By Ryan Koopmans
As Rox wrote yesterday, the Iowa Supreme Court is (or at least was) expected to release a decis …
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Court guts unemployment rule on jailed workers
You can be fired for missing work because you are in jail, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you will be denied unemployment insurance benefits.
That’s according to the Iowa Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling that gutted an Iowa administrative rule applied t …
Des Moines Water Works lawsuit is teed up for the Iowa Supreme Court’s next term
The Des Moines Water Works lawsuit against 10 agricultural drainage districts in three northern Iowa counties will not be tried in federal court in Sioux City for more than a year. But the nature of the lawsuit could be substantially altered by the Iowa Supreme Court as early as this fall. …
Iowa Supreme Court takes up landlord-tenant law
It has been a matter of law in Iowa for more than four decades that tenants have a right to expect that a rented apartment or house will be fit for human habitation.
The Iowa Supreme Court last week clarified the meaning of that right in a read more
Iowa Supreme Court continues to debate meaning of the 4th Amendment and the breadth of Iowa’s Search-and-Seizure Clause
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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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Lay Landowner Cannot Testify About Specific Comparable Sales to Support the Valuation of His Land Without Expert Testimony, Iowa Supreme Court Rules
Iowa has long recognized what is know as “the property owner rule,” which permits a landowner to testify as a non-expert in condemnation cases about the landowner’s opinion of the value of its own property. Iowa has also long recognized that property values can be supported by the prices paid in comparable land sales. …
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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.