Mulhern v. Kruger
Michael Mulhern and Bonnie Mulhern as co-executors of the Cecelia J. Schimmel Estate, Plaintiffs-Appellants,
vs.
Donald Kruger (Deceased), Kerry Kruger, Patricia Kruger, Kelsey Ahrens, Kraig Druger, Donald Kruger, Kent Kruger, Joan Kruger, Kimberly Capron, Michelle Cerwinske, Amy Heimkemp, David Kruger, Verlyn Kruger, Kandi Kruger, Richard Kruger, Paul Kruger, Susan Kruger, Gary Kruger, Darol Kruger, Lawrence Degener, Larry Degener, Tuth Ann Kruger Dunlap, Richard Dunlap, Jeffrey Dunlap, Julie Heltbridel, Jill Iverson, Valparaiso University, Lutheran Hour of Saint Louis, Home for Aged Lutherans n/k/a The Lutheran Home, Inc., Bethesda Lutheran Home of Watertown WI, St. Johns Lutheran Church of Portage WI, Inc., n/k/a St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church, and Their Unknown Spouses and Their Unknown Heirs and Assigns, Parties in Possession and Any and All Claimants in the Following described Real Estate: The North 1/2 of the SE 1/4 and the SW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 and the NW 1/4 of the SE 1/4 of section 25, and the SE 1/4 of the SE 1/4 of section 26, Township 95 North, Range 14 West of the 5th P.M. in Chickasaw County, Iowa., Defendants-Appellees.
Attorney for Appellants
Nathaniel W. Schwickerath
Attorney for Appellees Kruger Descendants
Kevin J. Kennedy (until withdrawal)
Patrick B. Dillon
Attorney for Appellee Valparaiso University
Trevor J. Hurd and Christopher F. O'Donohoe
Attorney for Appellee Lutheran Hour of Saint Louis
Tara Holterhaus and Joshua Dickinson
Attorney for Appellee The Lutheran Home Inc.
Joseph B. Wallace
Court of Appeals
Court of Appeals Opinion
Opinion Number:
Date Published:
Summary
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Chickasaw County, Richard Stochl (unjust-enrichment counterclaims) and John J. Sullivan (quiet-title action), Judges. AFFIRMED. Considered without oral argument by Schumacher, P.J., and Buller and Langholz, JJ. Opinion by Langholz, J. (14 pages)
Michael and Bonnie Mulhern, executors of the estate of Cecelia Schimmel, appeal the district court’s grants of summary judgment (1) dismissing their quiet-title action under Iowa’s marketable-record-title statute for farmland that Schimmel originally inherited under the Kruger will and (2) ordering them to pay a portion of the crop-share rents received after Schimmel’s death on the Kruger-will remainder beneficiaries’ counterclaims for unjust enrichment. OPINION HOLDS: The district court properly granted summary judgment on the estate’s quiet-title claim. Schimmel inherited only a life estate under the Kruger will. And the clerk’s certificate of change of title—which did not note that Schimmel’s interest was only a life estate—is not “a conveyance or other title transaction” under the marketable-record-title statute. So the remainder beneficiaries’ interest in the farmland is not extinguished by that statute. And because the estate did not preserve its challenges to the court’s method of apportioning the rents between the estate and the remainder beneficiaries for the year Schimmel died, we cannot consider the merits of that ruling on the beneficiaries’ unjust-enrichment counterclaim.
