Molitor v. City of Cedar Rapids, 84-71

• Decision Date: 16 January 1985
• Docket Number: No. 84-71,84-71
• Parties: Leroy F. MOLITOR, Appellant, v. CITY OF CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa and Cedar Rapids Housing Board of Appeals, Appellees.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 568

360 N.W.2d 568

Leroy F. MOLITOR, Appellant, v. CITY OF CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa and Cedar Rapids Housing Board of Appeals, Appellees.

No. 84-71.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Jan. 16, 1985.

Robert S. Hatala and Gerald T. Sullivan of Crawford, Sullivan, Read & Roemerman, Cedar Rapids, for appellant.

David P. McManus, Asst. City Atty., for appellees.

Considered by UHLENHOPP, P.J., and HARRIS, McCORMICK, McGIVERIN, and SCHULTZ, JJ.

McCORMICK, Justice.

The question here is whether a city has power to confer jurisdiction in the district court by city ordinance. Petitioner LeRoy F. Molitor sought to appeal an adverse ruling of the housing board of respondent City of Cedar Rapids to the district court pursuant to the City's housing ordinance. The district court found that it lacked jurisdiction of the appeal and dismissed the case. We affirm the district court.

Cities have statutory authority to adopt city housing codes. See Iowa Code § 364.17 (1983). They are granted certain enforcement powers but no provision for judicial review exists in the statute. Cedar Rapids enacted its housing code by ordinance in December 1981. The ordinance makes a housing inspector's notices and orders subject to review by a housing board of appeals. It also provides:

Appeal to District Court. Any person adversely affected by a decision of the Housing Board of Appeals may appeal said decision to the Iowa District Court for Linn County by filing a petition with said court and serving a copy thereof to the office of the Housing Code Administrator, acting in behalf of the Housing Board of Appeals, in the same manner as the service of process in a civil action within thirty (30) days of the issuance of said decision.

Petitioner attempted an appeal to the district court under this provision after the board of appeals rejected his challenge to a housing inspector's order to correct alleged code violations.

The district court raised the jurisdictional issue on its own motion. Because its authority to proceed further in the case was at stake, the court acted correctly in raising the issue. See Recker v. Gustafson, 271 N.W.2d 738, 739 (Iowa 1978). The parties, for obvious reasons, contended that the court had jurisdiction of the case, but parties cannot confer jurisdiction by consent. See In re Estate of Dull, 303 N.W.2d 402, 406 (Iowa 1981). Jurisdiction of a case is given to a court solely by law. See O'Kelley v. Lochner, 259 Iowa 710, 715, 145 N.W.2d 626, 629 (1966). The Constitution of Iowa expressly provides that the district court shall have jurisdiction "in such manner as shall be prescribed by law." Iowa Const. art. V, § 6.

The parties suggest two possible sources of the City's authority to confer jurisdiction on the district court in its housing ordinance. One source is Code section 602.2 which grants district court jurisdiction "in all appeals and writs of error taken in civil and criminal actions and special proceedings authorized to be taken from all tribunals, boards, or officers, under any provisions of the laws of this state...." The other source is the City's home rule power under Iowa Constitution article III, section 38A and Code section 364.1.

The Iowa district court is a state court. Its jurisdiction is conferred by the constitution and by legislation. Code section 602.1 provides that the district court "shall have exclusive, general and original jurisdiction of all actions, proceedings, and remedies, civil, criminal, probate, and juvenile, except in cases where exclusive or concurrent jurisdiction is conferred upon some other court, tribunal, or administrative body, and it shall have and exercise all the power usually possessed and exercised by trial courts of general jurisdiction and shall be a court of record." In conferring jurisdiction over appeals and writs of error "from all tribunals, boards, or officers, under any provisions of the laws of this state," we believe section 602.2 refers to state law and not city ordinances. The constitutional and statutory framework makes jurisdiction of state courts "a state affair rather than a municipal affair." 2 E. McQuillan, The Law of Municipal Corporations § 4.95 at 165 (1979). If municipal corporations had the power to confer jurisdiction on the district court, the jurisdiction of the court potentially could be fragmented into as many components as there are municipalities.

Home rule does not give municipal corporations power to legislate for the state. The constitution gives them certain power only "to determine their local affairs and government" when "not inconsistent with the laws of the General Assembly." Iowa Const. art. III, § 38A. Municipal power over local and internal affairs does not include authority to determine the jurisdiction of a state court. We find no basis in the constitution or statutes for holding otherwise.

Previous cases support this view of municipal authority. In Cedar Rapids Human Rights Commission v. Cedar Rapids Community School District, 222 N.W.2d 391 (Iowa 1974), this court recognized that a statutory grant of authority to establish a city human rights commission did not include authority to establish a commission with the power of a court. Id. at 393-98. Moreover,...