Court Opinion

ID: 9860313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:17:53.553825+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:20:54.196105
License: Public Domain

NEUMAN, Justice
(dissenting in part, concurring in part).
I concur in division II of the majority opinion but must depart from division I and what I believe to be my colleagues’ misinterpretation of the operation and effect of the in rem default judgment obtained by Brenton Bank.
The majority relies on cases and authority establishing that an in rem judgment “is not sufficient to extinguish the entire indebtedness.” Strand v. Halverson, 220 Iowa 1276, 1277, 264 N.W.266, 267 (1935) (quoting 34 C.J.S. Judgments § 1183, at 768 (1924)); see also Riverview State Bank v. Dreyer, 188 Kan. 270, 273, 362 P.2d 55, 57-58 (1961); Epperson v. Halliburton Co., 434 P.2d 877, 880 (Okla.1967); 50 C.J. S. Judgments § 910(c)(2), at 553 (1947).
What the majority overlooks is the distinction to be drawn between an action commenced solely in rem for the recovery of real property (as in Strand where notice was by publication thereby precluding in personam jurisdiction) and an action commenced in personam for the full amount of the indebtedness but waiving a personal judgment and the right to claim a deficiency. It is the latter case that confronts us here.
Rather than binding the bank to the relief claimed (and waived) in its petition and subsequently recovered by way of judgment, the majority would now allow further recovery against personal property securing the same indebtedness. The sole purpose of such further action would be to reduce the very deficiency the bank waived in the first instance. I would bind the bank by its previous election and reverse.