a total of $2000, and McCarthy was fined $1000. In addition, Carlsen was ordered to serve forty days in the county jail.
On April 15, 1985, Maharishi International University filed an application for attorney fees based upon the indemnification clause in the consent decree, which has previously been set out in this opinion. Carlsen did not respond to this application nor did he appear at the hearing subsequently held with respect thereto. Plaintiff filed a written resistance to the request and appeared at the hearing through counsel. Plaintiff's resistance to the application for attorney fees made the following contentions: (1) that the consent decree was void as being against public policy, (2) that the consent decree was of no force and effect during the period of time plaintiff allegedly violated its provisions because it had not yet been entered of record in the office of the clerk of court, and (3) that any indemnification for violation of the consent decree required the bringing of an independent action in which plaintiff might be accorded a right of jury trial.
The district court rejected the legal defenses posed in plaintiff's resistance. After considering evidence presented by attorneys for Maharishi International University concerning the attorney fees which the latter had incurred in seeking to curb plaintiff's violations of the decree, the court ordered plaintiff and Carlsen to indemnify the University for $62,090 in attorney fees and $1818 in out-of-pocket expenses.
Plaintiff challenges that order in this original certiorari action. Carlsen has not joined in this effort. Plaintiff urges (1) that no provision of the consent decree should be enforced by the court because the decree violates public policy, (2) that the alleged violations of the consent decree occurred before the decree was entered of record, (3) that the indemnification provisions of the consent decree may only be invoked by bringing an independent action at law, and (4) that a substantial portion of the legal services for which the court required plaintiff to indemnify Marharishi International University relate to matters other than violations of the consent decree. Other facts bearing upon our resolution of these issues will be discussed in connection with our consideration of the legal arguments made by the parties.
At the outset, we consider plaintiff's contention that the consent decree so violates public policy that the court should have declined to enforce its provisions. Plaintiff argues that, although the parties gave the transaction the title of "Consent Judgment and Order of Permanent Injunction," the decree was not a legal determination but rather "merely a prize in a contest where the court's power to render judgment and approve the matter was delegated to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi." Such delegation of judicial power, plaintiff urges, is so violative of public policy that the court should refuse to enforce the decree.
We have said that a judgment by consent is, in substance, a contract of record made by the parties and approved by the court, and it is not a judicial determination of any litigated right. Timmons v. Holmes, 249 Iowa 888, 890, 89 N.W.2d 371, 372 (1958). Thus, we believe that a court's role in approving a consent decree involves a determination of whether the provisions upon which the parties have agreed constitute an appropriate and legally approved method of disposing of the contested issues in the litigation. It is not necessary in order to uphold the validity of a consent decree that the solutions therein contained be those the court itself would have adopted if it were adjudicating the controversy.
The consent decree at issue in the present case was not entered until the parties were well into the litigation to which it related. The court file already contained more than nine volumes of legal-size paper numbering more than fifteen hundred pages. As a result of the court's determination of the parties' motions for summary judgment, it was fully aware that the case carried a potential for an exceedingly lengthy and difficult trial. The controversy involved a conflict between the deeply held convictions of two factions...
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