Iowa Supreme Court: Patient safety reports are privileged under ‘morbidity and mortality’ statute
Patient safety reports produced by hospital employees are off limits to discovery in legal proceedings, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday, because confidentiality encourages hospital staff to be comfortable in candidly reporting safety concerns.
Dennis Wi …
read more2016-17 Iowa Supreme Court preview: Do high school baseball dugouts need to be completely enclosed?
Muscatine High School was at bat in the fifth inning and Spencer Ludman was waiting in the dugout for his turn at bat when a foul ball rocketed off a Davenport Assumption player’s bat and struck Ludman in the head. He suffered a skull fracture, spent months recovering from brain injuries and …
read moreEighth Circuit will take another look at ISU free speech ruling
2016-17 Iowa Supreme Court status report: 69 down; 49 to go
Tomorrow the Iowa Supreme Court is expected to hand down one decision, which will bring to 69 the number of cases disposed of in the first seven months of the 2016-17 term.
After the release of tomorrow’s decision, 43 submitted cases will remain to be d …
read moreNorthern District Judge Edward J. McManus (1920-2017): A half-century on the bench
U.S. District Judge Edward J. (“Nick”) McManus of Cedar Rapids died Monday. He was 97.
McManus, a native of Keokuk, attended St. Ambrose College in Davenport for two years before transferring to the University of Iowa where he earned bachelor …
read moreIowa Supreme Court 2016-17 preview: Did Iowa’s anti-slavery delegates in 1857 give criminal defendants broader rights today?
Eight years before the Civil War, drafters of the Iowa Constitution incorporated language into the Bill of Rights aimed at protecting the rights of fugitive slaves who traveled to Iowa. A convicted murderer is now asking the Iowa Supreme Court to apply that language in granting his bid for a ne …
read moreQuit horsin’ around! Your 38-year-old horse doesn’t make you a farmer.
By Ryan Leemkuil
Does a single horse grazing on your property make you a farmer?
Not so, said a majority of the Iowa Supreme Court in read more
Iowa Supreme Court denies review of Harrison County open meetings ruling by Court of Appeals
Iowa Supreme Court 2016-17 preview: Does confidentiality in a ‘morbidity and mortality’ report apply to a dislocated shoulder?
Dennis Willard was admitted to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for treatment of injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident. Among his injuries was a dislocated shoulder, but Willard alleges that was inflicted by hospital staff while he was sedated. Now he is asking the Iowa Supreme …
read moreIowa Supreme Court: The Constitution does not require special treatment for juveniles on restitution orders
The Iowa Supreme Court has declined to add another criminal-sentencing exception for juvenile offenders in a pair of rulings regarding Iowa’s mandatory $150,000 restitution in murder cases.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a series of cases over the la …
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Iowa Supreme Court applies ‘plain feel’ exception to uphold Fourth Amendment warrantless search
Appellate courts have over the past half century given police officers more latitude to make warrantless searches during traffic stops using two of the five senses – sight and touch – to assess whether a suspicious item discovered in a pat-down search is evidence of a crime.
The sense of touch was at issue in a decis …
Des Moines police officers denied immunity for holding crime witnesses, Eighth Circuit rules
Federal courts recently have begun to reexamine the common law doctrine of “qualified immunity” that protects public officials from individual liability where there is no clearly established constitutional or statutory right at stake.
This reconsideration has been prompted in large part by critics of granting qualifi …
Eighth Circuit Vacates Injunction Against Iowa’s Mask Mandate Ban On Mootness Grounds
On Monday, May 16, a panel of judges from the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated an Iowa federal district judge’s injunction barring enforcement of Iowa’s ban of mask mandates in schools. In doing so, the Court of Appeals overturned its prior ruling from January, which affirmed the injunction …
Railroad’s share of drainage district repairs based on benefit, not cost, Iowa Supreme Court rules
A railroad whose tracks cross an agricultural drainage district should be assessed its share of the cost of repairing deteriorated drainage tile based on the railroad’s benefit from the repairs, not the added cost of complying with federal railroad regulations, the Iowa Supreme Court said in a ruling handed down May 6.
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On Brief: Iowa’s Appellate Blog is devoted to appellate litigation with a focus on the Iowa Supreme Court, the Iowa Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.