Joshua N. THOMAS, Appellant, v. Officers Tim GAVIN, Chuck Tygart, Jess Bernhard, and Adam Olson; Deputy Sheriff Luke Hruby; Reserve Deputy Sheriff Joshua Gersten; the City Of North Liberty, Iowa; and Johnson County, Iowa, Appellees.
No. 12-1515
Supreme Court of Iowa
Oct. 11, 2013
838 N.W.2d 518
Terry J. Abernathy and Stephanie L. Hinz of Pickens, Barnes & Abernathy, Cedar Rapids, for appellees Gavin, Tygart, Bernhard, Olson, and the City of North Liberty.
Andrew B. Chappell and Susan D. Nehring, Assistant County Attorneys, for appellees Hruby, Gersten, and Johnson County.
While attending North Liberty Fun Days in 2007, the plaintiff alleges he was wrongfully assaulted and arrested by officers of the North Liberty Police Department and deputies of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office. He filed suit against the City of North Liberty, Johnson County, and the officers and deputies involved. The district court dismissed his case, finding the defendants were entitled to immunity based on
Upon our review, we now reach a different conclusion from the district court as to the defendants’ immunity from suit. We hold that any immunity conferred by
I. Facts and Procedural Background.
Plaintiff Joshua Thomas was attending a concert at North Liberty Fun Days on June 9, 2007. Late that evening, a fight broke out, and Thomas alleges that he intervened to try to break it up. Several law enforcement officers grabbed Thomas. They used Tasers on Thomas, handcuffed him, and arrested him. Thomas alleges that the Taser deployments were unnecessary and caused him ongoing pain and muscle and ligament damage.
Although Thomas was criminally charged with disorderly conduct and interference with official acts, the former charge was dropped before trial, and he was acquitted of the latter charge.
On May 15, 2009, Thomas brought suit against North Liberty police officers Tim Gavin, Chuck Tygart, Jess Bernhard, and Adam Olson and Johnson County sheriff’s deputies Luke Hruby and Joshua Gersten, as well as the City of North Liberty and Johnson County. He alleged common law claims of assault, battery, false arrest, and malicious prosecution.
The defendants moved for summary judgment.1 They argued that although the individual defendants do not receive their paychecks from the State of Iowa, they are nonetheless “employees of the state” for purposes of the ITCA. See
Thomas resisted the motions on both factual and legal grounds. Factually, he disputed that the defendants were acting to enforce the laws of Iowa at the time the alleged torts were committed. Legally, he maintained the defendants had failed to account for
However, on the eve of trial, the district court reconsidered its prior ruling and granted the defendants’ motions. Addressing the facts first, the court explained:
The Court felt, and all parties agreed, that the applicability of Iowa Code Chapter 669 to this case was a legal question for the Court to determine prior to trial, and that no additional factual record (other than filings already in the court file) was necessary for this determination.
. . . .
The following factual background is either stipulated to by Plaintiff or undisputed:
1. Plaintiff’s claims stem from his involvement in an alleged intervention in and/or participation in a fight in North Liberty, Iowa.
2. Johnson County Deputy Hruby, Reserve Deputy Sheriff Gersten, City of North Liberty Police Officers Gavin, Tygart, Bernhard and Olson were all on duty as peace officers that evening.
3. All of the Defendants are sworn peace officers who have a duty to enforce the criminal laws of the State of Iowa.
4. All of the Defendants were generally involved (to a greater or lesser degree) in attempting to detain Thomas and ultimately arrest him for violations of
Iowa Code Section 719.1 , Interference with Official Acts, andIowa Code Section 723.4 , Disorderly Conduct.5. The Defendants’ actions while on duty that evening involved enforcing the laws of the State of Iowa, and the charges filed against Thomas were for violating state law and were brought and prosecuted in the name of the State of Iowa. See Johnson County Court file SMSM069153—State of Iowa vs. Joshua Thomas.
(footnote omitted).
The district court went on to adopt the central legal premise of the defendants’ motions. It found that the individual defendants were “employees of the state” for purposes of the ITCA, that Thomas’s claims were “claims” within the scope of the Act, and that ”
I also note that to hold otherwise would present the incongruous situation of an Iowa State Highway Patrol Officer and a County Deputy Sheriff (and/or a City Police Officer) jointly undertaking to arrest a criminal suspect in the enforcement of the State of Iowa’s criminal laws but which would then allow the arrestee to bring suit for false arrest against the County Deputy Sheriff but bar a similar claim against the Iowa State Highway Patrol Officer even though the physical acts of the officers involved were the same in enforcing the [S]tate of Iowa’s criminal code and effectuating the arrest.
Thomas appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment.
We review a district court’s ruling on summary judgment for correction of errors of law. Office of Citizens’ Aide/Ombudsman v. Edwards, 825 N.W.2d 8, 14 (Iowa 2012). Summary judgment is appropriate if “the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.”
III. Legal Analysis.
A. Background on the Relevant Statutes.
This case requires us to consider the interaction between
Both statutes are viewed as abolishing traditional common law immunities. See Don R. Bennett, Handling Tort Claims and Suits Against the State of Iowa: Part I, 17 Drake L.Rev. 189, 189 (1968) (“Prior to passage of the Iowa Tort Claims Act in 1965, the maxim that ‘the King can do no wrong’ prevailed in Iowa.“); Terrence A. Hopkins, Municipal Tort Liability in Iowa, 31 Drake L.Rev. 855, 855 (1982) (noting that the IMTCA “abolished the doctrine of governmental immunity in Iowa and created a cause of action against municipalities which was unknown at common law“). It should be noted, however, that historically municipal employees could be sued in their individual capacities for torts they had committed and were not protected by sovereign or governmental immunity. See Vermeer v. Sneller, 190 N.W.2d 389, 392 (Iowa 1971); Anderson v. Calamus Cmty. Sch. Dist., 174 N.W.2d 643, 644 (Iowa 1970).
The ITCA defines “claim” as any claim against the state of Iowa or an employee of the state for money only “caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the state while acting within the scope of the employee’s office or employment.”
The year after the legislature enacted the ITCA, this court upheld its constitutionality in Graham v. Worthington, 259 Iowa 845, 146 N.W.2d 626 (1966). Graham specifically rejected the plaintiff’s contention that the ITCA covered political subdivisions of the state and their officers, agents, and employees:
We are satisfied political subdivisions such as cities, school districts and counties are neither agencies of the state nor corporations as those terms are employed and defined in the Act, and are not included within its clear intent and purpose.
Surely the officers, agents and employees of political subdivisions are not officers, agents and employees of the state while acting within the scope of their office or employment.
Id. at 854, 146 N.W.2d at 633 (emphasis omitted).
The general assembly passed the IMTCA the following year. In its current form, the Act states, “Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, every municipality is subject to liability for its torts and those of its officers and employees, acting within the scope of their employment or duties. . . .”
The Act further provides that “[t]he remedy . . . provided by
Originally, the exclusivity clause in the IMTCA applied only when the officer or employee was enforcing a local ordinance or regulation. Thus, as first enacted, the Act provided:
The remedy against the municipality provided by section two (2) of this Act for injury or loss of property or personal injury or death resulting from any act or omission of an officer or employee in the execution of a statute or ordinance, or officially adopted resolution, rule or regulation of a governing body2 while acting in the scope of his office or employment shall hereafter be exclusive of any other civil action or proceeding by reason of the same subject matter against the officer or employee whose act or omission gave rise to the claim. . . .
See 1967 Iowa Acts ch. 405 § 4(4) (footnote added). However, after this court made clear that the IMTCA did not affect an injured party’s preexisting common law right to sue a local official in his or her individual capacity without going through the Act, see Vermeer, 190 N.W.2d at 392; Anderson, 174 N.W.2d at 644, the general assembly expanded this exclusivity provision in 1974 by eliminating the requirement that the claim be based upon local law. See 1974 Iowa Acts ch. 1263, § 4. The provision now reads:
The remedy against the municipality provided by section 670.2 shall hereafter be exclusive of any other civil action or proceeding by reason of the same subject matter against the officer, employee or agent whose act or omission gave rise to the claim. . . .
B. The Parties’ Arguments on Appeal.
Thomas’s position on appeal is that
We begin by considering the wording of the relevant statutes as applied to the present case. “Our goal, when interpreting a statute, is to give effect to the intent of the legislature.” Jacobson Transp. Co. v. Harris, 778 N.W.2d 192, 197 (Iowa 2010). “To determine the intent of the legislature, we look first to the words of the statute itself as well as the context of the language at issue.” Id.
The defendants do not dispute they are municipalities and employees of municipalities and that the defendant employees were acting within the scope of their employment or duties. Thus, upon a first reading of
The only potentially applicable exceptions to liability within
Given the statutory language in
Furthermore, contrary to the defendants’ overall position in this case,
The remedy against the municipality provided by section 670.2 shall hereafter be exclusive of any other civil action or proceeding by reason of the same subject matter against the officer, employee or agent whose act or omission gave rise to the claim. . . .
(The legislature removed the limitation to local law in 1974.) See
It is true that notwithstanding the exclusivity provision, we did hold in Nelson v. Steiner that an injured party could sue both the municipality and the municipal employee for a particular tort committed by the employee. 262 N.W.2d 579, 581-82 (Iowa 1978). As we noted, since the Act expressly requires local governments to defend and indemnify these employees, see
In addition,
Reading
One further point: The IMTCA exempts from liability claims when the municipal employee or officer exercised due care “in the execution of a statute.”
In sum, we are unaware of any statutory language that actually makes
D. Review of Precedent.
We now turn to caselaw. As we have already pointed out, as long ago as 1966, we held in Graham that the ITCA did not apply to employees of cities and counties. Graham, 259 Iowa at 854, 146 N.W.2d at 633. The defendants characterize that as dictum, but they are incorrect. One of the constitutional challenges raised in Graham was based on article III, section 29 of the Iowa Constitution. Id. at 851-52, 146 N.W.2d at 631-32.3 The plaintiff asserted
We then repeated our Graham statements shortly after the IMTCA was enacted. See Strong v. Town of Lansing, 179 N.W.2d 365, 366-67 (Iowa 1970) (quoting Graham with approval).
Additionally, we have said on more than one occasion that
We have also been guided by interpretations of the FTCA, which was the model for the ITCA, when the wording of the two Acts is identical or similar. See, e.g., Hyde v. Buckalew, 393 N.W.2d 800, 802 (Iowa 1986) (“We have frequently turned to federal law in construing [the ITCA] because our statute is modeled after the Federal Tort Claims Act.“); Saxton v. State, 206 N.W.2d 85, 86 (Iowa 1973) (“Our statute is modeled on the Federal Tort Claims Act and we are guided by interpretations given identical statutory language by the federal courts.“). In this area the FTCA has similar wording to the ITCA and defines “employee of the government” to include “officers or employees of any federal agency, . . . and persons acting on behalf of a federal agency in an official capacity, temporarily or permanently in the service of the United States, whether with or without compensation.”
In Logue v. United States, 412 U.S. 521, 93 S.Ct. 2215, 37 L.Ed.2d 121 (1973), the United States Supreme Court held that the FTCA’s definition of employee did not include county jailers who were holding a federal prisoner under contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. See id. at 526, 93 S.Ct. at 2219, 37 L.Ed.2d at 127. The Court focused on common law principles of agency and the federal authorities’ lack of authority to control the physical activities of the county employees. See id. at 526-30, 93 S.Ct. at 2219-21, 37 L.Ed.2d at 127-29. The Court rejected the notion that the county employees should be considered “employees of the government” simply because they were discharging duties imposed by federal law or “performing tasks that would otherwise be performed by salaried employees of the Government.” See id. at 528-29, 531-32, 93 S.Ct. at 2220-22, 37
The defendants concede no Iowa appellate court has ever found that a municipal employee can be considered an employee of the state who would be immunized from tort liability by the ITCA. As noted, Graham would indicate otherwise. Graham, 259 Iowa at 854, 146 N.W.2d at 633. The defendants, however, rely on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit’s recent decision in McGhee v. Pottawattamie County, 547 F.3d 922 (8th Cir.2008). In that case, two individuals brought a civil rights suit for wrongful imprisonment after their murder convictions were reversed for a number of improprieties. Id. at 925. The named defendants included the former Pottawattamie County Attorney and one of his former assistants. Id. The defendants argued, and the Eighth Circuit agreed, that the employees of the county attorney’s office were immune from suit based on
Upon our review, we respectfully disagree with the Eighth Circuit’s ruling. The Eighth Circuit’s opinion focuses exclusively on the ITCA and does not address the IMTCA or our prior holding in Graham. See id. at 929-31. While the ITCA’s definition of “employee of the state” could perhaps be read in isolation to include municipal employees when they are enforcing state law as part of their official duties, that definition does not stand on its own. Rather, it coexists with a body of precedent, such as Graham, as well as the IMTCA, a comprehensive law governing the liability of municipalities and their officers and employees.
E. Policy Considerations.
The defendants also assert that if
We are mindful of this concern, but caution that the defendants’ view of the law also could lead to some unwieldy outcomes. For example, what if a local law enforcement officer is responding to an ordinance violation and investigating a possible violation of state criminal law at the same time? And who pays the bill or provides the defense when a local official enforcing state law is sued—the state or the local entity? See
In fact, the North Liberty Code in effect at the time of Thomas’s arrest prohibited disorderly conduct and interference with city officers. See North Liberty, Iowa,
Difficult practical questions would also arise for attorneys who wanted to bring claims over improper conduct by county and local employees. Instead of being able to rely on the employee’s status, the attorney would likely have to file parallel claims with the state appeal board under
The defendants’ principle would not be limited to law enforcement officers but could affect numerous other municipal employees who in some way carry out state laws, such as animal control workers, school teachers, street maintenance workers, and parks and recreation workers. The Iowa Code is replete with examples of state laws that tell municipalities and their employees what they have to do. See, e.g.,
We are not addressing the situation where a local law enforcement official has been deputized to a state agency and is under the direction of that agency. See
IV. Conclusion.
For the reasons set forth, we hold that Thomas’s claims against the defendants are not barred by
REVERSED AND REMANDED.