IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 14-1651

Filed October 28, 2015

US BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS

TRUSTEE, SUCCESSOR IN INTEREST TO 

BANK ONE, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION 

AS TRUSTEE FOR CREDIT SUISSE

FIRST BOSTON MORTGAGE

SECURITIES CORP., MORTGAGE

PASS-THROUGH CERTIFICATES, 

SERIES 2003-8, 

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

vs. 

LEDERMAN BONDING, MAIN STREET 

ACQUISITIONS CORPORATION, 

AND PARTIES IN POSSESSION, 

Defendants, 

and 

TERRY F. RICE and 

DAVID A. GOINGS, 

Defendants-Appellants.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, David F. 

Staudt, Judge. 

Property owners appeal the district court’s grant of summary judgment to 

the bank, foreclosing the mortgage on the property in question. AFFIRMED.

John W. Holmes of Holmes & Holmes, Waterloo, for appellants.

Jesse Linebaugh and Angela Morales of Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, Des 

Moines, for appellee.

Considered by Vogel, P.J., and Potterfield and McDonald, JJ.
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MCDONALD, Judge.

Terry Rice and David Goings (property owners) appeal the district court’s 

grant of summary judgment in favor of U.S. Bank, foreclosing a mortgage on 

property located in Black Hawk County. We affirm the district court.1 

The material facts in this case are not in dispute. Rice signed and 

delivered a promissory note to Mortgage One, Inc., dated October 25, 2002, in 

the fixed principal sum $67,950. The promissory note was secured by property 

owned by Rice and Goings, each of whom signed a mortgage on the property. 

On September 29, 2011, U.S. Bank initiated this foreclosure action after the 

property owners defaulted on the note. U.S. Bank held the original note. After 

the case was initiated, Mortgage One, Inc. assigned the mortgage to U.S. Bank. 

The district court granted U.S. Bank’s motion for summary judgment. It 

concluded “the Note falls under the definition of a negotiable instrument under 

[Iowa Code section] 554.3104 [(2011)]. Pursuant to [section] 554.3205, the 

bearer of a negotiable instrument is entitled to enforce the contractual 

provisions.” The court also concluded the transfer of the note “carries to the 

transferee the benefit of the mortgage” even if the written assignment of the 

mortgage contained technical errors. See Iowa Code § 554.9203(7); Whitney v. 

Eichner, 216 N.W. 625, 626 (Iowa 1927) (“Some fundamental questions of law 

 

1 U.S. Bank asserts this appeal should be dismissed as the property owners filed the 

notice of appeal before the foreclosure decree was entered, making their appeal 

interlocutory. “When a ruling sustaining a motion for summary judgment is dispositive of 

the entire case, it is a final judgment for purposes of appeal.” Swets Motor Sales, Inc. v. 

Pruisner, 236 N.W.2d 299, 302 (Iowa 1975). The summary judgment ruling in this case 

resolved all issues in the foreclosure action, and the foreclosure decree was a mere 

formality. We therefore will decide the case on the merits even though the final 

foreclosure decree was filed after the notice of appeal. 
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are settled, among which are: First, that the transfer of one of a series of notes 

secured by a mortgage carries to the transferee the benefit of the mortgage, 

even though the mortgage may not be assigned to him.”). 

The property owners make numerous arguments in support of their 

appeal. They maintain: (1) there was no delivery of a mortgage assignment by 

the original mortgagee to U.S. Bank before the original mortgagee was dissolved;

(2) the note was not a negotiable instrument because the parties modified the 

terms of the loan at closing; (3) there was no evidence that the note sued on was 

delivered to U.S. Bank before the suit was filed; (4) there was no affidavit U.S.

Bank took the note in good faith and without notice of default; (5) the note was 

not signed by both titleholders to the real estate; and (6) U.S. Bank failed to 

produce proof of an unbroken chain of title to the mortgage. 

We conclude the district court did not err in granting U.S. Bank’s motion 

for summary judgment. The property owners failed to preserve error on many of 

the arguments they now make on appeal, and we will not address them for the 

first time here. See Doe v. Roe, No. 14-0490, 2015 WL 576060, at *2 (Iowa Ct. 

App. Feb. 11, 2015) (“Thus, under our error preservation rules, an issue must 

ordinarily be raised in and decided by the district court before we will address it 

on appeal.”). To the extent the property owners’ issues are properly presented 

for appellate review, the issues are not material. See Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.981(3) 

(“The judgment sought shall be rendered forthwith if . . . there is no genuine issue 

as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a 

matter of law.”); Dickerson v. Mertz, 547 N.W.2d 208, 212 (Iowa 1996) (“An issue 
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of fact is ‘material’ only when the dispute is over facts that might affect the 

outcome of the litigation, given the applicable governing law.”). The questions 

presented have long been settled by statute and case law, and the bank was 

entitled to foreclose the mortgage. See Iowa Code §§ 554.3301 (stating the

person entitled to enforce an instrument includes the holder of the instrument),

554.1201(2)(u) (defining “holder” to include the person in possession of the 

negotiable instrument made payable to the bearer of the instrument or an 

identified person in possession), 561.13(1) (“A conveyance or encumbrance of, 

or contract to convey or encumber the homestead, if the owner is married, is not 

valid, unless and until the spouse of the owner executes the same or a like 

instrument.”); see also Pope & Slocum v. Jacobus, 10 Iowa 262, 263 (1859)

(“The assignment of the debt, it is conceded as a general rule, draws after it the 

mortgage, as a consequence or appurtenance to it.”); Crow, McCreary & Co. v. 

Vance, 4 Iowa 434, 441 (1857) (“The right of the mortgagee is a mere chattel 

interest, inseparable from the debt it is intended to secure, and transferable by a 

mere assignment of the debt, without deed or writing. The debt is the principal 

thing. The right of the mortgagee in the land, is an incident attached to the debt, 

and ceasing when the debt is discharged.”).

We affirm the district court without further opinion. See Iowa Ct. R.

21.26(1)(a) and (d).

AFFIRMED.