The Law Office of Shawn Shearer, P.C., Shawn Shearer, and Theodore F. Sporer, Plaintiffs, vs. Iowa District Court for Fremont County, Defendant.
No.24–0548
In the Iowa Supreme Court
Submitted October 7, 2025—Filed November 21, 2025
Two attorneys petition for a writ of certiorari challenging a $30,000 sanctions award under rule 1.413(1) for their representation of clients challenging a wind turbine construction project. Writ Sustained.
Oxley, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which all justices joined.
Shawn Shearer (argued) of The Shearer Law Office, P.C., Des Moines, and Theodore F. Sporer, Clive, pro se, for plaintiffs.
Robert M. Livingston and Kristopher K. Madsen of Stuart Tinley Law Firm, LLP, Council Bluffs, for defendant.
Brant M. Leonard (argued), Bret A. Dublinske, and Kristy Dahl Rogers (until withdrawal) of Fredrikson & Byron, P.A., Des Moines, for intervenor Shenandoah Hills Wind Project, LLC.
Two attorneys were sanctioned $30,000 arising out of their representation of Fremont County residents who filed suit to challenge a wind turbine construction project in the county. The district court found that the attorneys were subject to sanctions under
I. Factual Background and Proceedings.
Shenandoah Hills Wind Project, LLC (SHW) is an affiliate of Invenergy LLC, a large international developer of renewable energy with several wind farms across Iowa. In 2020, it began work to develop a wind energy conversion system (WECS) project to be constructed across Page and Fremont Counties in southwest Iowa. The project proposed building thirty-plus wind turbine sites in each county. SHW worked with each county‘s board of supervisors to approve the projects. The Page County Board of Supervisors (Page County BOS) passed an ordinance regulating the WECS projects on October 29, 2019. The Fremont County Board of Supervisors (Fremont County BOS) passed a similar wind ordinance—Fremont County Ordinance #2020-1, entitled “An Ordinance Regulating the Construction, Installation, and Maintenance of Wind Energy Conversion Systems and Addressing the Standards and Conditions Thereof Within Fremont County, Iowa” (Fremont County wind ordinance)—on June 24, 2020.
SHW submitted a permit application on March 23, 2022, to site and construct a WECS to both county boards of supervisors, as required by each county‘s respective wind ordinance. Each county board held meetings to discuss the respective permit applications throughout the summer, where residents voiced their concerns about and objections to the wind turbine projects. Despite the objections, the Fremont County BOS approved SHW‘s permit application for the project in Fremont County on July 13, and the Page County BOS approved SHW‘s permit application for the project in Page County on August 2.
The wind ordinances also required the developer to enter into a road-use agreement and a decommissioning agreement with the county before it could begin construction of an approved WECS project. A road-use agreement is a separate agreement defining the rights and obligations of the county and the developer related to the construction, maintenance, and use of county roads in connection with the development of the WECS. A decommissioning agreement identifies the anticipated means and the estimated costs to remove each wind energy device within a specified time
Plaintiffs Shawn Shearer and Theodore Sporer (collectively, “plaintiff attorneys“) are Iowa attorneys who represented residents of Page County and Fremont County opposing construction of the proposed wind farms in their respective counties. Plaintiff attorneys filed a petition in the Iowa District Court for Page County on behalf of James Hunter and other Page County residents (collectively referred to as “the Hunters“) on September 19, 2022, against Page County, its board of supervisors, the individual supervisors, the county attorney, and the county‘s zoning administrator seeking to halt the SHW project. The Page County defendants removed the case to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Iowa based on the Hunters’ federal due process claim. Then they filed a pre-answer motion to dismiss. SHW moved to intervene and also filed a motion to dismiss. In a published order entered on January 31, 2023, the federal district court dismissed all claims, including the state law claims. See Hunter v. Page County, 653 F. Supp. 3d 600, 621 (S.D. Iowa 2023) (Pratt, J.), aff‘d in part, vacated in part, 102 F.4th 853 (8th Cir. 2024).1
The federal court concluded that Page County‘s approval of the permit was a quasi-judicial function, so those challenges needed to be brought through a writ of certiorari as the exclusive remedy. Id. at 616–17. The court then concluded the Hunters filed their petition ten days too late, requiring those counts to be dismissed. Id. at 617, 619–20. For the challenges to the wind ordinance, the court concluded dismissal was appropriate regardless of whether the board was acting in a legislative or a quasi-judicial capacity because the board properly exercised its home rule authority to enact the wind ordinance. Id. at 617–18. In reaching that conclusion, the court distinguished the Page County wind ordinance from the one in Mathis v. Palo Alto County Board of Supervisors, 927 N.W.2d 191 (Iowa 2019), which the court characterized as a zoning ordinance. Id. at 618 (“[U]nlike the ordinance in Mathis, the Wind Ordinance is not a zoning ordinance or an amendment to a zoning ordinance.“). The court also dismissed the remaining Open Meetings Act claims for failing to meet the heightened
Meanwhile, plaintiff attorneys filed the action giving rise to this certiorari proceeding in the Iowa District Court for Fremont County on January 25—six days before the federal district court‘s order was entered in Hunter—on behalf of Danny Jennings and other Fremont County residents (collectively referred to as “the Jennings“) against Fremont County, the Fremont County BOS, and the individual supervisors (collectively, “Fremont County defendants“). The petition asserted twenty-three claims that generally challenged: (1) the substance of and the process used to enact the Fremont County wind ordinance; (2) approval of SHW‘s application for a permit for the WECS project in Fremont County; (3) compliance with the procedures required by the Open Meetings Act under
SHW quickly sought to intervene, as it had in the Page County litigation. Its counsel sent the plaintiff attorneys a letter on February 6 “pursuant to
The plaintiff attorneys did not voluntarily dismiss the Fremont County case. But they did file an amended petition on behalf of the Jennings, which removed two of the original claims and made other revisions to the petition in response to Hunter. The Jennings also sought a temporary restraining order to halt action on an item on the Fremont County BOS‘s upcoming meeting agenda seeking approval of a right-of-way permit for SHW to begin removing trees and shrubs prefatory to construction of the WECS project. On March 28, the district court ordered the Fremont County BOS to take no action on the right-of-way permit until the court could hold a hearing on the Jennings’ request for a restraining order. That request was ultimately heard on May 15, at the same time as SHW‘s subsequent motion to dismiss the lawsuit, joined by the Fremont County defendants.
On June 13, the district court dismissed the case and lifted the stay order. The district court dismissed the counts challenging the substance of the wind ordinance based on its conclusions that: (1) a county can use its home rule authority rather than its zoning authority to regulate wind farms through stand-alone ordinances, so provisions in the Fremont County zoning ordinance containing height restrictions did not need to be amended or excepted pursuant to
We transferred the Jennings’ appeal to the court of appeals, which affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court of appeals concluded that “nearly all of the Board‘s actions at issue in this appeal were quasi-judicial,” Jennings v. Fremont County, No. 23–1101, 2024 WL 5152369, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. Dec. 18, 2024), such that certiorari review was the exclusive method for bringing the challenges even though the Jennings also sought declaratory and injunctive relief, id. Noting that the petition was filed 197 days after the permit application was approved and 946 days after the wind ordinance was passed, the court of appeals affirmed dismissal of all counts as untimely except the ones regarding the Open Meetings Act. See id. (citing
In the meantime, back in district court, SHW filed a motion for sanctions on July 13, 2023, against the Jennings’ counsel—the attorney plaintiffs in this certiorari proceeding. The district court judge who entered the order dismissing the case on the merits had reached mandatory retirement age, so the sanctions motion was considered by a different judge who was newly appointed to the case. The district court granted the motion for sanctions on November 7. The parties then briefed the appropriate amount of sanctions, and the district court entered an order on March 7, 2024, requiring the Jennings’ counsel to pay a monetary sanction of $30,000, with $20,000 paid to SHW and $10,000 paid to the Fremont County defendants.
The plaintiff attorneys filed a timely petition for writ of certiorari to our court on April 2. We granted the writ on July 12 and retained the appeal.
II. Analysis.
A. Standard of Review.
A writ of certiorari is the proper vehicle for challenging a district court‘s order imposing sanctions on an attorney. See Davis v. Iowa Dist. Ct. for Scott Cnty., 943 N.W.2d 58, 61 (Iowa 2020); Hearity v. Iowa Dist. Ct. for Fayette Cnty., 440 N.W.2d 860, 862 (Iowa 1989). We review a district court‘s decision to award sanctions for abuse of discretion. Dupaco Cmty. Credit Union v. Iowa Dist. Ct. for Linn Cnty., 13 N.W.3d 580, 589 (Iowa 2024). Under that standard, the district court‘s factfindings are binding on us “if they are supported by substantial evidence.” Id. A district court abuses its discretion when it “exercises its discretion on grounds or for reasons clearly untenable or to an extent clearly unreasonable.” Id. (quoting Schettler v. Iowa Dist. Ct. for Carroll Cnty., 509 N.W.2d 459, 464 (Iowa 1993)). “An erroneous application of the law is clearly untenable.” Id. (quoting Rowedder v. Anderson, 814 N.W.2d 585, 589 (Iowa 2012)). Thus, under the abuse of discretion standard, “we will correct an erroneous application of the law.” Id. (quoting Barnhill v. Iowa Dist. Ct. for Polk Cnty., 765 N.W.2d 267, 272 (Iowa 2009)).
B. Framework for a Rule 1.413(1) Sanction.
SHW sought, and the district court awarded, sanctions under
Credit Union, 13 N.W.3d at 584. We refer to these as the “reading, inquiry, and purpose elements” of the signature requirement. Weigel v. Weigel, 467 N.W.2d 277, 280 (Iowa 1991). A breach of any of these independent duties requires the court to impose a sanction. Barnhill, 765 N.W.2d at 272; see also Mathias v. Glandon, 448 N.W.2d 443, 445 (Iowa 1989) (en banc) (“The question . . . is not whether a court shall impose sanctions when it finds a violation—it must; . . . .“).
Here, SHW sought sanctions under the inquiry element by asserting that there was no legal basis to support the pleadings filed on behalf of the Jennings, particularly after the federal district court dismissed the Hunter case on January 31, 2023. Whether counsel failed to make a reasonable inquiry into the law requires a court to consider “the complexity of factual and legal issues, the clarity or ambiguity of existing law, and the plausibility of the legal positions asserted.” Dupaco Cmty. Credit Union, 13 N.W.3d at 589–90 (quoting Est. of Bisignano, 991 N.W.2d 135, 142 (Iowa 2023)). An attorney‘s conduct is assessed against “an objective, not subjective, standard of reasonableness under the circumstances.” Id. at 590 (quoting Est. of Bisignano, 991 N.W.2d at 142). “Arguments ‘made in good faith’ weigh against a sanction.” Est. of Bisignano, 991 N.W.2d at 142 (quoting Homeland Energy Sols., LLC v. Retterath, 938 N.W.2d 664, 710 (Iowa 2020)).
The district court agreed with SHW that sanctions were warranted, relying heavily
The district court considered the eleven American Bar Association (ABA) guidelines we discussed in Mathis v. Glandon. See 448 N.W.2d at 446–47 (“In determining whether a reasonable inquiry into the law has been made, the court considers all relevant circumstances,” including a list from the ABA). Although the ABA guidelines provide circumstances that could help determine whether counsel made a proper inquiry into the law, we caution that these are merely a list of circumstances. They are not “factors” or elements of a test to be considered or weighed as a balancing test in every case. Nevertheless, after considering each circumstance listed in the ABA guidelines, the district court “found that counsel for Petitioners have violated Rule 1.413 by initiating and maintaining this case despite it not being warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law.”
1. Rule 1.413(1) imposes no continuing duty.
We start by reiterating that
The same is true here. Whatever insight the federal district court‘s Hunter
2. Each filed paper must be considered separately.
We also stress that
The district court‘s analysis focused on the amended petition but failed to address legal deficiencies in any of the other nine identified filings. The three filings related to the temporary restraining order were filed specifically to halt impending action by the Fremont County BOS that would have allowed SHW to begin preliminary physical work in preparation for constructing the wind farm. Other than challenging the continuing underlying legal basis for the lawsuit, SHW never argued—and the district court did not find—that the Jennings had no legal basis for seeking a temporary halt to the construction work during the pendency of the lawsuit.
Similarly, no challenge was made to the specific legal assertions made in the resistances to motions filed by SHW and the Fremont County defendants. If—as we‘ve said—
3. The amended petition was not sanctionable.
Even considering the plaintiff attorneys’ conduct in signing the amended petition, we conclude that the district court abused its discretion in finding that the legal bases for the petition were so lacking as to be sanctionable. Courts should be especially cautious when a party seeks sanctions on the basis that a pleading is legally frivolous. “Close scrutiny of an attorney‘s duty under [rule 1.413(1)] can have the effect of stifling legal creativity, repressing vigorous advocacy, multiplying expansive satellite litigation over sanctions, and creating a danger of arbitrary and inconsistent enforcement.” Mark S. Cady, Curbing Litigation Abuse and Misuse: A Judicial Approach, 36 Drake L. Rev. 483, 495 (1987). The rule requires only that a legal position be “warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law.”
As such, a court should not take too broad a view in assessing whether a filing is sufficiently supported by the law. See Cady, 36 Drake L. Rev. at 495 (“The duty to support the legal merit behind each document presents a potential for danger if defined in broad terms.“). A conclusory analysis, such as the conclusion that plaintiff attorneys made arguments contrary to “topics in general municipal law that are settled,” is inadequate to support sanctions without identifying the positions that are legally deficient. Rather, district courts should consider the specific legal bases presented to support a pleading to determine whether the attorney had a good faith basis for taking a particular position. A claim that identifies an issue of first impression or seeks to clarify existing law is not frivolous even though it turns out to lack legal merit. See, e.g., Est. of Bisignano, 991 N.W.2d at 142 (“In In re Guardianship of Radda[, 955 N.W.2d 203 (Iowa 2021)], for instance, we determined that even though a party presented questions of first impression that lacked merit, the arguments weren‘t frivolous within the meaning of
Here, despite finding that the meaning and interplay between the constitutional county home rule and other laws was “relatively untested” and that “there is some ambiguity in the area of county home rule law,” the district court concluded that the plaintiff attorneys’ legal positions were sanctionable. The court relied almost exclusively on the federal district court‘s decision dismissing the Hunter litigation and our prior case of Mathis v. Palo Alto County Board of Supervisors, 927 N.W.2d 191 (Iowa 2019), to conclude that the plaintiff attorneys failed to make an adequate inquiry into the relevant law. Even setting aside the timing issue between the original petition and the subsequent Hunter ruling in federal court, the district court‘s reliance on Hunter to sanction the amended petition was an abuse of discretion.
First, there were material factual differences between the two cases. The Jennings’ claims included challenges to the road-use and decommissioning agreements between Fremont County and SHW, but the Page County project was not as far along and had not yet entered those agreements. So the Hunter litigation did not touch on those claims. Further, the specific procedural challenges to enacting the respective county wind ordinances, including any purported conflicts of interest by individual supervisors or overreaching by Invenergy into the approval process, involved different county boards with different members and raised disparate procedural defects. So Hunter likewise did not touch on those distinct challenges brought by the Jennings’ plaintiffs. How these factual differences might play out even under the Hunter analysis was not so clear as to make filing the amended petition sanctionable. See Retterath, 938 N.W.2d at 710 (holding that sanctions were not appropriate even though an intervening case that undermined the plaintiff‘s position—and in which the same counsel was involved—was decided prior to the ruling in the current case where an “argument that the indemnity provision under these facts was an attorney fee provision had some basis in fact“).
More importantly, Hunter is a decision by a federal district court, which “is bound to follow—not lead—state-court jurisprudence.” Zick v. Verson Allsteel Press Co., 623 F. Supp. 927, 932 (N.D. Ill. 1985) (“[T]hough in an Illinois state court Zick might perhaps have had a ‘good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law,’ any argument of
Nor does our Mathis decision support sanctions. Mathis involved a challenge to a wind ordinance passed by the Palo Alto County Board of Supervisors and approval of a wind farm project to be developed by Palo Alto Wind Energy, L.L.C. (another subsidiary of Invenergy) and eventually owned and operated by MidAmerican Energy. See 927 N.W.2d at 193. But the issues differed from the ones asserted here. For example, the Mathis plaintiffs did “not contend that the ordinance was procedurally or substantively improper,” id. at 196, but the Jennings did. We rejected the Mathis’ challenge to Invenergy and MidAmerican Energy‘s involvement in the Palo Alto ordinance because the county had not “merely rubberstamped” a proposal from the private parties where it “accepted some but not all” of their requests. Id. Whether the Fremont County BOS rubber-stamped SHW‘s input into the ordinance depends on a different set of facts.
The Mathis’ challenges to approval of the permit were also factually different than the ones raised by the Jennings to SHW‘s permit. See id. at 197–99 (discussing challenges about whether the developer also had to be the ultimate owner and claims that the county failed to consider recommendations by the department of natural resources and state archeologist concerning wildlife and endangered species as well as an acoustical expert‘s report about noise levels). The district court failed to address these factual differences when it broadly concluded that the plaintiff attorneys’ amended pleadings were inconsistent with Mathis.
Further, Mathis highlights the “untested” interplay noted by the district court between a county‘s home rule authority and its zoning authority in the context of wind ordinances. One of the fighting issues raised in Jennings was whether the newly enacted Fremont County wind ordinance conflicted with the two-and-a-half-story height restriction included in the Fremont County zoning ordinance such that the wind ordinance needed to amend or except that zoning ordinance under
Yet, in this case, SHW characterizes Mathis as dismissing “claims concerning a
Finally, we note that our court of appeals reversed dismissal of the Jennings’ Open Meetings Act claims, so those claims were not frivolous. While the court of appeals affirmed dismissal of the remaining claims as untimely under the thirty-day timeframe for bringing a writ of certiorari under
III. Conclusion.
The district court abused its discretion by awarding sanctions against the plaintiff attorneys. We sustain the plaintiff attorneys’ writ of certiorari and vacate the district court‘s sanctions order.
Writ Sustained.
Notes
Counsel‘s signature to every motion, pleading, or other paper shall be deemed a certificate that: counsel has read the motion, pleading, or other paper; that to the best of counsel‘s knowledge, information, and belief, formed after reasonable inquiry, it is well grounded in fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law; and that it is not interposed for any improper purpose, such as to harass or cause an unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation.