Gleason v. City of Davenport

• Decision Date: 21 February 1979
• Docket Number: No. 61716,61716
• Citation: 275 N.W.2d 431
• Parties: S. Margaret GLEASON, Appellant, v. The CITY OF DAVENPORT, Iowa, a Municipal Corporation, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 431

275 N.W.2d 431

S. Margaret GLEASON, Appellant, v. The CITY OF DAVENPORT, Iowa, a Municipal Corporation, Appellee.

No. 61716.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Feb. 21, 1979.

Thomas J. Shields of Lane & Waterman, Davenport, for appellant.

E. Scott Hartsook, City Atty., of Davenport, for appellee.

Considered by REYNOLDSON, C. J., and REES, HARRIS, McCORMICK and LARSON, JJ.

REES, Justice.

This is an appeal by plaintiff S. Margaret Gleason from the order of the trial court sustaining defendant City of Davenport's motion for summary judgment in her tort action for damages as the result of plaintiff's fall on the sidewalk in front of her apartment in Davenport. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.

In its ruling on the defendant's motion for summary judgment, the trial court found plaintiff had failed to comply with the 30-day notice requirement of § 420.45, The Code, which governs tort actions brought against special charter cities. Plaintiff contends § 420.45 is unconstitutional as violative of the due process and equal protection clauses of the United States and Iowa Constitutions. Appellant further contends that § 420.45 was implicitly repealed by the legislature in the enactment of § 613A.5, which deals with the general tort liability of Iowa municipalities, and that plaintiff complied substantially with the provisions of § 420.45.

Ms. Gleason was injured on October 18, 1976, when she fell on the sidewalk in front of her apartment in Davenport. She sustained a broken hip, requiring surgery and a lengthy convalescence, during which she was unable to care for herself physically or to conduct her ordinary business affairs. After her return to her apartment on or about December 1, 1976, Ms. Gleason filed a notice of claim against the City of Davenport, and shortly thereafter (on December 16) instituted this action against the City of Davenport by filing her petition alleging the negligence of the City to have been the proximate cause of her injury and damage.

On January 18, 1977, defendant City filed its answer, denying all of the allegations of plaintiff's petition and asserting that plaintiff had failed to file her notice of claim against the City within 30 days, as mandated by § 420.45, The Code. On November 1, 1977, the City filed its motion for summary judgment, which the plaintiff resisted asserting the aforementioned constitutional infirmities of the statute involved, as well as the implicit repeal challenge and a claim of substantial compliance with § 420.45. Hearing was held on defendant's motion and plaintiff's resistance on November 21, 1977, and on January 31, 1978 the trial court entered its ruling sustaining defendant's motion for summary judgment.

Timely notice of appeal to this court was filed by the plaintiff.

We are not involved with any factual dispute in this case. Admittedly, the plaintiff did not file her notice of claim within the 30-day period prescribed by § 420.45, during which period Ms. Gleason was either hospitalized or a patient at a convalescent care center. Her notice of claim was given to the defendant City within the 60-day period required by § 613A.5, applicable to all claims against Iowa municipalities except those against special charter cities, which are limited by § 420.45. Lemon v. City of Muscatine, 272 N.W.2d 429 (Iowa 1978).

The sole question for review is whether the trial court erred in sustaining defendant City's motion for summary judgment in the face of the various challenges of the plaintiff to § 420.45 and her claim of substantial compliance.

Although plaintiff challenges the constitutionality of § 420.45, The Code, as applied to her, on the separate grounds of being violative of the substantive due process, procedural due process, and equal protection provisions of the federal and state constitutions, in addition to her implicit repeal and substantial compliance contentions, we deem it unnecessary to set out all of the issues stated for review and argued by the parties in light of the fact that we find one of the issues before the court to be dispositive of this appeal. Because we conclude the trial court's ruling on the plaintiff's equal protection challenge to § 420.45 to have been in error, we shall concern ourselves solely with that issue.

I. Plaintiff contends § 420.45 is violative of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the federal constitution and Article I, § 6 of the Iowa Constitution due to the fact that those having claims against special charter cities are required to give notice to such city within 30 days of an alleged injury, while § 613A.5, The Code, requires notice of claim to be given to all other municipalities within 60 days of the alleged injury. Because we find there is no rational basis for such a distinction, we conclude § 420.45 is violative of equal protection and thus reverse the ruling of the trial court on defendant's motion for summary judgment and remand this case for further proceedings.

Section 420.45, The Code, provides as follows:

"In all cases of personal injury or damage to property resulting from defective streets or sidewalks, or from any cause originating in the neglect or failure of any municipal corporation or its officers to perform their duties, no suit shall be brought against any such city after three months from the time of the injury or damage, and not then unless a written verified statement of the amount, nature, and cause of such injury or damage, and the time when and the place where such injury occurred, and the particular defect or negligence of the city or its officers which it is claimed caused or contributed to the injury or damage, shall be presented to the council or filed with the clerk within thirty days after said alleged injury or damage was sustained."

Section 613A.5, The Code, provides in relevant part:

"Every person who claims damages from any municipality . . . for or on account of any wrongful death, loss or injury . . . shall commence an action therefor within six months, unless said person shall cause to be presented to the governing body of the municipality within sixty days after the alleged wrongful death, loss or injury a written notice stating the time, place, and circumstances thereof and the amount of compensation or other relief demanded. . . . No action therefor shall be maintained unless such notice has been given and unless the action is commenced within two years after such notice. The time for giving such notice shall include a reasonable length of time, not to exceed ninety days, during which the person injured is incapacitated by his injury from giving such notice."

We have recently held that § 420.45, rather than the general provision of § 613A.5, is to be applied to claims against special charter cities, and that § 613A.5 did not implicitly repeal § 420.45. See Lemon v. City of Muscatine, 272 N.W.2d 429 (1978). The question of equal protection had not been preserved as error in the Lemon case as it has been in this matter.

The failure of plaintiff to file a notice of claim against the City of Davenport within 30 days of the date of her injury, under a literal reading of § 420.45, would bar the prosecution of her claim. Had her claim been subject to § 613A.5, her notice would have been in compliance with the 60-day requirement of § 613A.5, and her claim would consequently not have been barred. The provisions of § 420.45 apply to those cities currently holding special charter city status; namely: Davenport, Muscatine, Wapello and Camanche; such status being derivative of the organization of the aforementioned cities before the adoption of the present state constitution. Claims against all other municipalities within the state are regulated by § 613A.5. The effect of the statutes is to create two classifications of claimants against municipalities, those with claims against special charter cities and those with claims against other municipalities within the state.

The plaintiff, finding this distinction to operate to her detriment, challenges the classifications resulting from these statutes as violative of § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and § 6 of Article I of the Constitution of Iowa, the federal and state equal protection clauses. She first alleges that § 420.45 violates her due process right to opportunity to be heard in court, and that a strict level of scrutiny should be applied in evaluating the statutes. In the alternative, she contends that the classification of claimants resulting from the application of §§ 420.45 and 613A.5 is violative of her equal protection rights under the "rational basis" test, recognized by us in Harryman v. Hayles, 257 N.W.2d 631, 634-5 (Iowa 1977); and in Lunday v. Vogelmann, 213 N.W.2d 904, 907 (Iowa 1973).

Before passing on the merits of appellant's arguments, we first note that the burden of proof is on the challenger of the statute, there being a presumption in favor of the constitutionality of any enactment of the legislature, Shearer v. Perry Community School District, 236 N.W.2d 688, 691 (Iowa 1975). Because we find the classification of claimants resulting from the application of §§ 420.45 and 613A.5 to be in violation of the "rational basis" equal protection standard, we need draw no conclusion regarding plaintiff's alleged due process claim of right of access to the courts.

We have given several formulations to the rational basis due process standard. In Harryman v. Hayles, supra at 634-5, we said:

"While there is no requirement all must be treated alike in order to satisfy equal protection standards under the 14th Amendment, the differences in classification must be reasonable and bear some relationship to a legitimate state interest."

In Redmond v. Carter, 247 N.W.2d 268, 271 (Iowa 1976), we said:

"The equal protection clause proscribes state action which irrationally discriminates among persons. (Citation). We recognize that it is often...