Opinion ID: 2217799
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Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Error in overruling Motion for Summary Judgment.

Text: Rule 238, R.C.P., provides Plaintiff making a claim described in rule 237 may file a motion for summary judgment thereon at any time after defendant appears,   . Judgment shall be entered as prayed in the motion unless within ten days after it is filed, or such other time as the court may, for good cause, allow, the defendant resists it with affidavits showing facts which the court deems sufficient to permit him to defend.    The court may, on plaintiff's motion, strike any affidavits filed by defendant which it finds insufficient, frivolous or made only for delay. In the instant case, plaintiff filed two affidavitsOn July 15, 1959, and within the time as agreed upon by counsel, an affidavit was filed by Francis Fitzgibbons, plaintiff's counsel. A motion to strike was filed, but no ruling appears to have been made thereon. More than a year later Plaintiff herself, filed an affidavit, the sufficiency of which is not questioned. A motion to strike, as being filed too late, was filed which was overruled and Motion for a summary judgment denied. We have not heretofore been called upon to determine the force and effect of the clause in Rule 238 to the effect that unless within ten days    defendant resists it with affidavits. We do not think we are so confronted now. The record clearly shows that at the time the plaintiff's affidavit was filed, concededly not within the ten day period, there was on file the Fitzgibbon's Affidavit and thus there was no default or failure to resist as prescribed by the Rule. If the Fitzgibbons Affidavit complied with the requirements of the Rule, the Plaintiff's Affidavit was mere surplusage. We think under any fair consideration of the Fitzgibbons Affidavit, defendants were not entitled to a Summary Judgment. This Affidavit states the oral agreement, relied upon by defendants, did not exist, together with other stated defenses such as Statute of Frauds and res adjudicata. Certainly, the existence of a factual situation, which can only be determined after a trial on the merits, is revealed. See Eaton v. Downey, 254 Iowa ___, 118 N.W. 2d 583. We find no error in denying a summary judgment.