Court Opinion

ID: 9595524
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:41:19.233985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:01:28.106404
License: Public Domain

*371TERNUS, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent because I believe the majority has misinterpreted Iowa Code section 598.28. That statute provides:
A petition shall be filed in separate maintenance and annulment actions as in actions for dissolution of marriage, and all applicable provisions of this chapter in relation thereto shall apply to separate maintenance and annulment actions.
Iowa Code § 598.28 (emphasis added). The determinative issue in this case is whether the emphasized language has the effect of making section 598.20, providing for the forfeiture of marital rights upon a dissolution of marriage, applicable to separate maintenance actions. Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, I think it does.
The majority interprets section 598.28 to make applicable to separate maintenance actions any procedural provision of that chapter governing dissolution actions. I think the language of section 598.28 indicates a much broader scope, an interpretation supported by our case law.
Nearly identical statutory language was at issue in Ricard v. Ricard, 143 Iowa 182, 121 N.W. 525 (1909). In that case, the husband had filed a petition seeking annulment of his marriage on the basis that his wife was already married to a gentleman by the name of “Count Predosa.” Ricard, 143 Iowa at 183, 121 N.W. at 525. His wife sought alimony. Id. The court stated “the statute does not make specific provision for alimony in cases of this kind.” Id. (noting the only provision for alimony in annulment cases was for “the innocent party,” a status not enjoyed by Mrs. Ri-card). Nonetheless, the court relied on the predecessor to section 598.28, Iowa Code section 3183 (1897), as authorizing the court to award alimony in annulment cases pursuant to the statute allowing alimony in divorce cases. Ricard, 143 Iowa at 183-84, 121 N.W. at 525. The court quoted section 3183, which provided:
A petition shall be filed in such cases [annulment] as in actions for divorce, and all the provisions of this chapter in relation thereto shall apply to such cases, except as otherwise provided.
Iowa Code § 3183 (1897) (emphasis added). Noting that there was provision made in the law “for the allowance of alimony in the case of divorce,” our court concluded:
[I]f the section of the statute which we have set out above [section 3183] is to be given any force or effect at all, it must be held that alimony may be awarded in proper cases brought to annul a marriage alleged to be illegal.
Ricard, 143 Iowa at 184, 121 N.W. at 525.
Contrary to the limited scope given the present-day statute by the majority, this court clearly interpreted the predecessor statute to make substantive provisions of chapter 598 that apply to dissolution actions equally applicable to annulment actions. I think the language of section 598.28 calls for a similar interpretation. There is simply nothing in the statute itself that supports its restriction to procedural matters only.
The language “all applicable provisions of this chapter in relation thereto ” refers to the prior words, “actions for dissolution of marriage.” Thus, the language “all applicable provisions of this chapter in relation thereto” encompasses the provisions of chapter 598 that apply to “actions for dissolution of marriage.” When this concept is substituted for the language, “all applicable provisions of this chapter in relation thereto,” the statute would read: all provisions of chapter 598 that apply to actions for dissolution of marriage “shall apply to separate maintenance ... ac*372tions.” See Ricard, 143 Iowa at 184, 121 N.W. at 525 (interpreting nearly identical predecessor statute in this fashion).
Section 598.28 just cannot mean, as the majority asserts, that only 'procedural provisions of chapter 598 that apply to dissolution actions “shall apply to separate maintenance ... actions.” Such a narrow interpretation of the statute is simply not supported by the words chosen by the legislature. Like it or not, section 598.28 makes section 598.20 applicable to separate maintenance actions because section 598.20is “[an] applicable provision[ ] of this chapter in relation [to actions for dissolution of marriage],” which, by the express terms of section 598.28, “shall apply to separate maintenance ... actions.”
The simple fact that section 598.20 refers only to dissolution actions is no support for the majority’s position. If the disputed language of section 598.28 is to have any meaning, it must make applicable to separate maintenance actions provisions of chapter 598 that, by their express terms, do not otherwise apply to separate maintenance actions. Thus, the mere fact that section 598.20 refers only to dissolution actions does not prevent section 598.28 from expanding the scope of section 598.20to include separate maintenance actions. That is exactly what this court did in Ricard in applying a statute allowing alimony in divorce cases to annulment actions.
Although there may be provisions of chapter 598 governing dissolution that so clearly conflict with express requirements for separate maintenance actions that a choice must be made as to which statute prevails, such a conflict can be resolved by application of legal principles addressing the resolution of such conflicts. See Iowa Code § 4.7 (providing that a special statute prevails over a more general provision). In the present case, though, there is nothing inconsistent in applying section 598.20to separate maintenance actions. See Boyd v. Boyd, 58 Ill.App.2d 1, 207 N.E.2d 350, 355 (1965) (holding, in absence of statute requiring this result, that where the court awarded separate maintenance and divided the parties’ property, “[t]he decree ha[d] the effect of destroying the inchoate dower interest of [the husband] in that property”). See generally Ricard, 143 Iowa at 184, 121 N.W. at 525-26 (discussing soundness of applying divorce alimony statute to annulment action). Under section 598.21, property of the parties in a separate maintenance action is divided by the court and awarded to the parties in the same manner followed in dissolution actions and using the same criteria applied in dissolution actions. See Iowa Code § 598.21 (providing for division of property in annulment, separate maintenance and dissolution proceedings). It is entirely consistent, then, to treat the property rights of one party upon the death of the other party the same in separate maintenance actions as in dissolution actions. That is what section 598.28 requires.
As the majority notes, prior to the adoption of chapter 598, a cause of action for separate maintenance was not statutory. See In re Marriage of Kurtz, 199 N.W.2d 312, 314 (Iowa 1972). Under the common law, a court entertaining a suit for separate maintenance had no authority to divide the parties’ property or otherwise adjudicate their property rights. See 41 Am. Jur.2d Husband and Wife § 211, at 141 (1995). Thus, when Iowa incorporated separate maintenance actions into chapter 598, it expanded the scope of such actions to allow adjudication of property rights, just as in dissolution actions. Applying section 598.20, then, is consistent with the statutory separate maintenance action in Iowa, which permits the court in a separate maintenance action to decide the iden*373tical property issues that are adjudicated in dissolution actions. Section 598.28 and section 598.20 have the effect of simply making any division of property by the court final and not subject to redistribution to the other party under the probate code, an eminently reasonable and fair result.
I would affirm.
LAVORATO, C.J. and CADY, J„ join in this dissent.