Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Justice!

Four new opinions from the Supreme Court of Iowa, today, and we’ll jump right in:

Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board v. Buchanan - An attorney proposed to settle a civil matter by offering to destroy evidence of alleged forgery by the opposing party and agreeing that his client would not cooperate in any forgery prosecution against the opposing party. The Grievance Commission found that the attorney violated old ethics rule DR 1-102(A)(5) by engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. The Commission gave the attorney a private reprimand.

The Board appealed, asking that the attorney be found to have also violated old rule DR 1-102(A)(6) in that his actions reflected adversely on his fitness to practice law. The Commission also apparently wanted some sort of public sanction, though it’s unclear what they were seeking.

Justice Ternus’ opinion finds that the attorney did, in fact, violate both rules, even though his actions were not illegal. As we all know, conduct can be unethical even if it is legal. The Court additionally found that the attorney should be publicly reprimanded, but that the violations did not warrant a suspension or revocation of his license to practice law.

State of Iowa v. Christopher Leon Christopher(not a typo) – On further review from the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court upholds the warrantless arrest five weeks after an off-duty officer observed the defendant commit a crime. The Iowa statute allows an officer to arrest someone without a warrant if the officer observes the defendant commit a crime. There is no requirement in the statute or in either the Federal or Iowa Constitutions that warrantless arrests occur within a reasonable time after the crime is observed.

Also, the officer’s motive’s for waiting to arrest someone are irrelevant to the constitutional propriety of the warrantless arrest. But, pretext for waiting to arrest could implicate Due Process, according to the Supremes. But this is really dictum because “Christopher does not contend the government  acted intentionally to gain such a tactical advantage.”

I’m not sure how I missed that name before, though. Why, oh, why, would anyone name their child Christopher Christopher? It doesn’t make sense to me.

In re the Marriage of Becker- A quarry magnate’s wife wants more alimony and gets it. I’ve found that family law cases have very little of interest to me. The decisions are equitable and don’t really implicate any substantive rights. Very rarely is there anything controversial. Congrats to Dan Bray and Chad Kepros for losing on further review.

Overturff v. Raddatz Funeral Services, Inc. – This is a case where an estranged widow sued a funeral home for negligent infliction of emotional distress. The funeral relied on the decedent’s son, who held an apparently valid durable power of attorney for health care decisions from the father, to make decisions regarding the final disposition of the decedent’s body. Since the Iowa Administrative Code gave the son the authority to make those decisions, the funeral home owed no duty to the estranged wife and summary judgment was not an error.

Here I thought this one would be more interesting. By the way, the son’s name is Vane. Why? Did he look like some sort of metal fixture that would tell you the direction of the wind? I don’t get it. I guess at least it wasn’t Vain. He probably would have been walking around with a hand mirror like Vainy Smurf. That would have been unfortunate.

Court of Appeals Opinions

New opinions from the Court of Appeals of Iowa. I didn’t find anything too earth-shattering, but the opinions are located here.

I did want to say congratulations to Court of Appeals Judge and former 6th District Judge Amanda Potterfield. I noticed her name as one of the considering judges in a few of the opinions. I also noticed that one of the orders from her previously life as a district court judge was affirmed by the court of appeals.

Finally, a good friend of mine from law school was on the losing end of an opinion filed today. It was her first appeal, which is more than I’ve done. She says that they are seeking further review. Interesting opinion and, according to her, there were multiple arguments made at trial concerning the propriety of the modification action. We’ll see what happens. Good luck, Erika.

Court of Appeals of Iowa

New opinions from the Court of Appeal of Iowa, today. I didn’t find too much interesting. But there was one casethat caught my eye. Our own Judge Hibbs was reversed on an order denying a motion to confirm an arbitration award. The appellant filed a motion to vacate the arbitration award, but it came after the statutory deadline for filing. Judge Hibbs granted the motion because the appellant claimed that he was not notified of the arbitration in the first place, and only found out about it when he received notice of the arbitration award. I understand the need for deadlines, but, if you believe the appellant, it seems to present a problem.

New Iowa Court of Appeals opinions

Not much to look at, today. State v. Walls shows us some of those dirty tricks police officers sometimes use (see immediately previous post for some thoughts on the police), though it was harmless error to include the confession. That’s really the only case I found at all notable. Again, though, a case has disappeared. The summaries include State v. Wasko, but I don’t find a full opinion.

Iowa Court of Appeals

There were a number of new Court of Appeals opinions released today. I looked through the summaries and found so many that I thought might be interesting. I ended up needing to shave my list a little bit so I could get some work done.

There is one that touches on judicial recusal in an attorney malpractice case. Not really much there, though.

An unfortunate case concerning a mother’s need for her child to be sick.

Another child custody case that has a very interesting outcome. You have to read the dissent to find it that interesting, though.

A case about a gaming permit for the hallowed (see my last post) National Cattle Congress. Actually, it’s for the now defunct dog track in Waterloo, which is run by the Cattle Congress Board. This opinion, though, is now mysteriously missing from the page of recent decisions, though it still shows up in the summaries.

And a criminal case that I find remarkable only because I think I went to high school with the defendant.

Finally, my condolences to my office-mate Rockne Cole for the disposition of his post-conviction relief appeal.

Happy reading.

New Iowa Court of Appeals Opinions

Anyone interested in finding out just how childish and idiotic some adults can be should read State v. Gallimore. On appeal it was affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded. Mr. Gallimore certainly has some valid arguments and deserves the reversal and remand, but who can blame a Court for punishing this guy?

For a case on that fun old real property doctrine of adverse possession, see Stewart v. Judy. Can we really assume that Mr. Stewart was farming the land under claim of right when there’s no evidence of that? Maybe he’s just a jerk.

There’s a new dog bite case at Crabtree v. Johnson. A poor dad trying to keep his grown son from killing himself harbors a dangerous dog. Again, the wonderful world of childish adults. “Dad, I love that dog that I left to die in the backyard of your apartment building when I went to jail. If you get rid of Cotton, I’ll kill myself.”

And finally comes a smackdown from the Court of Appeals in a Benton County contempt case. First, they sustain the writ of certiorari and say there was no contempt. The father of the child didn’t return the child at the end of his physical care period because he got information from the mothers old boyfriend that she was dringking and doing drugs. Second came the rebule from the COA for the sentence entered: “You may not change the physical care of a child without findings of fact showing that such a change is in the child’s best interests.” Can’t say I disagree, especially since there was no evidence presented concerning the physicial care arrangement.

Happy reading. And again, if we can’t have fun with the law, why do it?

New Supreme Court and Court of Appeals Opinions

Both the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals released new opinions Friday. One of the Supreme Court cases will surely give rise to a legal malpractice suit, as a personal injury lawsuit was dismissed because the original notice and petition were not served within 90 days of filing. Even though a 1st District judge granted Plaintiff’s ex parte request for an extension of the service deadline because the parties were in settlement discussions. Another held constitutional the civil penalty portion of the deferred judgment provisions of the criminal code.

Linn County Associate Juvenile Judge Susan Flaherty asked that one of the Court of Appeals cases be forwarded to the attorneys practicing in juvenile court. That case discussed the impropriety of the same attorney being appointed guardian ad litem and attorney for a 12-year-old girl who didn’t want her mother’s parental rights terminated, though the guardian ad litem determined that termination was in her best interests. Interesting stuff.

New Court of Appeals Opinions

The Iowa Court of Appeals released a number of new opinions today. One that I find interesting is Erickson v. Raheel Foods, No. 7-764/07-0466. In that case, the Court upheld a damages award of $581 for the cost of a dental visit and anxiety after Ms. Erickson bit into a Kentucky Fried Chicken sadnwich and found a metal strand from a Brillo pad. Since Ms. Erickson was unconvincing as to other injuries, pain and suffering, and since there was substantial evidence to support the damage award, the Court determined that the damage award was appropriate. $581…the dangers of contingent fee cases.

New Court of Appeals Opinions

A quick review of the summaries of the opinions posted today by the Court of Appeals shows that they affirm a lot of cases. But, there are a few exceptions. The one that stands out most to me is Happe v. City of Urbandale, No. 7-577/06-0631. In Happe, the Court reversed a ruling by the Polk County District Court affirming the amount of road reconstruction costs assessed by the City to the Happe’s property. The original assessment was $37,092.09.

The Court of Appeals determined that amount to be excessive and knocked the assessment down to $6,118.51. Quite a decrease. The reasoning stems from case law stating that property owners are not required to pay for the gneral benefits of road reconstruction, only special benefits. The Court decided that there was sufficient evidence from the Happe’s that they received little, if any special benefit from the reconstruction. It probably didn’t hurt that a similar property was only assessed $6,118.51 to begin with.

The Supremes will be posting new opinions tomorrow.