This case involved a dispute over the amount of damages owed to landowners after the Iowa State Highway Commission used eminent domain to condemn approximately five acres of their 33.9-acre property, along with access rights, for the construction of Interstate 80 and a substitute access road near Iowa City. The landowners appealed the commission's initial assessment, and after a jury trial awarded them $27,500, the commission appealed, claiming errors in the jury instructions. The Iowa Supreme Court reversed and remanded for a new trial, holding that the trial court failed to properly instruct the jury on how to consider evidence of comparable sales as substantive evidence of property value and that the instruction on loss of access rights was insufficiently specific. The majority reasoned that under recent precedent, comparable sales evidence is admissible without limitation and requires an appropriate instruction, while the access instruction did not adequately guide the jury on assessing impairment of reasonable access.
The case involved two insurance companies that paid damages to victims of a car accident caused by an intoxicated driver and then sued the defendant liquor licensee for contribution, indemnity, and damages under Iowa's dram shop statutes (sections 129.2 and 123.95) as well as common-law negligence. The trial court dismissed the petition for failure to state a claim, but the Iowa Supreme Court reversed that dismissal. The court held that the statutes create a cause of action for persons injured in their property—including insurers who made payments due to the intoxication—and that the petition sufficiently alleged the defendant's sale of liquor to the driver was a proximate cause of the collision. The opinion explained that Iowa's dram shop acts are to be liberally construed and that questions of proximate cause are generally for the jury when the facts are taken as true on a motion to dismiss.
The case involved 33 Des Moines police detectives who appealed to the city's Civil Service Commission, claiming that a 1966 city council ordinance increasing their pay at a lower rate than sergeants constituted an illegal demotion violating civil service and veterans' preference laws. The commission dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction by a 2-1 vote, a decision upheld by the district court on certiorari review. On appeal, the Iowa Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the commission had no authority to review the ordinance because the city council was acting in its legislative capacity to set salaries for an entire classification rather than as an appointing authority under chapter 365 of the Code. The court reasoned that allowing the commission to override such legislative actions would improperly disrupt municipal government structure, and any challenge to the council's action belonged in court instead.
The case involved Willie Mayhew's appeal from his conviction for second-degree murder after he fatally stabbed Ellis McClellan during a drunken argument over buying wine. The primary issues on appeal concerned the trial court's admission of a post-arrest statement by the defendant to police, challenges to other evidentiary rulings, and jury instructions, with the defendant arguing violations of his Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights under Miranda standards. The court held that the statement was voluntary and not elicited through improper interrogation, that any objections regarding incomplete Miranda warnings were not properly preserved at trial, and that other assigned errors lacked merit, thereby affirming the conviction. Dissenting opinions focused on the denial of access to certain police or witness reports for impeachment purposes.
In State v. Church, the defendant was charged and convicted by a jury of robbery without aggravation after an incident in which he and companions allegedly assaulted and took money from a hitchhiker on Interstate 29. On appeal, the defendant challenged the admission of statements made to a highway patrolman before Miranda warnings were given, as well as the trial court's refusal to instruct the jury on his defense of intoxication negating specific intent. The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding that the pre-Miranda conversation was admissible because the investigation had not yet focused on the defendant and he was not in custody. The court also found the evidence insufficient to support an intoxication defense, as no testimony established that the defendant was incapable of forming the required intent due to beer consumption or glue sniffing.
The case involved plaintiff Iris Smith challenging the Iowa Liquor Control Commission's confirmation of the automatic revocation of her class B beer permit after her employee Elsie Watts was convicted of selling beer to a minor on the premises, in violation of Code section 124.20(3). The district court annulled the cancellation of Smith's liquor license but sustained the beer permit revocation, and the Iowa Supreme Court affirmed that ruling on appeal. The court held that under Code section 124.30(3), the permit is automatically revoked upon the employee's conviction without any requirement for prior notice or hearing to the permit holder. The majority reasoned that the statute's plain language provides for revocation by operation of law, the commission had adequate records including the conviction to act, and due process was satisfied under existing precedent like Walker v. City of Clinton.