Court Opinion

ID: 9959034
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-10 16:06:09.884899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:23.744482
License: Public Domain

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

                                  No. 23-0850
                              Filed April 10, 2024

IN RE THE MARRIAGE OF CHRISTINA LYNN JENNINGS
AND WAYNE ALLEN JENNINGS

Upon the Petition of
CHRISTINA LYNN JENNINGS,
      Petitioner-Appellee,

And Concerning
WAYNE ALLEN JENNINGS,
     Respondent-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

      Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Story County, Bethany Currie,

Judge.

      A father appeals from an order modifying the physical-care placement of

one of the parties’ children to the mother’s physical care. AFFIRMED.

      Andrew B. Howie of Shindler, Anderson, Goplerud & Weese, P.C., West

Des Moines, for appellant.

      Jamie Hunter of Dickey & Campbell Law Firm, PLC, Des Moines, for

appellee.

      Considered by Schumacher, P.J., and Ahlers and Langholz, JJ.
                                          2

LANGHOLZ, Judge.

       Wayne Jennings appeals from an order granting Christina Jennings’s

petition to modify the physical-care provisions of their dissolution decree and

changing the placement of one of their children from joint physical care to

Christina’s physical care.1 Yet Wayne does not make a challenge to the merits of

the modification order. Rather, he contends only that the district court improperly

limited the evidence he could present at the one-day modification trial. And so,

Wayne asks us to reverse the district court’s order and remand for a new trial.

       But—as Christina correctly points out—Wayne did not preserve error on this

argument. He accepted the limitations during trial and made no offers of proof on

the evidence he now asserts was improperly kept out of the record. And to the

extent that he argues the error only became apparent after the district court’s

ruling, he did not bring that error to the court’s attention by moving to reconsider

or enlarge the court’s ruling under Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.904. Because

error is not preserved, we cannot consider his only argument on appeal. And given

the financial circumstances of the parties and the relative merits of the appeal, we

grant Christina’s request for $4394 in appellate attorney fees.

       I.     Error Preservation

       Before we can consider a claim of error on appeal, a party must first

preserve the error by raising it in the district court. See Meier v. Senecaut, 641

N.W.2d 532, 537 (Iowa 2002). This gives the district court a chance to correct the

error itself “at a time when corrective action can be taken.” In re Marriage of Heiar,

1 The parties’ two other children are no longer minors and thus not subject to

placement under the dissolution decree.
                                          3

954 N.W.2d 464, 470 (Iowa Ct. App. 2020) (cleaned up).                    It prevents

“sandbagging—that is, it does not allow a party to choose to remain silent in the

trial court in the face of error, take a chance on a favorable outcome, and

subsequently assert error on appeal if the outcome in the trial court is unfavorable.”

State v. Crawford, 972 N.W.2d 189, 199 (Iowa 2022) (cleaned up). And it ensures

that we are acting as a court of appeals, reviewing a decision made by the district

court rather than considering it for the first time on appeal. See Meier, 641 N.W.2d

at 537.     This error-preservation requirement applies even to dissolution

proceedings that we review de novo. See In re Marriage of Huston, 263 N.W.2d

697, 699–700 (Iowa 1978).

       Wayne’s sole argument on appeal is procedural. He argues that the district

court improperly prevented him from presenting evidence about the parties’

conduct before December 2020 and then considered some evidence that the

parties had still submitted from that earlier timeframe in its modification ruling. And

he contends this prejudiced him because he would have presented his case

differently if the district court had not limited him. But Wayne did not take the

actions in the district court that he should have to preserve error for our review.

       The issue Wayne tries to challenge arose because the district court is first

tasked in this modification proceeding with deciding whether a substantial and

material change in circumstances arose since the last modification order. See

Shepard v. Gerholdt, 60 N.W.2d 547, 549 (Iowa 1953). As the district court

explained in its ruling, “physical care was not raised as an issue since the

modification pending in 2015/2016.” But the parties kept litigating on various other

issues after that time, resulting in multiple orders, including a December 2020 order
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that adopted the parties’ stipulation, which as the court explained, “confirmed joint

legal custody and shared physical care, but those were not genuine issues raised

in those proceedings.”

       Early in the trial, the court tried to steer the parties to focus on the relevant

time frame and mistakenly thought the relevant order was the one from December

2020, stating, “I don’t even remember what the question was from a thousand

years ago, but I do know that there was a most recent stipulation in 2020, I think,

so nothing should be going before December of 2020. None of that is relevant

unless you’re just saying, hey, nothing changed.” In response, Wayne’s counsel

did not correct the court’s mistake. Instead, he reinforced it, asking “Just so there’s

some clarity for everyone involved, because it might get this case done quicker,

the court is looking at what has changed since the last court order which was in

December of 2020; is that correct?” The court agreed and Wayne then generally

proceeded through trial within that limitation.

       Wayne also highlights that the court made similar references later in trial—

including when, in response to his attempt to offer an exhibit, the court asked his

counsel, “[C]an you tell me succinctly what Exhibit O adds to this case where I’m

caring about 2020 and forward and we’ve already had this witness testify and

agree with you about what happened[?]” Again, rather than disputing the issue,

his counsel replied, “You know what, that’s a fair comment and I withdraw me

offering the tape.”   The exhibit was not admitted into evidence.          Nor was it

submitted as an offer of proof. Indeed, Wayne made no offer of proof on any of

the testimony or other evidence that he now claims he would have presented. That

failure is fatal to raising a claim on appeal that the evidence was improperly
                                          5

excluded from trial. See In re Marriage of Daniels, 568 N.W.2d 51, 55 n.2 (Iowa

Ct. App. 1997) (“[W]e recognize an offer of proof is necessary to preserve error in

the exclusion of evidence.”)

       Wayne also argues that we should reverse because the district court

recognized its mistake in its ruling “following a careful review of the court docket,”

and analyzed the facts based on any substantial change in circumstances from the

“2015/2016” modification proceeding rather than just from December 2020. The

court reasoned that “at trial both parties offered—and the Court admitted—

evidence that pre-dated the 2020 Order so the parties were allowed to fully litigate

this issue.”

       Even assuming that it was error for the court to consider a broader

timeframe than it had suggested it would at trial, Wayne failed to preserve error on

this argument too. After receiving the court’s ruling, he did not bring the alleged

error to court’s attention—or ask for the opportunity to supplement the record—by

moving to reconsider, enlarge or amend the court’s ruling. See Iowa R. Civ.

P. 1.904(2). He needed to do so to preserve error. See In re Marriage of Gensley,

777 N.W.2d 705, 718–19 (Iowa Ct. App. 2009) (holding error was not preserved

regarding issue only apparent from text of the decree after it was issued when

neither party filed rule 1.904 motion); Meier, 641 N.W.2d at 537 (“It is a

fundamental doctrine of appellate review that issues must ordinarily be both raised

and decided by the district court before we will decide them on appeal.”).

       Because error was not preserved, we do not consider the merits of Wayne’s

arguments.
                                         6

      II.    Appellate Attorney Fees

      In a dissolution modification proceeding, we “may award attorney fees to

the prevailing party in an amount deemed reasonable.” Iowa Code § 598.36

(2022). And in exercising that discretion, we consider “the parties’ respective

abilities to pay,” the extent that the party prevailed, and whether the party had to

defend the trial court’s decision on appeal. In re Marriage of Michael, 839 N.W.2d

630, 639 (Iowa 2013).

      Christina asks that we exercise our discretion to award her $4394 in

appellate attorney fees, and she submitted an affidavit of attorney fees supporting

this amount. All the factors support her request. Christina is the prevailing party.

She makes about half as much income as Wayne. She had to defend the district

court’s decision from an unpreserved challenge that should have been raised in

the district court rather than this appeal. And the amount of fees was reasonable

for a concise brief that ably pointed out the deficiencies with this appeal. We thus

grant Christina’s request and award her $4394 in appellate attorney fees.

      AFFIRMED.