Background
John and Lanora Sprague divorced in 2017 under a stipulated settlement providing for joint legal custody and joint physical care of their three children. In 2022, Lanora petitioned to modify the custody and physical care provisions, citing the parties’ inability to communicate effectively. On August 30, 2023—the date of the modification trial—the parties reached a verbal settlement agreement regarding custody modifications and which school district the children would attend for junior high, but neither reduced it to writing nor read it into the record.
After the settlement conference, John sent Lanora a draft settlement agreement on September 6, 2023. Lanora revised the draft and returned her version on October 5, 2023, stating that she had removed provisions not discussed at the courthouse and added provisions that were discussed but inadvertently omitted. John did not respond to the revised draft. On March 6, 2024, Lanora filed a “Motion to Enforce Settlement” attached to her draft, without citing Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.981 (governing summary judgment) or using the term “summary judgment.” John resisted, claiming the motion omitted agreed-upon provisions regarding transportation and extracurricular activities.
The district court held an unreported hearing on May 15, 2024, and subsequently issued a written order finding that Lanora’s draft “is an accurate recitation of the parties’ settlement agreement and must be enforced.” John appealed, and a divided Court of Appeals panel reversed, finding the proceeding was governed by summary judgment standards and that material factual disputes existed requiring an ancillary trial. The Iowa Supreme Court accepted further review.
The Court’s Holding
The Iowa Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeals decision and affirmed the district court’s order enforcing the settlement. Chief Justice Christensen held that the fatal defect in John’s appeal was his failure to create a proper appellate record. Although John characterized the case as involving disputed material facts, neither party filed the motion characterizing the proceedings as a summary judgment motion, and the district court conducted the hearing as though it were a bench trial where it acted as factfinder to determine what settlement the parties actually reached on August 30, 2023.
Under Iowa appellate rules, it is the appellant’s responsibility to ensure that transcripts of any district court proceeding needed for appellate resolution are included in the record. When a hearing is unreported, a party may file a statement of facts prepared from the best available means (including the party’s recollection), with the opposing party permitted to file objections within ten days. John failed to use this procedure. Without a record of the hearing, the appellate court could not discern what evidence or testimony was offered, what arguments the parties made, or what credibility findings the district court made. The court thus could not conclude that the district court erred in granting Lanora’s motion.
The court awarded Lanora $2,678.00 in appellate attorney fees under Iowa Code § 598.36, finding that although both parties had the ability to pay, Lanora was forced to defend the district court’s decision in an appeal that the court could not examine on the merits due to John’s procedural failure.
Key Takeaways
- An appellant’s failure to provide a proper record on appeal (including transcripts or a statement of facts under Iowa Rule of Appellate Procedure 6.806) requires affirmance of the trial court judgment if it is not fundamentally erroneous on its face.
- When a district court hearing is unreported, the appellant must affirmatively create a record through the appellate rules’ substitute procedure; the appellee has no obligation to do so.
- Appellate courts will not consider facts lacking record support or speculate about what occurred at trial, even if a party’s appellate brief asserts disputed facts.
- Appellate attorney fees may be awarded when the prevailing party is forced to defend a trial court judgment on appeal that cannot be examined on the merits due to the appellant’s procedural non-compliance.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that procedural compliance—particularly the creation and presentation of a proper appellate record—is non-negotiable in appellate review. Appellants cannot rely on self-serving assertions in appellate briefs about what happened at trial; they must back those assertions with actual transcripts or compliant substitute statements of facts. The court’s emphasis on this rule ensures that trial courts’ factual findings, which rest on firsthand observation of evidence and witness credibility, retain their deference on appeal.
The case also clarifies the intersection of settlement enforcement and appellate procedure. Although the parties and trial court did not formally invoke summary judgment procedures, the court treated the proceedings as a bench trial on the enforceability of the settlement—a functional categorization that shifted the burden to the appellant to preserve the record. For practitioners in family law and settlement negotiations, the opinion underscores the importance of either reducing settlements to writing immediately or ensuring that any unwritten settlement is either read into the record or preserved through proper appellate procedures.