Opinion ID: 2042539
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Whether the Sale of the Property Deprived Plaintiffs of any Right to Seek Damages Based on the Construction of the Median.

Text: We first consider IDOT's contention that plaintiffs are not the proper parties to assert a claim based on the median agreement. It argues that, in selling the property and business to the Joneses, plaintiffs divested themselves of all interest in the property other than a security interest. From this premise, it urges that plaintiffs had no interest in the mobile home sales business at the time the alleged breach of contract occurred. In attempting to illustrate this contention, IDOT suggests that, had the installment sales contract gone as scheduled, plaintiffs could not possibly complain about the construction of the median. Our first reaction to IDOT's argument is to observe that plaintiffs' sales contract with the Joneses did not go as scheduled. Plaintiffs and the Joneses have attributed this circumstance to the effect which the six-inch median strip had on access to the mobile home sales lot. IDOT strongly disputes that the median strip was the sole reason for the Joneses' default. In resolving IDOT's challenge to plaintiffs' standing to sue, we do not believe that the reason for the Joneses' default is controlling. The significant circumstance in plaintiffs' right to sue on the contract is that they did reacquire both the property and the business and thereafter their use of the property was adversely affected by the six-inch median. We fail to see why under these circumstances plaintiffs should not be permitted to recover for breach of an agreement which was made for their benefit. See Becker v. Central States Health & Life Co., 431 N.W.2d 354, 357 (Iowa 1988); Zimmerman v. Kile, 410 N.W.2d 262, 264-65 (Iowa 1987); Linnemann v. Kirchner, 189 Iowa 336, 339, 178 N.W. 899, 900 (1920). Plaintiffs' right to enforce this agreement should logically exist at any time that their interest under the agreement and their interest in the property affected by the agreement coincide. Whether the Joneses ever had any basis for relying on the Jordan-IDOT agreement is not an issue in the present case. Their right to do so, if it did exist, could only be based on an equitable assignment of plaintiffs' contractual rights against IDOT. Because no actual assignment of those rights took place, this could only have occurred as an incident of the sale of the property. We believe that, if any rights under the Jordan-IDOT agreement temporarily inured to the Joneses, those rights were restored to plaintiffs as a result of the forfeiture. IDOT's reliance on Farmers & Merchants Savings Bank v. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co., 405 N.W.2d 834 (Iowa 1987), and Risken v. Clayman, 398 N.W.2d 833 (Iowa 1987), is misplaced. The contractual interest which was extinguished in those cases by reason of the vendor's forfeiture was narrowly related to the purchase price. In the present case, plaintiffs' contractual interest relates to the use of the property both before and after the aborted sale to the Joneses.