Kleman v. Charles City Police Dept.

• Decision Date: 21 August 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-1161,84-1161
• Parties: 12 Media L. Rep. 1030 Gladys B. KLEMAN, Appellee, v. CHARLES CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT, Defendant, and Charles City Press, Inc., and David S. Overby, Appellants.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 90

373 N.W.2d 90

12 Media L. Rep. 1030

Gladys B. KLEMAN, Appellee, v. CHARLES CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT, Defendant, and Charles City Press, Inc., and David S. Overby, Appellants.

No. 84-1161.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Aug. 21, 1985.

Bernard L. Spaeth, Jr., David L. Phipps, and John D. Cleavenger of Whitfield, Musgrave, Selvy, Kelly & Eddy, Des Moines, for appellants.

Richard N. Tompkins, Jr., Mason City, for appellee.

Considered by REYNOLDSON, C.J., and McCORMICK, SCHULTZ, CARTER, and WOLLE, JJ.

WOLLE, Justice.

The order challenged on this interlocutory appeal by a newspaper and its editor denied their motion to dismiss one of plaintiff's damage claims and enjoined them from disseminating certain information pertaining to the lawsuit. We affirm the ruling on the motion to dismiss but reverse the grant of injunctive relief and remand for further proceedings.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

Plaintiff, a resident of Floyd County, brought this action at law against defendants Charles City Police Department (identified as "a division of Charles City, Iowa, a municipal corporation"); Charles City Press, Inc., publisher of a newspaper in Charles City; and its managing editor David S. Overby. Plaintiff alleged that she was damaged when defendants obtained from a confidential central registry and then published in the newspaper a report of her arrest for child abuse, subsequently corrected to substitute "investigation" for arrest. The substance of her claim was set forth in paragraphs five through eleven of her petition:

5. That the Defendants on or about October 17, 18th, 19th or October 20, did unlawfully allow unauthorized access to child abuse information in violation of Section 235A.15 of the Code of Iowa pertaining to the investigation of alleged abuse concerning the plaintiff.

6. That Defendant Charles City Police Department did deliberately or negligently make the said information available to Defendant David S. Overby as an employee of the Charles City Press, Inc.

7. That said Defendants on or about said dates did disseminate or redisseminate child abuse information in violation of Section 235A.17 of the Code of Iowa and without any request for authorization as allowed by the Code.

8. That Defendant David S. Overby and Defendant Charles City Press knew that the said child abuse information was obtained without authorization and redisseminated it on October 19, 1983 to the public by printing it in the newspaper on page 2 of the Charles City Press Daily Journal under a section called "Daily Record", with the sub-heading "Police Report" stating "Gladys DeMerritt, 1000 1/2 N. Grand Ave., APT 5 was arrested for child abuse the morning of October 17."

9. Plaintiff Gladys B. Kleman is also known as Gladys DeMerritt.

10. That on October 20, 1983, the Defendant David S. Overby in the newspaper printed by Defendant Charles City Press, Inc., on page 2 "Daily Journal" under the sub-heading "Daily Record" and the further sub-heading of "Police Report Correction" they did redisseminate child abuse information by stating "A report printed in Wednesday's PRESS an arrest for child abuse should have read instead 'An investigation' of child abuse. The PRESS regrets the error." The said redissemination is in violation of the laws of the State of Iowa.

11. That the said unauthorized access to child abuse information, dissemination of the same and redissemination of the same constitutes malice and libel per se and has caused the plaintiff grevious mental and emotional harm for which she seeks not less than $25,000.00 actual damages for each violation and an additional $50,000.00 exemplary damages for each violation.

Plaintiff based her statutory claim for damages and request for injunctive relief on Iowa Code section 235A.20 (1983) which provided:

Any aggrieved person may institute a civil action for damages under chapter 25A or 613A or to restrain the dissemination of child abuse information in violation of this chapter, and any person, agency or other recipient proven to have disseminated or to have requested and received child abuse information in violation of this chapter shall be liable for actual damages and exemplary damages for each violation and shall be liable for court costs, expenses, and reasonable attorney's fees incurred by the party bringing the action. In no case shall the award for damages be less than one hundred dollars.

(Emphasis added.)

The plaintiff obtained and filed with her petition on April 6, 1984, an "order for temporary injunction" entered by a district judge (not, however, the district judge whose subsequent order has been appealed). That temporary restraining order, entered ex parte and without notice, enjoined the clerk of court and all parties to the action "from making public any information concerning the filing of this petition, or any action hereunder...." That order also set a hearing ten days later on plaintiff's application for an injunction; by agreement of the parties the hearing was held on July 3, 1984.

The newspaper and Overby moved to dismiss the statutory damage claim and resisted the application for an injunction on several grounds. They contended that the sanctions of Iowa Code section 235A.20 applied only to persons with authorized access to the registry. Contending they had no such access, defendants argued that chapter 235A did not apply to them and was unconstitutional if it did. They also attacked the temporary injunction as an unconstitutional prior restraint on publication and contended there had been no evidentiary showing to justify the injunctive relief sought by plaintiff.

The district court by the order here challenged overruled the motion to dismiss and continued in effect certain restraints against publication of information about the lawsuit. The restraints of the initial ex parte order were modified to the extent that the parties were allowed to communicate with their insurance carriers, attorneys, and each other so they might investigate the claim and undertake discovery. We have allowed the newspaper and Overby to proceed with their interlocutory appeal from the order denying their motion to dismiss and granting injunctive relief. We first address the question whether the motion to dismiss was properly denied, then the question whether the record before us supports the district court's grant of injunctive relief.

II. The Motion to Dismiss.

In determining whether a petition fails to state a claim on which any relief can be granted, the test of Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 104(b), we apply established principles summarized as follows in Citizens for Washington Square v. City of Davenport, 277 N.W.2d 882 (Iowa 1979):

A motion to dismiss grounded on failure to state a claim 'is sustainable only when it appears to a certainty the pleader has failed to state a claim upon which any relief may be granted under any state of facts which could be proved in support of the claim asserted.' Also, 'In making this determination the pleading should be construed in the light most favorable to the pleader with doubts resolved in his favor and the challenged allegations accepted as true.'

Id. at 883-84 (quoting Weber v. Madison, 251 N.W.2d 523, 525 (Iowa 1977) ).

The notice pleading provided for in Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 69(a) requires only a "short and plain statement of the claim" and does not require the pleading of facts. Schmidt v. Wilkinson, 340 N.W.2d 282, 283 (Iowa 1983). The petition provides "fair notice" to defendants if it apprises them of the incident giving rise to the claim, states the basic elements of the claim, and sets forth the general nature of the action. Id. at 283-84; Soike v. Evan Matthews & Co., 302 N.W.2d 841, 842 (Iowa 1981); Gosha v. Woller, 288 N.W.2d 329, 331 (Iowa 1980). Read in the light of those principles, plaintiff's petition gave these defendants fair notice that she was asserting several claims based on their alleged dissemination of child abuse information and publication of the two newspaper articles.

Initially we note that paragraph eleven of plaintiff's petition adequately disclosed that she was asserting a libel claim based on those two newspaper articles. See Iowa Code chapter 659 (1983); Vojak v. Jensen, 161 N.W.2d 100, 104 (Iowa 1968). Defendants concede that this case must be remanded for further proceedings on the libel claim regardless whether the statutory claim was vulnerable to their motion to dismiss.

We conclude that plaintiff's pleaded statutory claim was also legally sufficient. Plaintiff may be able to prove facts within the framework of her petition which would entitle her to damages based on defendants' alleged statutory violations.

Iowa Code section 235A.12 (1983), entitled "Legislative findings and purposes," provides:

The general assembly finds and declares that a central registry is required to provide a single source for the state-wide collection, maintenance and dissemination of child abuse information. Such a registry is imperative for increased effectiveness in dealing with the problem of child abuse. The general assembly also finds that vigorous protection of rights of individual privacy is an indispensable element of a fair and effective system of collecting, maintaining and disseminating child abuse information.

The purposes of this section and sections 235A.13 to 235A.24 are to facilitate the identification of victims or potential victims of child abuse by making available a single, state-wide source of child abuse data; to facilitate research on child abuse by making available a single, state-wide source of child abuse data; and to provide maximum safeguards against the unwarranted invasions of privacy which such a registry might otherwise entail.

In furtherance of those purposes, section 235A.15 cloaks information in the registry with confidentiality and provides a list of persons who are authorized limited access to that information. Dissemination or...