Court Opinion

ID: 9737997
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:39:54.201097+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:02.683373
License: Public Domain

REES, Justice
(dissenting).
I am unable to agree with the majority in this case and respectfully dissent.
The salient facts of this case are worth repeating. Plaintiff brought an action to quiet title to certain real estate located in the town of Hills Siding in Johnson County by its petition filed July 28,1971. The deed conveying title to plaintiff’s grantors and immediate predecessors in title, executed and delivered in 1898, contained the following provision:
“It is further agreed that if said church building is not erected on said premises within two years from No. 1st, 1898, or if erected and services shall be permanently discontinued, then said premises shall revert to the grantors or their heirs and assigns.”
Defendants are heirs of plaintiff’s grantors and owners of the future interest created by the 1898 deed. They contested plaintiff’s quiet title action on grounds they have an immediate possessory interest in the property subject of the 1898 deed because the condition in that deed was breached sometime after July 4, 1965. Plaintiff contends any interest defendants may have acquired in the property by virtue of the 1898 deed was extinguished when defendants failed to file a claim within one year after July 4, 1965 as required by § 614.24, The Code. Defendants admit they failed to file a claim pursuant to said section, but argue the statute is unconstitutional and ineffective to deprive them of their interest in the property.
I. The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides:
“(N)o State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law . . . .”
Section 9, Article I, of the Iowa State Constitution similarly provides:
“ . . (N)o person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
The majority characterizes the interest created by the quoted provision of the 1898 deed as a “possibility of reverter”. That interest descended to defendants here as heirs of plaintiff’s grantors.
Under Iowa law a possibility of reverter is both inheritable and alienable. Jacobs v. Miller, 253 Iowa 213, 111 N.W.2d 673, 675; Reichard v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 231 Iowa 563, 1 N.W.2d 721. Cf. Trustees of Schools of Township No. 1 v. Batdorf, 6 Ill.2d 486, 130 N.E.2d 111. Having such characteristics, a possibility of reverter must be considered a species of property. Persons such as these defendants who possess a possibility of reverter are therefore to be accorded the due process protection guaranteed by the state and federal constitutions.
At issue here is the constitutionality of § 614.24, The Code. Sophistry aside, the basic question before us is whether the statute deprives defendants of their interest in property without due process by operating to divest them of that interest when they fail to meet the statutory filing requirements. I am convinced that question must be answered affirmatively. The statute should be declared unconstitutional.
II. The majority views § 614.24 as a “ ‘true statute of limitations designed to bar claims . . . ’ (citing Chicago & Northwestern Ry. Co. v. City of Osage, 176 *244N.W.2d 788, 792 (Iowa 1970), [which] does not abolish or alter any vested right [but merely] modifies the procedure for effectu-ation of the remedy by conditionally limiting the time for enforcement of the right.” This, the classic defense of a statute such as § 614.24, involves no small measure of semantic gymnastics. See Wichelman v. Messner, 250 Minn. 88, 83 N.W.2d 800. It is a defense I cannot abide.
A possibility of reverter is not simply a claim or right but an interest in property. Jacobs v. Miller, supra. See Simes, Law of Future Interests, 2d Ed., 1966, § 13, p. 28 et seq. Section 614.24 attempts to convert that interest in property into a mere right of action subject to defeasance if not timely asserted. Once that is recognized, it is clear the statute operates not simply to “bar claims” but to divert persons such as these defendants of existing property interests. It is not therefore a true statute of limitations. See Simes, Law of Future Interests, supra, § 51, pp. 111-112.
Even assuming a possibility of reverter is but a claim or right and not an interest in property, the characterization of § 614.24 as a statute of limitations does not stand close scrutiny under circumstances such as those presented here. Defendants’ “claim” to the real estate in question “accrued” only when the condition in the 1898 deed was “breached”. That breach apparently occurred sometime after July 4, 1965. As applied, § 614.24 would have required defendants to assert their “claim” before it accrued and operates potentially to bar their remedy before the “right” to enforce it matured. I know of no true statute of limitation which operates in that fashion. See Board of Education of Central School District No. 1 v. Miles, 15 N.Y.2d 364, 207 N.E.2d 181; Simes, Law of Future Interests, supra at 111. Town of Brookline v. Carey, 355 Mass. 424, 245 N.E.2d 446, which held an act limiting enforcement of rever-sionary interests that have “accrued” can constitutionally be applied to reverters which occurred prior to its enactment, supports this position.
III. Because § 614.24 does far more than simply bar claims, and in effect divests persons of their existing property interests, it cannot in the end be justified as a mere statute of limitation. Accordingly, the question must be whether the statutory procedure designed to forestall divestiture comports with constitutional guarantees of due process.
The statute contains no provision for notice. Statutory enactment alone was evidently deemed sufficient notice for those persons whose interests in property would be affected. I am not persuaded that manner of notice is “such as one desirous of actually informing . . . might reasonably adopt to accomplish it” (the constitutional standard for due process). Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U.S. 306, 315, 70 S.Ct. 652, 657, 94 L.Ed. 865. Cf. Lane v. Traveler’s Ins. Co., 230 Iowa 973, 299 N.W. 553 (decided nine years before Mullane).
Moreover, I am frankly unable to reconcile recent decisions broadening the due process rights of persons possessing interests in personalty with the procedural burden placed on persons under § 614.24 to take affirmative action to protect their interests in realty. See Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U.S. 337, 89 S.Ct. 1820, 23 L.Ed.2d 349. Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 U.S. 67, 92 S.Ct. 1983, 1997-1998, 32 L.Ed.2d 556; Thorp Credit, Inc. v. Barr, 200 N.W.2d 535 (Iowa 1972). See also North Georgia Finishing, Inc. v. Di-Chem, Inc. (opinion announced by United States Supreme Court, 1975; appearing in - U.S. -, 95 S.Ct. 719, 42 L.Ed.2d 751). Surely owners of interests in personalty are entitled to no more due process protection in Iowa than are owners of interests in realty.
IV. The majority characterizes the Iowa marketable title legislation as “a salutary attempt on the part of our General Assembly to keep pace with public demands for needed reforms in the field of land title conveyancing practices.” I agree with that *245characterization. The majority goes on to justify § 614.24 as a statute “designed to bar claims which have no longer any social or economic utility and, at the same time, to provide for periodic renewal of active claims.” (citing Chicago & Northwestern Ry. Co. v. City of Osage, supra, at 792). There we part company.
Whatever its social utility, § 614.24 operates to deprive persons of their interests in property without due process. Paraphrasing a legislative commission report quoted by the New York Court of Appeals in Board of Education v. Miles, supra, where a similar statute was found unconstitutional as applied to a possibility of revert-er, it is almost certain that an appreciable number of persons owning ancient but useful restrictions and other valuable interests in property similar.to that owned by these defendants will lose them without compensation through failure to file claims under § 614.24, a prerequisite to their continued vitality. Such failure may occur under a variety of circumstances. Unless the owner of the interest has regular occasion to be on the watch for new legislation or unless he is regularly engaged in transactions involving real estate, he might never have learned of the requirement for filing a claim under the statute.
For the foregoing reasons I am satisfied § 614.24 of the Code violates both substantive and procedural constitutional guarantees of due process. Trial court erred in upholding the statute and in refusing to recognize defendants’ interest in the subject property.
I would reverse trial court.
REYNOLDSON and HARRIS, JJ., join this dissent.