Scott R. Buss and Julie S. Buss v. Lana L. Luhring, individually and Lana Luhring d/b/a Laird & Luhring Law Office

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
_______________

No. 25-0760
Filed May 13, 2026
_______________

Scott R. Buss and Julie S. Buss,
Plaintiffs–Appellants,
v.
Lana L. Luhring, individually and Lana Luhring d/b/a Laird & Luhring
Law Office,
Defendants–Appellees.
_______________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Bremer County,
The Honorable Ashley Sparks, Judge.
_______________

AFFIRMED
_______________

Marc S. Harding (argued) and Christian J. Crocker (until withdrawal) of
Harding Law Office, Des Moines, attorneys for appellants.

Gregory M. Lederer (argued) and Meredith Rich-Chappell of Lederer
Weston Craig PLC, Cedar Rapids, attorneys for appellees.
_______________

Heard at oral argument
by Greer, P.J., and Buller and Langholz, JJ.
Opinion by Langholz, J. Special concurrence by Greer, P.J.

1
LANGHOLZ, Judge.

Scott and Julie Buss hired Lana Luhring to draft a ten-year lease with
a purchase option for seven grain bins on a farm owned by Scott’s parents.
The purchase option that Luhring drafted—and the Busses exercised in
2018—did not include any transfer of the land under the grain bins or any
easement permitting use of the grain bins. So when the relationship between
the Busses and Scott’s parents deteriorated, Scott’s parents stopped
permitting the Busses to access the grain bins in early 2020 and later sold the
land to a third party. The Busses unsuccessfully sued Scott’s parents and the
new landowner seeking an easement for use of the grain bins. And then they
filed this suit against Luhring for legal malpractice. 1 They claimed that
Luhring was negligent in advising on and drafting the purchase option
because she failed to include a transfer of the land under the grain bins or an
easement permitting use of the grain bins.

The district court granted Luhring summary judgment. And the
Busses appeal, arguing that the court erred in holding that they failed to
present any evidence from which the jury could find that Luhring proximately
caused their damages. To succeed on their legal-malpractice claim under
governing Iowa precedent, the Busses had to show that absent Luhring’s
alleged negligence, Scott’s parents would have agreed to a purchase option
that included a transfer of the land under the grain bins or an easement. The
summary-judgment record lacks any evidence from which a jury could make
that finding without speculation. Julie Buss’s conclusory claim in her affidavit
that Scott’s parents intended the agreement to include a land transfer and
easement is not enough. We thus affirm the grant of summary judgment.

1
The Busses also sued Luhring’s law office, claiming vicariously liability. For
readability, we refer to Luhring and her law office collectively as “Luhring.”

2
I.

At the Busses’ request, Luhring met with the Busses and Scott’s
parents in 2011 to draft a lease with purchase option for seven large grain bins
located on Scott’s parents’ farmland. The grain-bin lease provided, in part:
BY THIS AGREEMENT made and entered into on _____, 2011,
between Richard Buss and Judy Buss, husband and wife, herein referred to
as Lessors, and Scott Buss and Julie Buss, husband and wife, herein
referred to as Lessees. Lessors lease to Lessees the 7 grain bins:
3-10,000 bushel,
1-9,000 bushel,
1-26,000 bushel,
1-33,000 bushel, and
1-60,000 bushel
together with the leg, downspouts and dryer all situated on [a particular
street address], city of Denver, county of Bremer, state of Iowa, together
with all appurtenances, for a term of ten (10) years, to commence on April
1, 2011, and to end on March 31, 2020.

The grain-bin lease also included a purchase option:
PURCHASE OPTION. It is agreed that Lessees shall have the option to
purchase the above described property for the purchase price of $20,000.
Lessees shall be given credit for 100% of the rental payments made
hereunder as a down payment of the purchase price. This purchase shall
be exercised in writing no later than February 1, 2020, but shall not be
effective should the Lessees be in default under any terms of this lease or
upon any termination of this lease.

Scott’s wife, Julie, submitted an affidavit in this case attesting: “All
parties to the lease with purchase option intended the real property beneath
the grain bins, and an easement to access the grain bins, would be included in
the lease with purchase option.” But according to Scott’s mother, Judy:

[Scott’s father] Richard and I did not intend to grant an easement to [the
Busses]. Richard did not intend to create an easement when he entered into

3
the Lease with Scott. . . . At no point in time did Richard nor I ever actually
or intend to grant [the Busses] an easement.

And Luhring testified in her deposition that the Busses never “discuss[ed] a
desire to have [an] underlying property interest in the grain bins in case they
did exercise the purchase option” in the lease.

Along with the grain-bin lease, Luhring drafted a ten-year lease—again
with a purchase option—for much of Scott’s parents’ farming equipment.
Luhring did not provide any further legal advice or services to the Busses
after she drafted the grain-bin and equipment leases for them in 2011.

At the time they entered the grain-bin lease,2 the Busses were
preparing to take over Scott’s parents’ farming operation. The Busses had a
year-to-year lease agreement3 with Scott’s parents to farm 70 acres of their
tillable land. In July 2014, Scott’s father signed a document titled
“Permission to Access Property” which stated: “Scott Buss has control of
the site at the following location [the street address of the grain bins, same as
in the lease], Denver, IA for the useful life of technology, which is 30 years.”
And in February 2018, Scott exercised the purchase option in the grain-bin
lease when he and his father executed a “Bill of Sale” for the seven grain bins
for “the sum of $4250”—equal to the remaining rent payments owed on that
lease. Luhring did not prepare the “Bill of Sale,” nor did the Busses consult
her for advice before purchasing the grain bins.

Scott’s relationship with his parents started to deteriorate sometime
between 2018 and 2019. In late 2019, Scott’s parents terminated the Busses’

2
The copy of the grain-bin lease in the summary judgment record is not signed,
but Scott testified at his deposition that he, Julie, and his parents signed it.
3
According to Scott’s deposition testimony, unlike the grain-bin and equipment
leases drafted by Luhring, that lease did not include a purchase option.

4
year-to-year farming lease agreement. Then, the grain-bin lease expired by its
terms in March 2020. According to Scott’s mother, when that lease expired,
she and Scott’s father “offered Scott a chance to enter into a new written
lease or at least to become a month-to-month tenant, like the Lease provided,
but he refused, instead stating that he wanted an access easement instead of
another lease.” At that point, Scott’s parents refused the Busses access to the
grain bins.

In April 2020, the Busses sued Scott’s parents for quiet title for a
perpetual easement to access the grain bins.4 While that suit was pending,
Scott’s parents conveyed a portion of their farmland including their house,
several outbuildings, and the road accessing the grain bins to another couple
by warranty deed.5 In August 2022, the district court granted partial
summary judgment to Scott’s parents, concluding as a matter of law that the
Busses “may own the grain bins, but there is nothing in the [grain-bin]
lease/purchase agreement which creates an easement,” and the Busses did
not otherwise establish an easement to access the grain bins. The court thus
dismissed the Busses’ quiet title claim. In March 2023, the parties reached a
settlement agreement providing that the Busses would remove the grain bins
from the property. The Busses ultimately sold most of the grain bins at
auction.

The Busses then sued Luhring in December 2023. In this suit, they
alleged Luhring committed legal malpractice by negligently drafting the
grain-bin lease without including “terms in the Purchase Option
guaranteeing and/or protecting a possessory or legal interest in the property

4
Luhring did not represent the Busses in that lawsuit.
5
The Busses amended their petition in June 2021 to add that couple and their bank
as defendants.

5
underlying the Grain Facility”; “terms in the Purchase Option guaranteeing
and/or protecting a right-of-way easement through which [the Busses] could
maintain access to the property on which the Grain Facility is situated”; or
“terms necessary to carry out [the Busses’] goals—to wit preservation of
[their] possessory or legal interest in the property underlying the Grain
Facility.” The Busses also alleged that Luhring was negligent for “[f ]ailing to
inform [them] that the Purchase Option did not include [those] terms.” They
claimed that as “a direct and proximate result” of Luhring’s negligence, they
suffered injuries including “[p]ast and future economic loss” and “[p]ast and
future pain and suffering.” And they claimed that Luhring’s law office was
vicariously liable for Luhring’s negligence.

Luhring moved for summary judgment, contending that the Busses’
claims were barred by the applicable statutes of limitations and that any
alleged malpractice by Luhring was not the proximate cause of the Busses’
claimed injuries. After a hearing, the district court granted Luhring’s motion
on the proximate-cause ground and did not address the alternative statute-of-
limitations ground. The court acknowledged that “[p]roximate cause is
usually a question of fact for the jury.” But it concluded that “this [is] a case
where the issue of proximate cause can be resolved on summary judgment.”
The court reasoned in part that there was “no evidence in the record that
Scott’s parents would have signed the 2011 grain bin lease if it included an
easement or property interest.” Thus, the court concluded: “Drafting the
grain bin lease differently would not have caused a different outcome.” And
so, the court granted summary judgment for Luhring.

The Busses now appeal.

6
II.

We review the district court’s summary-judgment ruling for
correction of errors at law. Vossoughi v. Polaschek, 859 N.W.2d 643, 649 (Iowa
2015). “Summary judgment is appropriate when the moving party
demonstrates that no genuine issue of material fact exists and that the movant
is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Id.; see Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.981(3).
The nonmoving “party may not rest upon the mere allegations or denials in
the pleadings, but the response, by affidavits or as otherwise provided in this
rule, must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for
trial.” Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.981(5).

On our review, we “afford the nonmoving party every legitimate
inference that can be reasonably deduced from the evidence.” Vossoughi, 859
N.W.2d at 649 (cleaned up). But even so, “[s]ummary judgment is not a dress
rehearsal or practice run for trial but rather the put up or shut up moment in
a lawsuit, when a nonmoving party must show what evidence it has that
would convince a trier of fact to accept its version of the events.” Buboltz v.
Birusingh, 962 N.W.2d 747, 754–55 (Iowa 2021) (cleaned up). “And if, after
considering all that evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving
party, no reasonable mind could differ on how the factual issues should be
resolved—and the law applied to those facts compels judgment for the
moving party—summary judgment must be granted.” In re Est. of River,
6 N.W.3d 13, 17–18 (Iowa Ct. App. 2024).

To succeed on a legal-malpractice claim, a plaintiff must establish four
elements:
(1) an attorney-client relationship existed giving rise to a duty; (2) the
attorney violated or breached the duty, either by an overt act or a failure to
act; (3) the breach of duty proximately caused injury to the client; and
(4) the client did sustain an actual injury, loss, or damage.

7
Stender v. Blessum, 897 N.W.2d 491, 502 (Iowa 2017). Only the third
element—proximate cause—is at issue here. “The burden of proving
proximate cause in a legal malpractice action is the same as any other
negligence action.” Blackhawk Bldg. Sys., Ltd. v. Law Firm of Aspelmeier,
Fisch, Power, Warner & Engberg, 428 N.W.2d 288, 290 (Iowa 1988). “To
recover, the injured [party] must show that, but for the attorney’s negligence,
the loss would not have occurred.” Id.

While “questions of proximate cause are generally for the jury and only
in exceptional cases may they be decided as matters of law,” the “jury cannot
be left to speculate, but rather, must be provided with facts affording a
reasonable basis for ascertaining the loss.” Id. at 291; see also Benton v. Nelsen,
502 N.W.2d 288, 291–92 (Iowa Ct. App. 1993) (affirming grant of summary
judgment on legal-malpractice claims where the plaintiffs “failed to show
substantial evidence to support a finding [the attorney’s] negligence, if any,
was a proximate cause of their being damaged”).

In Blackhawk Building Systems, our supreme court considered the
evidence required to create a jury question on proximate cause for a claim of
legal malpractice in advising on and drafting a contract much like the Busses’
claim here. There, a corporation sued a law firm and one of its attorneys
alleging that they were negligent in drafting an employment agreement
between the corporation and its president by failing to include a non-compete
clause in the agreement. Id. at 289. After the corporation’s president
resigned, he formed his own company, obtained a franchise the corporation
previously held, and became a competitor of the corporation. Id. at 290. A
short time later, the corporation went out of business. Id. A jury returned a
verdict for the corporation in its legal-malpractice suit against the law firm,

8
and the firm appealed, contending there was insufficient evidence to submit
the proximate-cause question to the jury. Id. at 289.

Analyzing that proximate-cause issue, our supreme court explained:
As applied to this situation, plaintiff would be required to show that absent
the lawyer’s negligence, [the president] would have signed a contract
containing a covenant not to compete which would have effectively
prevented the . . . subsequent demise of [the corporation]. Essential to this
chain of events, the plaintiff must show that [the president] would have
agreed to a covenant not to compete.

Id. at 290. The court reasoned that the “record [was] devoid of any evidence
that would allow the jury to infer that [the president] would have agreed to a
non-compete clause.” Id. at 290–91. And so, the court held that “a jury issue
was not engendered on causation,” and the “trial court should have directed
a verdict for the defendant.” Id. at 291–92.

We agree with the district court and Luhring that Blackhawk Building
Systems governs here. To establish the proximate-cause element of their legal-
malpractice claim, the Busses must show that absent Luhring’s alleged
negligence, Scott’s parents would have agreed to a purchase option that
included a transfer of the land under the grain bins or an easement. Cf. id.
at 290 (“Essential to this chain of events, the plaintiff must show that Parsons
would have agreed to a covenant not to compete.”). And at this “put up or
shut up moment,” they failed to put up any evidence from which a reasonable
jury could find that they met that burden. Buboltz, 962 N.W.2d at 755
(cleaned up).

The only evidence the Busses produced to possibly support such a
finding was the conclusory statement in the affidavit of Scott’s wife, Julie,
that “[a]ll parties to the lease with purchase option intended the real property
beneath the grain bins, and an easement to access the grain bins, would be

9
included in the lease with purchase option.” But while that statement is
evidence of Julie’s willingness to enter into an agreement with those terms
and her belief about the intent of each of Scott’s parents, it does not give a
reasonable jury any basis to find that Scott’s parents would have agreed to
include those terms without engaging in pure speculation or conjecture.

We are also unpersuaded by the Busses’ argument that the “plain
language of the lease” is evidence that Scott’s parents would have agreed to
create an easement or convey an ownership interest in the land beneath the
grain bins. Nothing in the lease’s purchase option mentioned an easement or
landownership interest—the “above described property” it referenced was
“the 7 grain bins . . . together with the leg, downspouts and dryer all situated
on [a particular street address], city of Denver, county of Bremer, state of
Iowa, together with all appurtenances.” Neither did the “Bill of Sale” Scott
used to exercise the purchase option mention an easement or landownership
interest. And the Busses do not dispute that the grain-bin lease with purchase
option did not, in fact, include such an interest. So these documents give no
basis for the jury to infer that Scott’s parents would have agreed to a purchase
option that actually included the transfer of land or an easement.

Nor could the jury infer that agreement from the “Joint Statement of
Intent” for the Busses to take over the family farming operation signed by the
Busses and Scott’s parents in March 2011 or the “Permission to Access
Property” signed by only Scott’s father in July 2014. Neither of those
documents created easements or conveyed landownership. Likewise, the
Busses’ year-to-year farming lease agreement with Scott’s parents did not
include an option for the Busses to purchase the farmland. And while the
“Permission to Access Property” might suggest that at least Scott’s father
was open to granting a temporary easement, it does not move the needle on

10
whether his mother would have agreed—and she alone could have prevented
an agreement by refusing—or on whether either parent would have agreed to
a transfer of land or a permanent easement.

What’s more, there is much evidence in the summary-judgment
record supporting the contrary conclusion that Scott’s parents—or at least
his mother—would not have agreed to a purchase option that included a
transfer of land or an easement. Scott’s mother said in her affidavit that she
and Scott’s father “did not intend to create an easement when [they] entered
into the [grain-bin lease] with Scott,” nor did they “ever actually or intend to
grant [the Busses] an easement.” As Julie herself testified, during the 2011
meeting with Luhring, Scott’s mother did not want to “let [the Busses] buy
the farm” because “she didn’t want to live in a house with somebody else’s
name on it,” and the Busses knew they “weren’t going to get to buy the land.”
And the year-to-year farm lease, which existed at the time the parties
executed the grain-bin lease with purchase option and continued until the
relationship deteriorated, further shows that Scott’s parents were not
interested in transferring any ownership of the land in 2011.

Like the district court, we recognize that proximate cause is usually a
fact question for the jury. See Hagen v. Texaco Refin. & Mktg., Inc., 526 N.W.2d
531, 538 (Iowa 1995); Hedges v. Conder, 166 N.W.2d 844, 854 (Iowa 1969).
But even viewing the record in the light most favorable to the Busses—and
assuming Luhring was negligent for failing to include an easement or
landownership interest in the grain-bin lease’s purchase option—no
reasonable jury could find that Luhring’s negligence proximately caused the
Busses’ alleged injuries because there is insufficient evidence to show that
Scott’s parents would have agreed to the lease in 2011 if it had included those
terms. Cf. Blackhawk Bldg. Sys., 428 N.W.2d at 290–92 (holding “that a jury

11
issue was not engendered on causation” because the “record [was] devoid of
any evidence that would allow the jury to infer that Parsons would have
agreed to a non-compete clause”). So the Busses’ legal-malpractice claim
fails as a matter of law. See id. at 290 (“Even though negligence has been
established, proximate cause must be determined separately.”).

We thus affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment for
Luhring because the Busses did not generate a genuine issue of material fact
as to the proximate-cause element of their legal-malpractice claim.

AFFIRMED.
Greer, P.J., specially concurs with Buller, J., joining.

12
GREER, Presiding Judge (specially concurring).

I concur in the opinion in full but write to draw focus to a question that
occurred to me in my review of this case. The majority correctly cites a
quotation from current authority from a legal malpractice case: “The burden
of proving proximate cause in a legal malpractice action is the same as any
other negligence action.” Blackhawk Bldg. Sys., Ltd. v. Law Firm of
Aspelmeier, Fisch, Power, Warner & Engberg, 428 N.W.2d 288, 290 (Iowa 1988)
(emphasis added). I am not sure that quote is still a correct statement of the
law. Thompson v. Kaczinski changed the essential elements of a negligence
action, moving away from the “confusion caused by the traditional
vernacular” of proximate cause. 774 N.W.2d 829, 837 (Iowa 2009). Yet even
after Thompson, the supreme court has continued to repeatedly describe
proximate cause as an element of a legal malpractice action. See, e.g., Clark
v. State, 955 N.W.2d 459, 464 (Iowa 2021); Stender v. Blessum, 897 N.W.2d
491, 502 (Iowa 2017). Now, I am left wondering how to reconcile the use of
the proximate cause analysis in the legal malpractice arena with other
supreme court precedent.

For example, I observe that in formulating the factors to establish legal
malpractice our supreme court has discussed the Restatement (Third) of the
Law Governing Lawyers § 53 as follows: “A lawyer is liable . . . only if the
lawyer’s breach of a duty of care or breach of fiduciary duty was a legal cause
of injury, as determined under generally applicable principles of causation
and damages.” Kraklio v. Simmons, 909 N.W.2d 427, 441 (Iowa 2018)
(specifically adopting this section). Moving from that shift in language, I note
that in the medical negligence cases, our supreme court has said:
We began [in Thompson] by noting that a trial court instructing a jury on
causation in accordance with the Restatement (Second) of Torts would
instruct the jury that “‘[t]he actor’s negligent conduct is a legal cause of

13
harm to another if (a) his conduct is a substantial factor in bringing about
the harm, and (b) there is no rule of law relieving the actor from liability.’”
We then noted this traditional approach caused “significant uncertainty
and confusion.” To eliminate the uncertainty and confusion, we observed
that the drafters of the Restatement (Third) addressed factual cause and
what was formerly known as proximate cause (and now called scope of
liability) separately.

Although sometimes labeled “medical malpractice” actions, a claim that a
professional has failed to meet the applicable standard of care is essentially
a negligence cause of action. Nothing in the Restatement (Third) suggests
its approach to factual causation and scope of liability does not apply to a
claim of medical negligence. The introduction to the Restatement (Third)
indicates it generally covers negligence actions. Restatement (Third)
section 26, comment n discusses the applicability of the loss of chance
doctrine in medical malpractice actions. Restatement (Third) section 35,
comment a uses an example of a negligent medical professional in
discussing the medical professional’s scope of liability. Further, we can
discern no reason to except medical negligence actions from the factual
cause and scope of liability approach of the Restatement (Third).

Asher v. OB-Gyn Specialists, P.C., 846 N.W.2d 492, 498–99 (Iowa 2014)
(internal citations omitted), overruled on other grounds by, Alcala v. Marriott
Int’l, Inc., 880 N.W.2d 699 (Iowa 2016). So, is the causation analysis in a
legal malpractice case distinct from other negligence cases, including medical
malpractice? While I agree with the analysis of the majority and its correct
application of our current supreme court precedent to the case at hand, I
cannot help but question if this legal malpractice distinction involving the use
of proximate cause is intentional.

Buller, J., joins this special concurrence.

14