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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 0-800 / 10-0390 Filed December 22, 2010

ESTATE OF TOMMY RAY LYON and RONDA LYON, Plaintiffs-Appellees, vs. RODNEY N. HEEMSTRA, et al., Defendants-Appellants. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Warren County, Paul R. Huscher, Judge.

The Heemstra Revocable Trust appeals a district court order declaring the Trusts purported redemption of real estate and garnishment of rents in the possession of a referee void and of no effect. AFFIRMED.

Jerry L. Schnurr III and Ernest Kersten, Fort Dodge, for appellants. Donald G. Beattie of Beattie Law Firm, P.C., Des Moines, and Carly R. Smith and Phillip H. Myers of Myers, Myers, Danks & Smith, Pleasantville, for appellees.

Heard by Eisenhauer, P.J., and Potterfield and Doyle, JJ. Tabor, J., takes no part.

2 DOYLE, J. This appeal presents the question of whether, during a refereeship, a senior judgment lienholder may redeem property from a junior judgment creditor who purchased the debtors property at an execution sale. To answer this

question we must wade into the murky waters of our states statutory redemption provisions, which our supreme court long ago described as "philological monstrosities, illustrating how successfully ideas may be obscured by language." Goode v. Cummings, 35 Iowa 67, 69 (1872). More than a century later, the court aptly observed, "The passage of time has not made the provisions any clearer." Blue v. Oehlert, 331 N.W.2d 112, 113 (Iowa 1983). I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

The events leading up to this appeal begin with the death of Tommy Lyon on January 13, 2003, at the hands of Rodney Heemstra. In the days following Heemstras arrest for Lyons death, Heemstra and his wife, Berta, began transferring their substantial real estate holdings to various family trusts and entities. Lyons widow, Ronda, and his estate (collectively the Estate) filed a wrongful death suit against Heemstra and secured writs of attachment on some of that real estate.1 Heemstra was convicted of first-degree murder in October 2003. Wells Fargo Bank then sued Heemstra and his wife for multiple defaulted loans. In January 2004, Wells Fargo secured a judgment against the Heemstras totaling

Those writs were later set aside by this court in Estate of Lyon ex rel. Lyon v. Heemstra, No. 09-0164 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 22, 2010).

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3 $637,208.62. On December 6, 2005, Wells Fargo assigned all of its interest in that judgment to the Heemstra Revocable Trust (the Trust). On February 3, 2006, the Estate secured a judgment against Heemstra on its wrongful death suit for close to $9 million. That judgment was vacated and the case remanded for a new trial after our supreme court reversed Heemstras first-degree murder conviction in State v. Heemstra, 721 N.W.2d 549, 559 (Iowa 2006). Following a second criminal trial, a jury convicted Heemstra of voluntary manslaughter. A new trial on the Estates wrongful death suit was held in

November 2008. The Estate again secured a judgment against Heemstra, this time for approximately $5.7 million. December 19, 2008, in Warren County. The Estate immediately sought to collect on the judgment by directing the district court clerk for Warren County to issue writs of execution on land owned by Heemstra in Guthrie, Hancock, Humboldt, Warren, and Wright Counties. General executions were issued in those counties, and sheriffs sales were held in March and April 2009. The Estate purchased all of the property auctioned at the sheriffs sales, credited its judgment against Heemstra a total of $1.6 million, and obtained sheriffs sale deeds.2 Meanwhile, the Estate initiated another lawsuit against Heemstra, his wife, and other family members, trusts, and entities, alleging claims for conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to commit abuse of process, fraudulent transfer, That judgment was entered on

In June 2009, the Trust, as assignee of the Wells Fargo senior judgment lien, executed on some of the land owned by the Heemstras in Guthrie and Hancock Counties. The Trust now purports to hold sheriffs sale certificates on those parcels of land "representing Berta J. Heemstras interests in the . . . property."

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4 intentional infliction of emotional distress, and fraudulent preference of creditors. The thrust of the suit was that Heemstra and his family had conspired to defeat the Estates collection efforts on its wrongful-death judgment by fraudulently transferring Heemstras real estate and other assets. See Iowa Code

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