Turner v. Hartford Fire Insurance

185 Iowa 1363
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedMay 6, 1919
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 185 Iowa 1363 (Turner v. Hartford Fire Insurance) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Turner v. Hartford Fire Insurance, 185 Iowa 1363 (iowa 1919).

Opinion

Salinger, J.

1. Appeal and error : matters reviewable : sufficiency o£ record. I. Many attacks upon the appraisement and the award are grounded upon assertions that certain things were done and others omitted. If it be assumed that doing and not doing these things would constitute valid objections, these attacks are futile, because the record does not show that these things were done or not done.

Arbitration AND AWARD : submission: notice of meetings: introduction of evidence. II. One attack is that no notice of thé time and place of the meeting of the two original arbitrators was ever given to plaintiff. Another and related attack is that he was never given an opportunity to offer or present evidence to sustain his claim. Still another is that the arbitrators heard no evidence to enable them to arrive at any decision as to the amount of damage sustained by plaintiff. The agreement to sub- ' mit to the appraisers provided that they should appraise and ascertain actual cash value and direct loss by lightning. This invoked nothing but their personal investigation. They were not bound to take testimony, and it will not set the award aside that they did not give said notice, and failed to hear witnesses. See Thornton v. McCormick, 75 Iowa 285.

[1367]*13673. Trial : review: finding of court: applicability to evidence. [1366]*1366.III. The plaintiff alleged that the award was void, among other reasons, because the arbitrators had wholly neglected to investigate whether the plaster in the building [1367]*1367had been damaged by lightning, and had given that item of damages no consideration whatever. The main support for this contention is the argument that the court found there was such omission to consider. It is recited in said finding “that the persons selected to appraise the damages did not take into consideration the condition of the plastering.” If this were all, it would be a finding that the appraisers were guilty of the omission charged. But this is not all. It is immediately followed by the further statement that the appraisers “made the appraisement on the theory and believing that the lightning had nothing to do with the condition of the plaster.” Taken altogether, this is not a finding that the • appraisers neglected to investigate whether lightning had damaged the plaster, but that, on some consideration, they reached the conclusion that the condition of the plaster was not due to lightning.

IY. Was i.t error to try the validity of the award on the law side?

4. Actions : arbitration and award: trial on law side : 4 defense of arbitration award in law action. We said, in Tomlinson v. Tomlinson, 3 Iowa 575, that certain things urged will not avoid an award where “there are no .circumstances of an equitable character to satisfy us that the parties should be again heard,” and in Burroughs v. David, 7 Iowa 154, at 158, that courts have but little power over common-law arbitrators; that this is especially true of the courts of law, because “nearly all the authority which does exist in regard 'to them resides in courts of equity;” that it has been held, in many cases, that “evidence of mistakes in an award cannot be given in a court of law;” that, if certain matters are receivable to impeach the conduct of the arbitrators, these are available “perhaps only in equity,” and are ordinarily not receivable in a court of law; and that, [1368]*1368“even where the courts have interposed, it has generally been by those which proceed upon the principles of equity, because the relief sought is usually obtainable only through the médium of these principles.” In Thornton v. McCormick, 75 Iowa 285, we held that such an award as was made in that case must be held to be conclusive, unless, for one thing, “equitable grounds for setting it aside are shown;” and that, “when an award is questioned on equitable grounds, the pleading attacking it should allege facts as distinguished from legal conclusions which show that it should be set aside.” Appellants may fairly claim that, at the time these decisions were made, this court was inclined to hold that, if the award might be avoided at all, it should be upon an exhibition of equitable circumstances justifying the setting aside of the award, and that relief on that ground was not to be had on the law side. Proceeding upon this premise, the appellants urge that, unless a fatal defect appears on the face of the award, an attempt to impeach same cannot be entertained on the law side, because such impeachment of an award is of equitable cognizance only. We are inclined to hold, on the authority of In re Receivership of Magner, 173 Iowa 299, Div. 3, beginning at page 315, that this position is not well taken. We there held that, since both the law and the chancery jurisdiction are exercised by the same court, that when, in an action properly begun at law, an emergent issue is presented which would be of equitable cognizance if presented by an original suit, the law court may settle such emergent issue without adjourning the hearing at law and having said issue presented to itself sitting as an equity court. The concrete situation is this: Plaintiff rightly brought his suit on the law side. As a bar to his recovering, the defendant urged on the law side that there had been accord and satisfaction by means of an award. We hold that, if it be assumed an original suit to set aside this award should [1369]*1369have been in equity, yet the law court could determine whether the award pleaded in the law action stood in the way of a recovery in the law action.

5. trial: trial Sections01 ob" Be that as it may, appellant may not now urge that the avoidance of the award should have been tried out as an equitable issue. When plaintiff filed his reply, defendant knew as well then as it knows now that an' attempt was being made to litigate the validity of the award on the law side. If that is objectionable now, it was objectionable then. The reply was in no manner challenged. No complaint of the forum was made, nor motion to transfer. It seems to us we must hold that, in these circumstances, the appellant conceded that the issue should be determined by a court which was not sitting as an equity court. Further support of this conclusion is afforded by the fact that, when plaintiff offered testimony tending to show what damage he had, in fact, sustained, one objection interposed was that such testimony should not be received, because there had been an appraisement which was binding upon the parties. This amounted to a declaration on part of defendant that it was competent for the court to decide whether or not the appraisement and award were binding. We conclude appellant may not now urge that the relief granted the appellee should not have been given on the law side.

V. This narrows the main contention on this appeal to the assertion that, even if the law court had power to act, it erred in using that power to nullify the award.

6. Arbitration AND AWARD : sotting aside: jurisdiction ' of court: gross mistake. It may be conceded that the award should not be set aside merely because the arbitrators ignored evidence; nor merely because it may be found it lacked sufficient evidence to support it; nor merely because the arbitrators fell into what is no- more than honest error [1370]*1370in judgment. Thornton v. McGormick, 75 Iowa 285;

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Bluebook (online)
185 Iowa 1363, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/turner-v-hartford-fire-insurance-iowa-1919.