In the Court of Appeals of Iowa s4

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 4-015 / 03-0219 Filed February 27, 2004

RAYLENE COFFELT, Plaintiff-Appellant, vs. ESTATE OF BOBBY LEE PETRY, ROSE M. PETRY, Executor, Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Pottawattamie County, Gordon C.

Abel, Judge.

Raylene Coffelt appeals from the district court’s dismissal of her petition in equity against Bobby Lee Petry. REVERSED.

Anthony Tauke of Porter, Tauke & Ebke, Council Bluffs, for appellant.

Thomas Clarke of Isaacson & Clarke, Des Moines, and James Piazza,

Des Moines, for appellee.

Heard by Zimmer, P.J., and Miller and Hecht, JJ. 2

MILLER, J.

Raylene Coffelt appeals from the district court’s dismissal of her petition in equity against Bobby Lee Petry. Upon our review for the correction of errors at law, see McCormick v. Meyer, 582 N.W.2d 141, 144 (Iowa 1998), we reverse the district court’s ruling.

Coffelt’s petition for quiet possession and support alleged that she had been the companion and caretaker of Bobby Lee Petry’s deceased brother, Glen, that she and Glen had lived in a home built by Glen upon property owned by

Bobby Lee, and that Bobby Lee and Glen held all their assets in a partnership in which each owned a one-half interest. The petition further alleged that an oral agreement between Glen and Bobby Lee, and a related oral agreement between

Glen and Coffelt, provided that after Glen’s death Coffelt would be allowed to remain for her life in the home she and Glen had shared, and Bobby Lee would provide Coffelt reasonable support. Petry filed a motion to dismiss, which was granted by the district court. The court concluded Coffelt’s petition had asserted palimony claims and, as such claims are not cognizable in Iowa, the petition had failed to state any claims upon which relief could be granted.1

We uphold the district court’s dismissal for failure to state a claim only if the petition, on its face, does not show a right of recovery under any provable state of facts. See Ritz v. Wapello County Bd. of Supervisors, 595 N.W.2d 786,

789 (Iowa 1999). In making this determination we assess the petition in the light 1 Coffelt’s petition also requested the court to enjoin Petry from pursuing a forcible entry and detainer small claims action he had previously brought against Coffelt to remove her from the home. In dismissing Coffelt’s petition in this matter, the district court ruled it would not grant the requested injunctive relief, and that enforcement of any ruling in the small claims action needed to be addressed in that action, and not in any other. Based on the arguments of the parties, it does not appear that this portion of the court’s ruling is at issue on appeal. 3 most favorable to the plaintiff, with all doubts or ambiguities resolved in her favor.

Holmstrom v. Sir, 590 N.W.2d 538, 539 (Iowa 1999). All well-pled allegations in the petition are accepted as true. Chiavetta v. Iowa Bd. of Nursing, 595 N.W.2d

799, 800 (Iowa 1999). Under such a standard, we conclude the district court erred in dismissing Coffelt’s petition.

Coffelt, citing Slocum v. Hammond, 346 N.W.2d 485, 490-91 (Iowa 1984), concedes a true palimony claim, where an unmarried cohabitant seeks to gain certain marital rights, is not a claim that has been recognized in Iowa. Coffelt argues, however, that she is not seeking palimony, but merely attempting to enforce the oral contracts. Petry responds that Coffelt’s care and companionship during Glen’s last illness is not, as a matter of law, adequate consideration for the enforcement of an oral contract to which she was not a party. We believe Petry’s argument is misplaced.

Coffelt’s petition can be read to assert a right of recovery as a third-party beneficiary to an oral contract between Glenn and Bobby Lee. Such claims, if established, are clearly cognizable in Iowa. See, e.g., Vogan v. Hayes Appraisal

Assocs., Inc., 588 N.W.2d 420, 423 (Iowa 1999). Moreover, the primary question in such cases is not whether the third party provided consideration, but whether there was a manifested intent to benefit the third party:

"[w]hen a contract is made, the two or more contracting parties have separate purposes; each is stimulated by various motives, some of which he may not be acutely conscious.... A third party who is not a promisee and who gave no consideration has an enforceable right by reason of a contract made by two others ... if the promised performance will be of pecuniary benefit to [the third party] and the contract is so expressed as to give the promisor reason to know that such benefit is contemplated by the promisee as one of the motivating causes of his making the contract." 4

Id. at 423-24 (citations omitted).

We cannot say there is no conceivable state of facts under which Coffelt might prove a right to recover as a third-party beneficiary to an oral contract between the brothers. “Whether [Coffelt] has evidence to support [her] claim is a separate issue.” Glass v. Minnesota Protective Life Ins. Co., 314 N.W.2d 393,

397 (Iowa 1982). We therefore reverse the district court’s ruling dismissing

Coffelt’s petition.

REVERSED.