Opinion ID: 2118853
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was title in the disputed interest established by adverse possession?

Text: Defendants asserted in district court their adverse possession claim to this real estate was supported by sections 614.1(5) and 614.17, The Code 1977. Section 614.17 provides a special limitation upon actions based upon any claim arising or existing prior to January 1, 1960,. . . either at law or in equity . . . to recover any real estate in this state or to recover or establish any interest therein or claim thereto, legal or equitable, against the holder of the record title . . . when the record holder or his remote grantors are shown of record to have held chain of title since January 1, 1960. While the lost deed to Carrie and the replacement conveyance were dated September 4, 1952, the latter instrument was not recorded until March 22, 1961. Carrie did not deed her interest to defendants Mead and Miller until March 1, 1961, and this deed was not recorded until September 30, 1961. Trial court rightly found Carrie took nothing by Drennan's will and did not obtain title by virtue of the September 4, 1952, ex parte court order. It was correct in holding Carrie did not become a record owner until after January 1, 1960, and therefore section 614.17 was not available to aid these defendants. Section 614.1(5) relevantly provides: Actions may be brought within the times herein limited, respectively, after their causes accrue, and not afterwards, except when otherwise specially declared: 5. . . . those brought for the recovery of real property, within ten years. Principles controlling adverse possession under this section were recently set out in I-80 Associates, Inc. v. Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad, 224 N.W.2d 8, 10 (Iowa 1974), and will not be repeated here. Trial court confronted the question whether the doctrine of adverse possession is available to establish ownership of an undivided interest as against a cotenant claiming such interest, when both hold uncontested fractional interests and possession of the farm. Trial court held that it was, relying on Blankenhorn v. Lenox, 123 Iowa 67, 98 N.W. 556 (1904). But see Shives v. Niewoehner, 191 N.W.2d 633, 635-36 (Iowa 1971). However, Vogt posits no error on this ground, instead asserting (1) section 614.22 and not 614.1(5) is applicable in this situation, and (2) in any event, the nonresidence of Carrie and her daughters and grantees, the defendants Mead and Miller, tolled the running of the section 614.1(5) limitation. Section 614.22 provides no action shall be maintained to set aside, cancel, annul, or invalidate any of an enumerated list of official deeds, including administrator's deeds, if recorded prior to January 1, 1960, unless action shall be commenced prior to January 1, 1971. Vogt argues here for the first time that this special limitation provision controls over the general 614.1(5) provision, and because Effie's court officer deed was not recorded until after the 1960 cutoff, the limitation period for her action has not yet run. Vogt cites no authority for the above rationale and we find it unpersuasive. Her action is not cast as one to set aside, cancel, annul, declare void or invalid, or to redeem any conveyance. It is more accurately termed an action based upon a claim [under Drennan's will] arising or existing prior to January 1, 1960, . . . to recover or establish any interest [in real estate]. . . within the scope of section 614.17. Therefore section 614.22 has no application here. A closer question is presented by Vogt's contention the section 614.1(5) ten-year limitation on her action does not apply because defendants Mead and Miller and their mother Carrie were nonresidents. The evidence fully supported trial court's finding that Carrie was not a resident of Iowa after some undisclosed date in the 1950's, and Mead and Miller were nonresidents of Iowa after 1937. With respect to the section 614.1(5) limitation, section 614.6 provides the period shall be computed omitting the time the defendant is a nonresident of the state. A century ago, in Gillett v. Hill, 32 Iowa 220, 223 (1871), this court held the nonresidence of a defendant would operate to defeat the bar of a statute of limitations. See also O'Dell v. Browning, 182 Iowa 223, 226, 165 N.W. 395, 396 (1917) (statute of limitations not available to nonresident defendant in quiet title action); Stern v. Selleck, 136 Iowa 291, 295, 111 N.W. 451, 452 (1907) (statute of limitations will not run during defendant's nonresidence, although defendants were in possession by tenants); Weaver v. Carpenter, 42 Iowa 343, 349 (1876) (statute will not run in favor of nonresident defendants in action to set aside deed); Heaton v. Fryberger, 38 Iowa 185, 196-97 (1874) (statute will not run during defendant's nonresidence although tenant was in possession). More recently, we stated in Jennings v. Schmitz, 237 Iowa 580, 588, 20 N.W.2d 897, 902 (1945): The fact that proceedings in rem might have been instituted against property of the [defendants] in this state does not render the saving clause found in 11013 [now section 614.6, The Code 1977] inapplicable. We have so held several times and our holdings accord with the great weight of authority. Had the legislature intended that section 11013 would not be operative where a defendant has property in this state or where a proceeding in rem might be brought, we must assume the statute would have so provided. Section 11013 contains no such exception. It is a saving clause based on nonresidence of the defendant, and not on absence of property in this state. In recent years, several states have reached the opposite position when faced with this question. See, e. g., Ridgway v. Salrin, 41 Cal.App.2d 50, 55-57, 105 P.2d 1024, 1027-28 (1940) (mortgage foreclosure); Fastenau v. Asher, 124 Colo. 161, 169, 235 P.2d 587, 592 (1951) (quiet title action); In re Estate of Patrick, 179 Kan. 507, 511-12, 297 P.2d 201, 205 (1956) (action to vitiate administrator's deed); King v. Childress, 232 Miss. 766, 773, 100 So.2d 578, 580-81 (1958) (action to cancel mineral conveyance); Brainard v. Hall, 137 Neb. 491, 494, 289 N.W. 845, 846 (1940) (statute provided that absence from state did not extend period for actions in rem); Moss v. Standard Drug Co., 159 Ohio St. 464, 470-72, 112 N.E.2d 542, 545-46 (1953) (dicta: not tolled with respect to true actions in rem); Crandall v. Irwin, 139 Ohio St. 253, 258-59, 39 N.E.2d 608, 611 (1942) (foreclosure of mechanic's lien, because action in rem); Kanuebbe v. McCuistion, 168 Okla. 165, 168, 33 P.2d 1088, 1090 (1934) (suit to recover interest in land; nonresidency bar not applicable `where relief may be given without personal service of process upon the defendant'); Akers v. Gillentine, 33 Tenn. App. 212, 217, 231 S.W.2d 372, 374 (1950) (action to set aside deed as fraudulent conveyance). See generally Annot., 119 A.L.R. 331, 332-33, 365-69 (1939). In the circumstances of this case, trial court did not apply the holding in the above Iowa cases but applied the inescapability from service test of Kokenge v. Holthaus, 243 Iowa 571, 52 N.W.2d 711 (1952). Kokenge held a nonresident defendant who was at all times subject to the jurisdiction of Iowa courts under the Iowa Nonresident Motor Service Act was not within the purview of section 614.6, and thus the limitation statute was not tolled by his nonresidency. Id. at 574, 52 N.W.2d at 712. The Kokenge court traced the applicable rationale through cases back to Penley v. Waterhouse, 1 Iowa 498 (1856), where this court, construing a section 614.6 predecessor statute in light of its object and legislative intent, held that the statute tolling the limitations provision applied only where the plaintiff's power to secure such service as would support a personal judgment against defendant was suspended by the latter's absence. The inescapability from service test was more recently reapplied in Fulmer v. Debel, 216 N.W.2d 789 (Iowa 1974). The one-count petition in this case alleges plaintiffs are entitled to an accounting in this or another action. The prayer asks for other and further equitable relief. The accounting claim is the only apparent reason plaintiff James William Biggar is a party to this action. Trial court found Mead and Miller after 1961 and Carrie for many years before had a resident agent (the Akins) managing their farm interest and making distributions of income, and concluded jurisdiction to render personal judgment against defendants could have been obtained at all times by service upon their farm agent pursuant to Iowa R.Civ.P. 56.1(g). See Goodman v. Henry L. Doherty & Co., 218 Iowa 529, 255 N.W. 667 (1934), aff'd, 294 U.S. 623, 55 S.Ct. 553, 79 L.Ed. 1097 (1935). We hold trial court was right. In this situation the most plaintiffs were entitled to from defendants Mead and Miller, under any theory, was an accounting for the profits from the controverted one-fourth interest, a decree quieting title to this interest in plaintiff Vogt, and judgment for costs. An action for such relief could have been maintained at all times, against either Carrie or Mead and Miller, by filing the same petition filed here, with service on defendants through the resident farm agent, and under Iowa R.Civ.P. 60 or its antecedent statutes. The inescapability from service test applied to negate the section 614.6 tolling statute. Vogt's action is barred by section 614.1(5) and title to the controverted one-fourth interest was properly quieted in defendants Mead and Miller. Accordingly, the judgment entered below is affirmed. AFFIRMED.