UPDATES & ANALYSIS

Attorney-client privilege curbs State Auditor’s subpoena power, Iowa Supreme Court holds

by Rox Laird | April 24, 2026

The State Auditor has broad access under Iowa law to state and local records in conducting audits, including otherwise confidential information, but the Auditor’s access does not extend to records shielded by attorney-client privilege, the Iowa Supreme Court held in an April 17 decision.

State Auditor Rob Sand served a subpoena on the City of Davenport in the course of an audit seeking documents related to the City’s $1.9 million settlement of harassment claims brought by three City employees. The City provided most of the requested documents, but in a motion to modify the subpoena filed in Scott County District Court it sought to protect City Council communications with its attorneys during a closed meeting.

The district court concluded that while state law does not authorize the Auditor to examine attorney work product related to the city’s case, it does authorize examination of otherwise privileged attorney-client communications. The court ordered that minutes or recordings from the closed session be produced for an in-camera review of minutes or recordings from the closed session to determine whether any should be shielded from the Auditor.

The City challenged that order in an interlocutory appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court. In its April 17 decision written by Justice Edward Mansfield, the Iowa Supreme Court reversed the district court and held that the Auditor’s subpoena power is limited regarding attorney-client communications. All participating members of the Court agreed. Justice Thomas Waterman took no part in consideration or decision of the case.

Confidential communications between attorneys and their clients may not be disclosed in testimony under Iowa Code Section 622.10(1), and the Iowa Supreme Court has long held that any confidential communication between attorney and client is absolutely privileged from disclosure against the client’s will. “As long ago as 1874, in discussing the predecessor to section 622.10(1), we said that the statute ‘is but declarative of the common law,’ and ‘such communications were effectually locked at the common law, and could not be revealed at all’,” Justice Mansfield wrote.

The Court also dismissed Sand’s argument that the State Auditor’s authority under Iowa Code Section 11.41 to access confidential information when conducting audits trumps the attorney-client privilege. That privilege in Iowa “exists today not just by reason of statute, but by virtue of the common law,” Justice Mansfield wrote, quoting from a 2025 legal treatise that said,

“[I]n Iowa, the common-law privilege presumably protects communications between the attorney and client from outside intrusion by legal compulsion (such as a discovery request or a subpoena), even if the attorney is not called to testify and even if the communicative information sought will not be directly introduced into evidence in a litigation proceeding.”

Tags: Iowa Supreme Court 2025-26