UPDATES & ANALYSIS
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 trucking company gets unanimous U.S. Supreme Court victory
A sexual harassment lawsuit against Cedar Rapids trucking company CRST that has bounced around the federal courts for more than a decade took yet another bounce at the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday.
The history of this case is so contorted that the Supreme Co …
Iowa Court of Appeals: Reversing an agency’s fact-based ruling is the “Bigfoot of the legal community”
By Ryan Koopmans
When an administrative agency makes a ruling that depends, at least in part, upon factual determinations, it’s difficult to get that ruling overturned on appeal. This morning, in read more
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
FEATURED POSTS
Is an employee covered by a collective-bargaining agreement entitled to an exception to the ‘at-will’ employment doctrine?
The Iowa Supreme Court will hear arguments on Nov. 13 in an appeal brought by a former state administrative law judge who contends she was fired for blowing the whistle on her boss for impr …
Iowa Supreme Court upholds a will to resolve a legal dispute over a family farm
In the words of her attorney, Margaret Workman was “obsessed” with estate planning regarding the fate of the family’s 200-acre farm, creating and amending wills no fewer than 10 times.
Margaret, who died at the age of 89 in 2012, may rest in peace: He …
Iowa Supreme Court restores sentence reduction in a ruling affecting 150 inmates
The Iowa Supreme Court in its first decision of the term handed down Oct. 13 agreed with a convicted sex offender that his prison sentence was wrongly extended by more than three years by the Iowa Department of Corrections (IDOC).
The IDOC’s recent poli …
Iowa Supreme Court to hear arguments on the right to a jury and to a language interpreter in Davenport today
The Iowa Supreme Court will hear arguments in a drug-conviction appeal at the Davenport Central High School Performing Arts Center this evening. This will be the court’s third session outside the Judicial Branch Building this term, which is part of the court’s continuing effort to make the …
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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.