Court Opinion

ID: 9929359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-02 15:08:36.274081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T10:07:14.976965
License: Public Domain

Nebraska Supreme Court Online Library
www.nebraska.gov/apps-courts-epub/
02/02/2024 09:08 AM CST

                                                        - 880 -
                               Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                                        315 Nebraska Reports
                                            ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                                                Cite as 315 Neb. 880

                 Michael Zeiler, appellee, v. Kenneth E. Reifschneider,
                       Trustee of the Kenneth E. Reifschneider
                               Living Trust, appellant.
                                                   ___ N.W.2d ___

                                        Filed February 2, 2024.   No. S-23-329.

                 1. Standing: Jurisdiction: Parties. Standing is a jurisdictional component
                    of a party’s case, because only a party who has standing may invoke the
                    jurisdiction of a court; determination of a jurisdictional issue which does
                    not involve a factual dispute presents a question of law.
                 2. Judgments. A judgment’s meaning is determined, as a matter of law, by
                    the contents of the judgment in question.
                 3. Judgments: Appeal and Error. An appellate court independently
                    reviews questions of law decided by a lower court.
                 4. Actions: Parties: Standing. A party has standing to invoke a court’s
                    jurisdiction if it has a legal or equitable right, title, or interest in the
                    subject matter of the controversy.

                  Appeal from the District Court for Scotts Bluff County: Leo
               P. Dobrovolny, Judge. Vacated and dismissed.
                 Steven W. Olsen and Adam A. Hoesing, of Simmons Olsen
               Law Firm, P.C., L.L.O., for appellant.
                    Tylor J. Petitt, of Shapiro Riha Law, L.L.P., for appellee.
                 Heavican, C.J., Miller-Lerman, Cassel, Stacy, Funke,
               Papik, and Freudenberg, JJ.
                  Papik, J.
                  For over three decades, two Scotts Bluff County fami-
               lies, the Zeilers and the Reifschneiders, have disputed their
                             - 881 -
         Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                  315 Nebraska Reports
                    ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                        Cite as 315 Neb. 880

respective rights to divert water from neighboring tracts of
farmland. In the latest chapter of the saga, Michael Zeiler
filed a contempt action against Kenneth E. Reifschneider on
the theory that Reifschneider had willfully violated a con-
sent judgment that was entered in 1988 in a lawsuit involv-
ing Reifschneider and Zeiler’s father. After a bench trial,
the district court concluded that Reifschneider had willfully
violated the consent judgment by raising the elevation level
along the boundary line of his property, causing water to pool
on the neighboring land farmed by Zeiler. In this appeal filed
by Reifschneider, we conclude that the consent judgment
conferred no obligations on Reifschneider and thus, Zeiler
lacked standing to pursue the contempt action. Accordingly,
we vacate the judgment that found Reifschneider in contempt
and dismiss the appeal.
                        BACKGROUND
Parties and Properties.
   This dispute concerns neighboring tracts of farmland in
Scotts Bluff County that share a boundary line running east and
west. At all relevant times, the Zeiler family leased and farmed
the northern tract (the Zeiler property) and the Reifschneider
family owned the southern tract (the Reifschneider property).
   Members of the Zeiler family have leased the Zeiler prop-
erty from another family for over a century. The property was
leased on an annual basis under oral crop-share agreements.
In the 1980s, the Zeiler property was leased and farmed by
Zeiler’s father. Sometime between now and then, it came to be
leased and farmed by Zeiler.
   Reifschneider farmed the Reifschneider property for a
number of years after purchasing the land from his father.
In the 1980s, Reifschneider’s son farmed the land with
Reifschneider. In the 1990s, Reifschneider began leasing the
Reifschneider property to tenants, who then farmed the land.
At some point, the Reifschneider property was placed in a
trust. Reifschneider is the trustee of that trust, and his son is
the successor trustee.
                             - 882 -
         Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                  315 Nebraska Reports
                    ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                        Cite as 315 Neb. 880

   Because the land in the area slopes from north to south,
surface water tends to flow from the Zeiler property toward the
Reifschneider property.

Consent Judgment.
   In 1988, the district court entered a consent judgment in a
lawsuit involving Zeiler’s father and Reifschneider. The lawsuit
was filed by Reifschneider, his wife, and two other individu-
als with the same surname, although the record in this appeal
does not explain their exact relationship to Reifschneider or the
Reifschneider property. The sole defendant in the lawsuit was
Zeiler’s father, who, at that time, was leasing and farming the
Zeiler property.
   The parties take somewhat different positions as to what
prompted the litigation that culminated in the consent judg-
ment. There is no dispute, however, as to what the consent
judgment provides. In the consent judgment, the district court
ordered as follows:
         1. By April 15, 1988, Defendant Zeiler shall remove
      the dike located [on the properties’ boundary line] and
      level the area to a uniform elevation of 39.5 as refer-
      enced in [an attached document] to allow for the drain-
      age of surface waters in a diffused manner in which they
      are normally wont to flow from [the Zeiler property]
      to the [Reifschneider property]. Defendant Zeiler shall
      make no other alterations in the drainage patterns on [the
      Zeiler property] which change the flow patterns or which
      increase the volume or velocity of surface waters to the
      extent that such changes or increases would be injurious
      to Plaintiffs Reifschneider.
         2. Defendant Zeiler shall, in no event, permit any
      waste or run-off irrigation water to drain onto Plaintiffs
      Reifschneiders’ lands.
         3. Nothing herein shall prohibit Defendant Zeiler
      from erecting and maintaining a dike along the
      Eastern boundary of [the Zeiler property], nor shall
                             - 883 -
         Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                  315 Nebraska Reports
                    ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                        Cite as 315 Neb. 880

     Plaintiffs Reifschneider be prohibited from erecting
     on [the Reifschneider property] any drainage improve-
     ments, including dikes; provided that any such altera-
     tions or improvements by Defendant Zeiler or Plaintiffs
     Reifschneider shall not otherwise be prohibited by law.
        4. All claims for damages raised in the pleadings herein
     are hereby dismissed with prejudice.
        5. Each party to this action shall bear their own costs
     and a complete record is hereby waived.
        6. This agreement shall be binding upon the parties and
     [the owner of the Zeiler property], and their respective
     heirs and assigns.
        IT IS SO ORDERED.

Actions of Parties Following
Consent Judgment.
   After the consent judgment was entered, Zeiler’s father
removed the dike and leveled the boundary line between the
properties as specified by the consent judgment. Sometime
later, the Reifschneiders began to move dirt just south of the
boundary line, constructing what the parties have referred to
alternatively as a “dike,” “berm,” or “road” along the boundary
of the two properties.
   According to Zeiler, rainwater would back up against the
structure the Reifschneiders erected and flood back on the Zeiler
property. Displeased with this development, Zeiler used heavy
equipment to make indentations or cuts in the structure the
Reifschneiders had built. This, according to the Reifschneiders,
caused water to flow on the Reifschneider property in an
uneven fashion, and so the Reifschneiders continued this back-
and-forth by building up the structure along the boundary
line even more. According to Zeiler, the structure eventually
became so substantial that he could no longer cut through it.
Zeiler contends that the structure continues to cause rainwater
to pool on his property and damage his crops.
                              - 884 -
          Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                   315 Nebraska Reports
                     ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                         Cite as 315 Neb. 880

Contempt Action in District Court.
   In 2018, Zeiler filed this contempt action in district court.
He named Reifschneider as the defendant in his capacity as
the trustee of the Kenneth E. Reifschneider Living Trust.
Zeiler alleged that Reifschneider had willfully violated the
consent judgment by building up the structure along the prop-
erties’ boundary line. The district court held a bench trial,
after which it first entered an order concluding that Zeiler
had standing and subsequently entered a judgment styled as
a “Journal Entry/Order” finding that Reifschneider had will-
fully violated the consent judgment.
   In its order concerning standing, the district court reasoned
that Zeiler, as the lessee of land adversely affected by the struc-
ture erected by the Reifschneiders, had a sufficient interest to
confer standing. The district court did not expressly consider
whether the fact that Zeiler was not a party to the litigation in
which the consent judgment was entered had bearing on his
standing to sue for contempt.
   In its judgment finding Reifschneider in contempt, the
district court concluded that the consent judgment imposed
obligations on both Zeiler and Reifschneider. It concluded
that the consent judgment imposed an obligation on both par-
ties “not to interrupt the free flow of diffused surface waters
across the boundary.” The district court also reasoned that
“[i]t would be an absurd interpretation” of the consent judg-
ment “to bar [Zeiler] from altering the elevation above [the
specified level], yet allow [Reifschneider to] raise the eleva-
tion above [the specified level], when the clear purpose of the
[consent judgment] was to keep the water moving through this
area in a diffused manner.” The district court concluded that
Reifschneider willfully violated these requirements by build-
ing the structure along the boundary.
   As a remedy for Reifschneider’s contempt, the district
court ordered Reifschneider to remove any structures along
the boundary that were higher than the elevation specified in
the consent judgment by a specified date. The district court
                              - 885 -
          Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                   315 Nebraska Reports
                     ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                         Cite as 315 Neb. 880

added that Reifschneider would be assessed a fine of $500 for
every day he failed to comply with the district court’s remedy.
  Reifschneider filed a timely appeal.
                  ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
   Reifschneider assigns three errors. We paraphrase those
assignments as follows: The district court erred (1) by finding
that Zeiler had standing, (2) by finding that Reifschneider will-
fully violated the consent judgment, and (3) by failing to limit
itself to the four corners of the consent judgment in determin-
ing its meaning.
                  STANDARD OF REVIEW
   [1] Standing is a jurisdictional component of a party’s
case, because only a party who has standing may invoke the
jurisdiction of a court; determination of a jurisdictional issue
which does not involve a factual dispute presents a question
of law. In re Application A-19594, ante p. 311, 995 N.W.2d
655 (2023).
   [2] A judgment’s meaning is determined, as a matter of law,
by the contents of the judgment in question. Ramaekers v.
Creighton University, 312 Neb. 248, 978 N.W.2d 298 (2022).
   [3] An appellate court independently reviews questions of
law decided by a lower court. Noland v. Yost, ante p. 568, 998
N.W.2d 57 (2023).
                           ANALYSIS
   [4] We begin our analysis, as we must, with the juris-
dictional question of whether Zeiler had standing to seek
to hold Reifschneider in contempt for violating the consent
judgment. Generally, a party has standing to invoke a court’s
jurisdiction if it has a legal or equitable right, title, or inter-
est in the subject matter of the controversy. In re Application
A-19594, supra.
   The district court appeared to conclude that because Zeiler
would benefit from an order requiring Reifschneider to lower
the elevation at the properties’ boundary line, he had the
                            - 886 -
         Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                  315 Nebraska Reports
                   ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                       Cite as 315 Neb. 880

requisite legal or equitable interest in the matter to have
standing. But the district court did not consider that Zeiler
sought to have Reifschneider held in contempt for violating
a consent judgment from a case in which Zeiler was not a
party. We have previously explained that an action for civil
contempt is “instituted to preserve and enforce the rights of
private parties to suits, and to compel obedience to orders
and decrees made to enforce the rights and administer the
remedies to which the court has found them to be entitled.”
McFarland v. State, 165 Neb. 487, 491, 86 N.W.2d 182, 185
(1957). Because Zeiler was not a party to the suit in which the
consent judgment was entered, it is not immediately apparent
that he has rights or interests in the consent judgment that
would be subject to protection in a contempt proceeding.
   In response to the foregoing, Zeiler points to paragraph 6
of the consent judgment and its language providing that the
consent judgment shall be binding upon the parties and “their
respective heirs and assigns.” Zeiler appears to contend that
this language extends all the benefits and obligations of the
consent judgment to the original parties’ “respective heirs and
assigns.” And, according to Zeiler, because his father was a
party to the consent judgment, he qualifies as one of the par-
ties’ “heirs.” On this basis, Zeiler understands himself to be
an intended beneficiary of the consent judgment and entitled
to enforce it via contempt.
   A number of courts have recognized that intended third-
party beneficiaries of consent judgments and consent decrees
have standing to enforce them. See, e.g., Pure Country, Inc.
v. Sigma Chi Fraternity, 312 F.3d 952, 958 (8th Cir. 2002);
Beckett v. Air Line Pilots Ass’n, 995 F.2d 280 (D.C. Cir.
1993). This rule is based on the quasi-contractual nature of
consent judgments and consent decrees, and the “fundamental
principle of contract law that parties to a contract may cre-
ate enforceable contract rights in a third party beneficiary.”
Beckett, supra, 995 F.2d at 286. See Hook v. State of Ariz.
Dept. of Corrections, 972 F.2d 1012, 1014 (9th Cir. 1992)
                             - 887 -
         Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                  315 Nebraska Reports
                    ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                        Cite as 315 Neb. 880

(“enforcement of consent decrees is governed by the estab-
lished contract principle that non-parties as intended third
party beneficiaries, may enforce an agreement”). See, also,
McArthur v. Thompson, 140 Neb. 408, 419, 299 N.W.2d 519,
524 (1941) (characterizing consent decree as “in the nature of
a solemn contract”).
   Accordingly, to assess whether Zeiler has standing to pur-
sue this contempt action, we find it appropriate to consider
whether Zeiler was an intended beneficiary of the consent
judgment. We have said that to enforce a contract as a third-
party beneficiary, “it must appear by express stipulation or
by reasonable intendment that the rights and interest of such
unnamed parties were contemplated and that provision was
being made for them.” See Podraza v. New Century Physicians
of Neb., 280 Neb. 678, 686, 789 N.W.2d 260, 267 (2010).
   As we turn to consider whether the consent judgment can
be interpreted to make Zeiler a third-party beneficiary, we
could begin our analysis by focusing on paragraph 6 of the
consent judgment; Reifschneider disagrees that Zeiler, as a
mere lessee of the property, qualifies as an “heir.” Ultimately,
however, we find it unnecessary to consider the parties’
respective interpretations of paragraph 6. We believe there is
a more fundamental barrier to any contention that Zeiler is an
intended beneficiary of the consent judgment: Unlike Zeiler
and the district court, we do not interpret the consent judg-
ment to impose any enforceable obligations on Reifschneider.
We explain our reasoning below.
   Zeiler reads paragraphs 1 and 3 of the consent judgment
to impose obligations on Reifschneider. Zeiler points to lan-
guage at the end of the first sentence of paragraph 1 and
contends that it prohibits Reifschneider from taking any action
that would prevent “the drainage of surface waters in a dif-
fused manner in which they are normally wont to flow”
from the Zeiler property to the Reifschneider property. Zeiler,
however, fails to read the entire sentence in which that lan-
guage appears. As quoted above, paragraph 1 of the consent
                             - 888 -
         Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                  315 Nebraska Reports
                    ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                        Cite as 315 Neb. 880

judgment required Zeiler’s father to remove the dike “to allow
for the drainage of surface waters in a diffused manner in
which they are normally wont to flow.” No language in para-
graph 1 requires Reifschneider to do anything or prohibits him
from doing anything.
   Zeiler also reads isolated language in paragraph 3 of the
consent judgment to impose obligations on Reifschneider.
Here, Zeiler points to the language at the end of that para-
graph that states that “any such alterations or improvements
by Defendant Zeiler or Plaintiffs Reifschneider shall not
otherwise be prohibited by law.” He argues that this lan-
guage prohibits Reifschneider from making any alteration or
improvement along the boundary line that would be unlawful.
Again, however, the language must be read in the context of
the entire paragraph. Paragraph 3 provides that the consent
judgment should not be read to prohibit the Reifschneiders or
Zeiler from taking certain, specified actions so long as those
actions are not “prohibited by law.” The language at the end
of paragraph 3 thus defines the scope of what Zeiler and the
Reifschneiders were expressly permitted to do; it does not
impose an enforceable obligation itself.
   Our decision to interpret the judgment in this manner is
informed by the language of paragraph 3, but also the general
recognition that it is inappropriate for a judgment or decree
to do nothing more than enjoin a party to follow the law. See,
e.g., Lineback v. Spurlino Materials, LLC, 546 F.3d 491, 504
(7th Cir. 2008) (“[i]njunctions that merely instruct the enjoined
party not to violate a statute generally are overbroad, increas-
ing the likelihood of unwarranted contempt proceedings for
acts unlike or unrelated to those originally judged unlawful”)
(internal quotation marks omitted); Elend v. Basham, 471 F.3d
1199, 1209 (11th Cir. 2006) (“[i]t is well-established in this
circuit that an injunction demanding that a party do nothing
more specific than ‘obey the law’ is impermissible”); Daniels
v. Woodbury County, Iowa, 742 F.2d 1128, 1134 (8th Cir.
1984) (“an injunction which does little or nothing more than
                             - 889 -
         Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                  315 Nebraska Reports
                    ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                        Cite as 315 Neb. 880

order the defendants to obey the law is not specific enough”);
Davison v. Plowman, 247 F. Supp. 3d 767, 783 (E.D. Va.
2017) (“injunctions that simply require their subjects to fol-
low the law are generally overbroad”). See, also, Brady v.
State, 965 P.2d 1, 17 (Alaska 1998) (observing, in response to
request for injunction ordering party to follow law, that party
“is already obliged to do so”).
   Unable to find that the language of the consent judgment
imposed obligations on Reifschneider, we next address the
district court’s finding of obligations based on its under-
standing of the consent judgment’s purposes. Recall that the
district court found that the purpose of the consent judgment
was to allow water to move from the Zeiler property to the
Reifschneider property in a diffused manner and that it would
be “an absurd interpretation” of the consent judgment if Zeiler
were prohibited from raising the elevation of the boundary
line above the specified level but Reifschneider was not. We
cannot endorse the district court’s reasoning.
   First of all, to the extent the district court concluded that
Reifschneider was bound to comply with unstated purposes
of the consent judgment, as opposed to obligations set forth
expressly, that runs counter to how we have said judgments
should be interpreted. We have said that unless the language
used in a judgment is ambiguous, the effect of the judgment
must be declared in the light of the literal meaning of the lan-
guage used. Ramaekers v. Creighton University, 312 Neb. 248,
978 N.W.2d 298 (2022). The district court did not identify any
language in the consent judgment that was ambiguous, and
neither can we identify any such language. There is thus no
basis for considering anything other than the literal meaning
of the consent judgment’s language.
   The fact that this was a consent judgment also, in our
view, undercuts the district court’s conclusion that it would
be absurd to interpret the consent judgment to impose obli-
gations on Zeiler’s father, but not on Reifschneider. Several
decades ago, the U.S. Supreme Court cautioned against
                             - 890 -
         Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                  315 Nebraska Reports
                    ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                        Cite as 315 Neb. 880

attempts to identify the purported purposes of consent decrees
and explained that consent decrees must be understood as
the product of compromise. The following quote is lengthy,
but because we believe it makes important observations, we
reprint it in full:
         Consent decrees are entered into by parties to a case
     after careful negotiation has produced agreement on
     their precise terms. The parties waive their right to liti-
     gate the issues involved in the case and thus save them-
     selves the time, expense, and inevitable risk of litigation.
     Naturally, the agreement reached normally embodies
     a compromise; in exchange for the saving of cost and
     elimination of risk, the parties each give up something
     they might have won had they proceeded with the
     litigation. Thus the decree itself cannot be said to have
     a purpose; rather the parties have purposes, generally
     opposed to each other, and the resultant decree embod-
     ies as much of those opposing purposes as the respective
     parties have the bargaining power and skill to achieve.
     For these reasons, the scope of a consent decree must be
     discerned within its four corners, and not by reference
     to what might satisfy the purposes of one of the parties
     to it.
United States v. Armour & Co., 402 U.S. 673, 681-82, 91 S. Ct.
1752, 29 L. Ed. 2d 256 (1971) (emphasis omitted).
   When the consent judgment in this case is properly under-
stood as a compromise conclusion to the earlier litigation
between the Reifschneider parties and Zeiler’s father, it is
not surprising, much less absurd, that the consent judgment
would impose obligations on Zeiler’s father, but not on the
Reifschneiders. The Reifschneider parties were the plaintiffs
in the lawsuit that ended with the consent judgment, and the
consent judgment resulted in the dismissal of that lawsuit.
Lawsuits often conclude with the defendant providing con-
sideration in exchange for nothing more than the plaintiff’s
dismissal of suit.
                             - 891 -
         Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
                  315 Nebraska Reports
                    ZEILER V. REIFSCHNEIDER
                        Cite as 315 Neb. 880

   We are aware that our conclusion that the consent judg-
ment did not impose obligations on Reifschneider overlaps
to some degree with the merits of Zeiler’s contempt action.
We find, however, that this is an instance in which the mer-
its and standing overlap. See, e.g., Hall v. Associated Intern.
Ins. Co., No. 11-CV-4013-JTM/DJW, 2011 WL 3299104 at
*3 (D. Kan. Aug. 1, 2011) (“when a plaintiff pursues a third-
party beneficiary claim, his standing, as well as his claim,
are dependent upon a showing that a certain provision of the
contract operated to his benefit”). Because we do not interpret
the consent judgment to impose any enforceable obligations
on Reifschneider, we see no way to conclude that Zeiler is an
intended beneficiary of the consent judgment. And if Zeiler is
neither a party to nor an intended beneficiary of the consent
judgment, we discern no basis to determine that he had stand-
ing to pursue the contempt action.
   Because Zeiler lacked standing to pursue the contempt
action, the district court lacked jurisdiction to consider it and
we must vacate its judgment that held Reifschneider in con-
tempt. We caution that our decision determines only that Zeiler
lacks standing to pursue a contempt action; we make no evalu-
ation of whether Zeiler would have standing, or could obtain
relief against Reifschneider, via a different legal theory.
                         CONCLUSION
  Because we find that Zeiler lacked standing to pursue this
contempt action, we vacate the judgment of contempt entered
by the district court and dismiss the appeal.
                                      Vacated and dismissed.