Opinion
No. 2-773 / 02-0335.
Filed April 30, 2003.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, GLENN E. PILLE, Judge.
Respondent-appellant appeals the district court's denial of his "Application for Relief" from a provision in the decree dissolving his marriage to petitioner-appellee. AFFIRMED.
Bruce Stoltze of Brick, Gentry, Bowers, Swartz, Stoltze, Schuling Levis, P.C., Des Moines, for appellant.
Timothy Pearson of Laden Pearson, P.C., Des Moines, and Stacey Warren of Babich, Goldman, Cashatt and Renzo, P.C., Des Moines, for appellee.
Considered by HUITINK, P.J., and ZIMMER and MILLER, JJ.
Respondent-appellant, Roger A. Schebel, appeals the district court's denial of his "Application for Relief" from a provision in the decree dissolving his marriage to petitioner-appellee, Patricia A. Schebel. He contends the court erred in failing to declare the provision at issue to be void and unenforceable as in violation of federal law. We affirm.
The parties' stipulated dissolution decree was accepted by the court and entered on October 25, 1995. Both parties agreed to and signed the decree. The decree contained the following provision:
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED, ADJUDGED AND DECREED that beginning July 1, 2001, and continuing on the 1st of each and every month thereafter, the Respondent will pay unto the Petitioner fifty percent (50%) of any and all after tax Social Security Benefits that he shall receive, and that said sum shall be paid in the form of property settlement to the Petitioner by the Respondent.
Neither party filed a motion with the district court pursuant to Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.904(2) to challenge the terms of the decree, nor did either party challenge any portion of the decree by way of appeal.
Roger filed the current "Application for Relief" on August 24, 2001 seeking to have the court declare the above provision null and void due as in violation of federal law, basing his claim on reasoning appearing in In re Marriage of Boyer, 538 N.W.2d 293 (Iowa 1995). Patricia resisted Roger's application. The matter was submitted without formal hearing, on the record contained in the file. The district court ruled the law of the case doctrine applied and barred the court from reconsidering the issue, and that the provision at issue was part of a final unappealed property division and thus not subject to modification.
Roger appeals. He contends the district court erred in failing to hold that the provision at issue is void because it is in violation of federal law. He also contends the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to order the provision at issue, rendering it void and allowing it to be collaterally attacked. Patricia responds that the provision is the "law of the case" (and res judicata), the provision at issue is part of property division and not subject to modification, and the terms of the stipulated decree constitute a binding contract. She seeks an award of appellate attorney fees.
Roger's application was brought in an equity action, and our review would ordinarily be de novo. See Iowa R. App. 6.4. However, no facts are in dispute, the sole question is whether the district court correctly applied the law, and we thus conclude our review is for correction of errors of law. See Benton v. Slater, 605 N.W.2d 3, 4 (Iowa 2001).
We readily reject Roger's claim that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. "Subject matter jurisdiction refers to the power of the court to hear and determine cases of the general class to which the proceeding in question belongs." Smith v. Smith, 646 N.W.2d 412, 414 (Iowa 2002). The Iowa district court clearly had subject matter jurisdiction to hear and decide the parties' dissolution of marriage case and the issues involved in that case. Iowa Code § 598.2 (1995) ("The district court has original jurisdiction of the subject matter of this chapter.").
In Boyer our supreme court held the trial court did not err in considering the parties' respective accumulated social security benefits in reaching its decision concerning property division. Boyer, 538 N.W.2d at 296. In doing so it noted, however, that state courts are without power to directly or indirectly divide social security benefits in a dissolution decree. Id. at 295. It described the federal legislation prohibiting division of social security benefits as involving "preemption." Id. at 296. Roger relies on Boyer and its analysis of federal social security legislation.
Boyer was a direct appeal of a district court decision and thus involved no question of the law of the case or res judicata consequences of a final, unappealed judgment. Nor did it involve the issue of whether a final unappealed property division in a dissolution decree could be subsequently modified. Patricia urges that because the 1995 decree in this case was not appealed the law of the case and res judicata doctrines require the provision concerning social security benefits to stand despite its conflict with federal law. She further argues the same result is compelled by the rule that a final, unappealed property division is not modifiable in a subsequent proceeding absent extraordinary circumstances.
We note that while these two principles are analogous, they are not the same, but both are founded on a public policy against reopening that which has been previously decided. See Wolfe v. Graether, 389 N.W.2d 643, 651 (Iowa 1986).
Application of the doctrine of res judicata to the facts of this case is consistent with well-established Iowa law. Iowa law clearly holds that the doctrine of res judicata applies to even those final judgments which rely upon erroneous legal conclusions. See, e.g., In re Petition of Bisenius, 573 N.W.2d 258, 260 (Iowa 1998) ("The res judicata consequences of a final unappealed judgment are not altered by the fact that the judgment may have rested on incorrect legal principles."). Federal case law of a general nature is to the same effect.
A final judgment on the merits of an action precludes the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could have been raised in that action. Nor are the res judicata consequences of a final, unappealed judgment altered by the fact that the judgment may have been wrong or rested on a legal principle subsequently overruled in another case. As this court explained in Baltimore S.S. Co. v. Phillips, 274 U.S. 316, 325 (1927), an "erroneous conclusion" reached by the court in the first suit does not deprive the defendants in the second action "of their right to rely upon the plea of res judicata . . . . A judgment merely voidable because based upon an erroneous view of the law is not open to collateral attack, but can be corrected only by a direct review and not by bringing another action upon the same [cause of action]."
Federated Department Stores, Inc. v. Moitie, 452 U.S. 394, 398, 101 S.Ct. 2424, 2428, 69 L.Ed.2d 103, 108-09 (1981) (alterations in original) (citations omitted).
In addition, application of res judicata principles is consistent with federal case law in the area of military retirement benefits, an area of federal law analogous to federal law concerning railroad retirement benefits which was relied on in Boyer. Those cases hold that res judicata principles prevent the reversal, setting aside, or altering, in a collateral proceeding, of a provision in an unappealed state divorce decree which, contrary to federal law, divides military retirement benefits or Naval Fleet Reserve retainer payments. See, e.g., Wilson v. Wilson, 667 F.2d 497, 498-99 (5th Cir. 1982) (military retirement pay); Erspan v. Badgett, 659 F.2d 26, 28 (5th Cir. Unit A Oct. 1981) (military retirement pay); Sutherland v. Sutherland, 563 F. Supp. 442, 444-45 (E.D.Tex. 1983) (Naval Fleet Reserve payments); Smith v. Smith, 549 F. Supp. 761, 766-67 (E.D.Tex. 1982) (military retirement pay).
Further, as the trial court held, Iowa courts do not have the authority to change an unappealed property division of a dissolution decree upon a petition for modification absent extraordinary exceptions of fraud, duress, coercion, mistake, or other grounds as would justify setting aside or changing a decree in any other case. In re Marriage of Johnson, 299 N.W.2d 466, 467-68 (Iowa 1980); In re Marriage of Trickey, 589 N.W.2d 753, 756 (Iowa Ct.App. 1998).
Although law of the case doctrine rather than res judicata may more correctly apply in some of the cited cases, s ee Wolfe, 389 N.W.2d at 651, the result should be the same regardless of which doctrine actually applies. Both the underlying principle of finality of an unappealed divorce decree and the principle that an unappealed property division is not subsequently modifiable, prevent the reversal, setting aside, altering, or modification of a provision that is part of the property division, absent one or more of the extraordinary exceptions earlier noted. Roger does not claim, and we do not find, that any of those exceptions apply in this case. Nor does Roger cite any authority in support of the assertion, implicit in his position in the trial court and on appeal, that "preemption" principles trump these other principles.
We conclude Roger has not shown that the trial court erred and affirm the trial court ruling.
Patricia requests an award of appellate attorney fees. Roger resists solely on the ground that she is only entitled to such fees if successful. She has successfully defended against Roger's appeal. We award her $1000 in appellate attorney fees.