Feltes v. State

• Decision Date: 16 April 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-106,85-106
• Citation: 385 N.W.2d 544
• Parties: Ronald John FELTES, Appellant, v. STATE of Iowa and Iowa Department of Transportation, Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 544

385 N.W.2d 544

Ronald John FELTES, Appellant, v. STATE of Iowa and Iowa Department of Transportation, Appellees.

No. 85-106.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

April 16, 1986.

Stephen B. Jackson and Mark Rettig of Hines, Pence, Jackson, Day & Powers, Cedar Rapids, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Atty. Gen., Lester A. Paff, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., and David A. Ferree, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellees.

Considered en banc.

REYNOLDSON, Chief Justice.

Following a line of our long-standing decisions, the district court dismissed plaintiff Ronald John Feltes' tort action against the State for lack of jurisdiction because he had not pursued his claim to the state appeal board as required by Iowa Code section 25A.5 (1983). In this appeal plaintiff asks us to carve out an exception to our rule, in light of the unusual facts surrounding his case. We affirm.

June 29, 1984, plaintiff filed this action in district court, alleging the State ¹ was negligent in not removing ice and snow from highway 151, resulting in an auto accident that caused plaintiff's injuries and damages. The State filed a special appearance, asserting the court had no jurisdiction to hear the case because, inter alia, plaintiff had not first complied with Iowa Code section 25A.5. That statute in relevant part provides:

25A.5 When suit permitted.

No suit shall be permitted under this chapter unless the state appeal board has made final disposition of the claim; except that if the state appeal board does not make final disposition of a claim within six months after the claim is made in writing to the state appeal board, the claimant may, by notice in writing, withdraw the claim from consideration of the state appeal board and begin suit under this chapter.

Iowa Code § 25A.5 (1983).

Plaintiff's resistance to the special appearance alleged he had filed a claim with the state appeal board on June 28, 1984, the day before his district court petition was filed. Plaintiff frankly asserted he had proceeded in this fashion to avoid a provision of the then new comparative fault act, effective July 1, 1984, which provided: ²

In any action brought pursuant to this chapter, the state or a municipality shall not be assigned a percentage of fault for any of the following:

....

(2) The failure to remove natural or unnatural accumulations of snow or ice, or to place sand, salt, or other abrasive material on a highway, road, or street if the state or municipality establishes that it has complied with its policy or level of service for snow and ice removal or placing sand, salt or other abrasive materials on its highways, roads, or streets.

1984 Iowa Acts ch. 1293, § 10.

December 19, 1984, after hearing, trial court sustained the State's special appearance. After reviewing our case law, the court held that the recourse to the state appeal board must be pursued "before a district court has subject matter jurisdiction over a case." Finally, the district court rejected plaintiff's suggestion that it should defer action on the motion to dismiss until the state appeal board made a decision. The court reasoned that once it found jurisdiction did not exist, it was required to dismiss the case.

Appealing, plaintiff argues that although the court's ruling "may be a clear statement of the law" certain exceptions to the "principle of exhaustion of administrative remedies" apply.

I. Plaintiff overlooks the fact we are not confronted with the garden-variety situation involving district court judicial review of agency action. There certain exceptions to the exhaustion rule may infrequently apply; for example, when the administrative remedies are not "adequate," see Iowa Code section 17A.19(1), ³ or where there is an attack on the agency's enabling statute, see Salsbury Laboratories v. Iowa Department of Environmental Quality, 276 N.W.2d 830, 836 (Iowa 1979). Significantly, however, this is not a review of administrative action but an original action in district court against the State, brought under an act in which the State has limited and restricted those instances in which it will permit such litigation.

The preamble of the act now identified as Iowa Code chapter 25A states:

AN ACT to create and establish a state tort claims Act; defining terms and conferring upon the state appeal board on behalf of the state the power to determine certain claims against the state; permitting the state to be sued and waiving the state's immunity from liability to the extent provided herein; conferring jurisdiction in the district court to hear, determine, and render judgment; and generally providing for the practice and procedure to establish liability of the state on tort claims.

1965 Iowa Acts ch. 79 (emphasis added).

Examining the constitutionality of this legislation in Graham v. Worthington, 259 Iowa 845, 146 N.W.2d 626 (1966), we observed:

The General Assembly, by chapter 25A, waived governmental immunity of the state and designated the class of claims for which redress might be had. It also prescribed the standards and mechanics for presentation, consideration, determination, adjudication, and subsequent payment of those claims factually found to be meritorious under the Act.

Id. at 857, 146 N.W.2d at 634. We early interpreted such legislation, however, as not abolishing governmental immunity except to the extent permitted by the enactment. ⁴

Both new legislative enactments [chapter 25A and chapter 613A, allowing claims against named governmental subdivisions under certain stated conditions] are predicated upon the continued existence of common-law governmental immunity. Any deviation from that principle would seriously affect all future interpretations of the new legislation. Stated otherwise, governmental immunity has been abrogated by the legislature only to the extent and under the conditions set forth in the statute.

Barad v. Jefferson County, 178 N.W.2d 376, 378 (Iowa 1970).

Prior to the enactment of Iowa Code chapter 25A, tort actions involving the state were met with the defense that because governmental immunity had not been waived there was no jurisdiction in the district court to adjudicate such cases. See Montandon v. Hargrave Construction Co., 256 Iowa 1297, 1299, 130 N.W.2d 659, 660 (1964). We referred to this history in Hubbard v. State, 163 N.W.2d 904 (Iowa 1969):

Prior to March 30, 1965, the effective date of the Iowa Tort Claims Act (herein called the Act), our courts lacked jurisdiction over suits brought against the State and its agencies sounding in tort. In Montandon v. Hargrave Construction Co., 256 Iowa 1297, 130 N.W.2d 659, we held the doctrine of governmental immunity to tort actions was jurisdictional and affirmed the [district] court's order sustaining the special appearance filed by defendant State agency.

Id. at 906. It therefore was logical that the enactment that is now Iowa Code chapter 25A should be described by the legislature as one "waiving the state's immunity from liability to the extent provided herein [and] conferring jurisdiction in the district court to hear, determine, and render judgment." 1965 Iowa Acts ch. 79.

Our subsequent decisions consistently have described Iowa Code chapter 25A as one granting only a limited waiver of state immunity, and the basic issue one of subject matter jurisdiction. See, e.g., Balster v. State, 360 N.W.2d 788, 789 (Iowa 1985) ("[Iowa Code chapter 25A] is a qualified waiver of sovereign immunity for tort claims against the State of Iowa."); Hoctel v. State, 343 N.W.2d 832, 833 (Iowa 1984) ("[T]he legislative history of the word ['wrongful' as it appears in Iowa Code section 25A.2(5)(b)] indicates clearly that it was not added to the jurisdictional grant with any overtones of the absolute liability theory."); Heumphreus v. State, 334 N.W.2d 757, 759 (Iowa 1983) ("But for section 25A.14(6) ... clearly the district court would have subject-matter jurisdiction ... of the present tort claim."); Hansen v. State, 298 N.W.2d 263, 265 (Iowa 1980) ("The state may now be sued in tort only in the manner and to the extent to which consent has been given by the legislature."); Jontz v. Mahedy, 293 N.W.2d 1, 2 (Iowa 1980) ("[T]he procedures prescribed in [Iowa Code chapter 25A] must be exhausted before an Iowa court has jurisdiction over the claim."); Lewis v. State, 256 N.W.2d 181, 192 (Iowa 1977) ("As pointed out in Lloyd v. State if one of the enumerated exceptions to state tort liability set out in chapter 25A applies, a court does not have subject matter jurisdiction of the claim and it must consequently be dismissed." (citation omitted)); Lloyd v. State, 251 N.W.2d 551, 555-56 (Iowa 1977) (Where alleged tortious conduct fell within the Iowa Code section 25A.14(1) discretionary function exception to liability, the court was without subject matter jurisdiction and the case must be dismissed.); Saxton v. State, 206 N.W.2d 85, 86 (Iowa 1973) (per curiam) ("The narrow question presented is whether plaintiffs' action comes within one of the exceptions to state tort liability enumerated in Code § 25A.14. If it does, the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction and the special appearance was correctly sustained."); Weisbrod v. State, 193 N.W.2d 125, 127 (Iowa 1971) ("This statutory suit may not be brought, however, until the administrative remedy is exhausted.").

Plaintiff concedes he did not follow the claims process laid down by Iowa Code section 25A.5, which plainly permits suit only after the state appeal board has made a final disposition of the claim or has not disposed of it within six months. In these circumstances, and under the above authorities, the district court had no jurisdiction and the suit was subject to dismissal.

II. Because the Iowa Tort Claims Act (ITCA) is modeled after the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), we have found that the legislature intended the Iowa Act to have the same effect as the FTCA. Thus, we have given great weight to relevant federal decisions. Adam v. Mount...