Opinion ID: 2080633
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Was the City's Cross-Petition Substantively Adequate?

Text: The district court found the city's cross-petition substantively inadequate without considering the allegations of the city's amended cross-petition. In determining whether the city's pleadings were adequate we must first review the district court's order denying permission to amend. The motion to amend was filed immediately after the McDougalls filed their motion to dismiss; the motions were argued together and ruled on in consecutive paragraphs of the same order. After sustaining the McDougalls' motion to dismiss, the district court said: By prior Order, the Court has already dismissed the Cross Appeal. The Motion to Amend Petition refers to that Cross Appeal. Section 472.22, The Code, requires that following notice of appeal a written petition shall be filed within 20 days after perfection of the appeal. Said section allows the Court to for good cause grant additional time for filing of the petition. No such action was ever taken by the City here. Therefore, their attempt to cross appeal against the McDougalls based on the allegations previously referred to herein are untimely and therefore the Court denied the Motion to Amend Petition.
A party may amend the pleading once as a matter of course at any time before a responsive pleading is served or, if the pleading is one to which no responsive pleading is required and the action has not been placed upon the trial calendar, the party may so amend it at any time within twenty days after it is served. Otherwise, a party may amend the pleading only by leave of court or by written consent of the adverse party. Leave to amend, including leave to amend to conform to the proof, shall be freely given when justice so requires. Allowance or disallowance of amendments is also a matter for the exercise of trial court discretion. Ackerman v. Lauver, 242 N.W.2d 342, 345 (Iowa 1976). The discretion is a legal discretion, to be exercised by applying rule 88 in the light of all the circumstances of the case. Johnston v. Percy Construction, Inc., 258 N.W.2d 366, 371 (Iowa 1977) ([T]he bounds of fair discretion are exceeded if the ruling lacks a sound legal basis.); Lawyer v. Stansell, 217 Iowa 111, 117, 250 N.W. 887, 889 (1933). We have also frequently held that allowance of amendments should be the rule and denial the exception. See, e.g., Ackerman v. Lauver, 242 N.W.2d at 345; Atlantic Veneer Corp. v. Sears, 232 N.W.2d 499, 503 (Iowa 1975). Under all of the circumstances of this case the district court should have granted the city's motion to amend. The circumstances did not support a denial of that motion. In its orders the court suggested that the city should have filed a separate direct appeal and petition rather than its cross-appeal and cross-petition. Section 472.21, however, expressly recognizes that a single docketed case may involve appeals of more than one party; consequently cross appeals and cross petitions among parties to a condemnation action are permissible. The district court's orders also suggest that the city's pleadings were not timely and that the city should have requested additional time to file a petition. To the contrary, both the cross-petition and motion to amend that pleading were filed within 20 days after perfection of its appeal, as required by section 472.22. We add that rule 88 permits an amendment as a matter of right when no responsive pleading has been filed. Even though several other parties had filed answers to the city's cross-petition, the McDougalls had not answered when the city filed its motion to amend. Consequently the court should have recognized that rule 88 gave the city the right to amend its cross-petition against the McDougalls, if not against other parties. The district court could properly have considered whether the proposed amendment would have so changed the issues as to surprise any party or cause prejudice. See Moser v. Thorp Sales Corp., 312 N.W.2d 881, 896 (Iowa 1981); Johnston v. Percy Construction Inc., 258 N.W.2d at 371. No party other than the McDougalls, however, objected to the amendment and no party demonstrated surprise or prejudice. The amendment did not substantially change the issues, because the only issue permitted in this condemnation appeal would be the ascertainment of damages to each party with an interest in the property taken by the city. Iowa Code § 472.23 (1981); See Stellingwerf v. Lenihan, 249 Iowa 179, 183, 85 N.W.2d 912, 915 (1957). The city's proposed amendment to its cross-petition clarified its theory of why the McDougalls' award should be reduced but made no other change in the issues before the court. For these reasons the district court should have granted the city's motion to amend and then considered the allegations of the proposed amended cross-petition in ruling on the McDougalls' motion to dismiss. B. The Motion to Dismiss. The district court sustained the McDougalls' motion to dismiss on the authority of Fritz v. Iowa State Highway Commission, 270 N.W.2d 835, 843 (1978), which held that a landlord and tenant are each entitled to have the damages to their separate interests separately ascertained. The city's proposed amendment, which the district court should have allowed, cured that defect in the substantive allegations of the original cross-petition. The pleading as amended would not predicate a reduction of McDougalls' award on an increase in the amount which the tenants would recover. Consequently the district court erred both in denying the city's motion to amend and in finding the city's pleadings inadequate. Because the city's amendment should have been allowed, and because its appeal should not have been dismissed, we need not address the city's contention that the district court erred in denying the city's request for additional time to file a petition. REVERSED AND REMANDED.