 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Nixon v. State9/30/2005
this case: Whether the State has waived its sovereign immunity for this claim under the Iowa Tort Claims Act.
III. Analysis
At the time the State first injured the plaintiffs in 1939, it was immune from suit under the common-law doctrine of sovereign immunity. See Montandon v. Hargrave Constr. Co., 256 Iowa 1297, 1299-1300, 130 N.W.2d 659, 660 (1964). This doctrine came to the United States through the old English maxim that "the King can do no wrong" and was therefore not liable unless he first consented to the suit. See generally Erwin Chemerinsky, Shifting the Balance of Power? The Supreme Court, Federalism, and State Sovereign Immunity, 53 Stan. L. Rev. 1201, 1201-02 (2001). The reasons usually advanced for the doctrine's support were "public policy, absurdity of a wrong committed by an entire people, impossibility of carrying on governmental functions if tax money is diverted, and the government's status as a nonprofit organization." Torts-Governmental Immunity--Iowa Reaffirmation (Boyer v. Iowa High School Athletic Ass'n (Iowa 1964), 50 Iowa L. Rev. 226, 227 n.5 (1964) (citations omitted). For nearly 100 years, the doctrine of sovereign immunity was the law of our state, but by the mid-1960s, the doctrine had become the subject of a great deal of criticism by both commentators and the courts. Boyer v. Iowa High School Athletic Ass'n, 256 Iowa 337, 342-43, 127 N.W.2d 606, 609-10 (1964). In the 1964 decision, Boyer v. Iowa High School Athletic Association, we were directly confronted with whether the doctrine "should be abrogated in Iowa as outmoded, harsh and not in keeping with the modern trend of the law." Id. at 339, 127 N.W.2d at 607. Our five-to-four majority opinion concluded that "abrogation of the doctrine should come from legislative, not judicial action." Id. In a vigorous dissent, Justice Moore argued:
The whole doctrine of governmental immunity from liability for tort rests upon a rotten foundation. It is almost incredible that in this modern age of comparative sociological enlightenment, and in a republic, the medieval absolutism supposed to be implicit in the maxim, "the King can do no wrong," should exempt the various branches of the government from liability for their torts, and that the entire burden of damage resulting from the wrongful acts of the government should be imposed upon the single individual who suffers the injury, rather than distributed among the entire community constituting the government, where it could be borne without hardship upon any individual, and where it justly belongs.
Id. at 349-50, 127 N.W.2d at 613 (Moore, J. dissenting) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The Iowa Legislature settled this debate one year later when it enacted the Iowa Tort Claims Act waiving the State's immunity and permitting it to be sued much like any other private individual. See 1965 Iowa Acts ch. 79. But apparently this forty-year-old debate concerning the king's liability for his past indiscretions still simmers within our court today.
As presently written, the Iowa Tort Claims Act contains a statute of limitations that bars certain stale claims. The Act states:
Every claim and suit permitted under this chapter shall be forever barred, unless within two years after such claim accrued, the claim is made in writing to the state appeal board under this chapter.
Iowa Code ยง 669.13 (2005) (emphasis added). Precedent clearly holds a claim does not "accrue" until the plaintiff "discovers the injury or by the exercise of reasonable diligence should have discovered it." Vachon v. State, 514 N.W.2d 442, 445 (Iowa 1994); see also Trobaugh v. Sondag, 668 N.W.2d 577, 581 (Iowa 2003); Callahan v. State
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Iowa Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|