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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 2-452 / 12-0435 Filed June 27, 2012 BRIAN RAWLINGS, Plaintiff-Appellant, vs. STATE FARM FIRE & CASUALTY COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee, _____________________________________________________________________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Marshall County, Michael J. Moon, Judge.

Plaintiff appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendant insurer on the ground that his claim was barred by a one-year statute of limitations found in Iowa Code section 515.109 (2011). AFFIRMED.

Patrick W. O'Bryan, Des Moines, for appellant. Guy R. Cook and Adam D. Zenor of Grefe & Sidney, P.L.C., Des Moines, for appellee.

Considered by Vogel, P.J., Tabor, J., and Schechtman, S.J.* *Senior Judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206 (2011).

2 SCHECHTMAN, S.J. I. Background Facts and Proceedings. On January 29, 2008, a fire destroyed a house, and its contents, owned by Brian Rawlings in rural Marshalltown. Rawlings was insured by a homeowner's policy issued by State Farm Fire and Casualty Company for casualty and accidental fire. The policy contained the standard exclusions for intentional acts, fraud, and concealment, and the condition that any "action must be started within one year after the date of loss or damage." State Farm hired an independent investigator. Rawlings and State Farm disagreed on the amount of loss and its cause. On November 8, 2008, State Farm sent Rawlings a letter of denial of coverage, concluding (1) the damage was not the result of an accidental direct physical loss; (2) a violation of the fraud and concealment provisions had occurred; and (3) Rawlings had violated the intentional acts provisions of the policy. Rawlings filed a petition to recover the insurance proceeds on January 28, 2009, the day prior to the expiration of the contractual limitation period. A motion for summary judgment was filed by State Farm eleven months later, which was set for hearing. Five days prior to the hearing date, on January 20, 2010, the action was dismissed by Rawlings without prejudice. On August 25, 2011, the present action was filed alleging breach of contract and bad faith.1 State Farm's answer contained the affirmative defense that the "policy's one-year contractual limitation period had run and operates as a bar to this lawsuit." Shortly thereafter, State Farm filed a motion for summary judgment with a statement of
1

A tort action for bad faith amounts to an action "on this policy" for purposes of applying the one-year contractual limitation. Stahl v. Preston Mut. Ins. Ass'n, 517 N.W.2d 201, 204 (Iowa 1994).

3 its undisputed facts. Rawlings filed his affidavit in resistance. The district court

sustained the summary judgment motion on the grounds that the action was filed after the limitation period had expired and dismissed the petition, which resulted in this appeal. II. Scope and Standards of Review. We review the district court's summary judgment ruling for the correction of errors at law. Koeppel v. Speirs, 808 N.W.2d 177, 179 (Iowa 2011). Summary

judgment is appropriate when the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions on file, and affidavits show there is no genuine issue of material fact, and the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.981(3); Koeppel, 808 N.W.2d at 179. III. Analysis. Upon viewing the evidence and material facts in the light most favorable to Rawlings, as well as granting him all reasonable inferences therefrom, see Koeppel, 808 N.W.2d at 179, we conclude Rawlings did not comply with the policy's limitation by timely initiating an action to enforce its terms. Nor was there any waiver of those terms by State Farm. Rawlings, at the appellate level, contends State Farm "waived" the one -year statute2 by entertaining continued negotiations with him during the pendency of his first lawsuit, thereby extending the limitations period to ten years as permitted by Iowa Code

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