Wengert v. Branstad, 90-455
| Decision Date | 18 September 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90-455,90-455 |
| Citation | 474 N.W.2d 576 |
| Parties | James WENGERT, Iris Ward, and Robert Cook, Appellants, v. Terry E. BRANSTAD, Governor of the State of Iowa; Paul Grossheim, Director of the Iowa Department of Corrections; and The Iowa Department of Corrections, Appellees. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Philip T. Riley, Des Moines, for appellants.
Robert G. Allbee and Wade R. Hauser III of Ahlers, Cooney, Dorweiler, Haynie, Smith & Allbee, P.C., Des Moines, for appellees.
Considered en banc.
This action for declaratory and injunctive relief was brought to challenge item vetoes exercised by Iowa's governor. The question is whether the challenge was obviated when, at the governor's instance, an injunction was entered which barred him and state officials from treating the legislation in accordance with the challenged vetoes. On the basis of the injunction the trial court determined there was no justiciable controversy and accordingly declined to consider the merits of the challenge. We affirm.
The governor vetoed several items from a bill appropriating funds to Iowa's corrections system. The only vetoes controverted were those striking the words "minimum security" two of the seven times they appeared in the Act. Section 7(6) of H.F. 772 appropriated funds for the
a. Construction of an additional 100 bed [DELETED:minimum security] facility at Newton for parole and probation violators of which twenty-five beds are to be specifically used for substance abuse treatment programs for clients of the state adult corrections and twenty-five beds are to be specifically used for work-release inmates.
....
f. For a total designed capacity of seventy-one [DELETED:minimum security] beds at the Luster Heights facility by renovation of eighteen and the addition of seventeen minimum security beds.
The italicized portions indicate deletions which would be effected by the governor's vetoes.
Plaintiffs are taxpayers who brought this action seeking a declaration that the vetoes were illegal and void. The petition also sought an injunction restraining the governor from spending the appropriated funds for any purpose other than minimum security facilities.
The governor appeared, and, after admitting the foregoing factual details, denied any illegality in the exercise of the vetoes. After successfully resisting plaintiffs' application to adjudicate law points (to be discussed later), the governor applied for entry of a decree granting the injunctive relief sought by the plaintiffs: that is, that he and the other involved state officials be enjoined from spending the appropriated money for any purpose other than minimum security facilities.
The plaintiffs responded in some detail to the proposed decree. After stating they "welcomed the defendants' recognition of their obligations," plaintiffs resisted any adjudication that the case was resolved or to be considered moot. In granting the injunction the trial court nevertheless held that this resolved the dispute between the parties, making it inappropriate to reach the merits of plaintiffs' challenge. The court dismissed the challenge.
Plaintiffs had marshaled the challenge in their application to adjudicate law points, previously mentioned. In that application the plaintiffs recited the admitted adjudicative facts, those relating to the Act, its passage, and the purported veto. On the basis of our cases on the subject, most notably Rush v. Ray, 362 N.W.2d 479 (Iowa 1985), and Welden v. Ray, 229 N.W.2d 706 (Iowa 1975), the plaintiffs then felt entitled to an adjudication that the vetoes were illegal, void and of no effect. The governor had resisted the application, asserting the term "minimum security" has no statutory or other meaning.
In this appeal from the trial court's later refusal to address the merits of their challenge, the plaintiffs vigorously protest what they consider to be the inconsistency in the governor's position. Plaintiffs contend the governor's position in resisting the motion to adjudicate law points and his veto message 1 are to be contrasted with the position taken in presenting the order granting the injunction.
We think the trial court was correct in determining that the grant of injunctive relief was sufficient and all to which plaintiffs were entitled. Our lawgiving function is carefully designed to be an appendage to our task of resolving disputes. When a dispute ends, the lawgiving function ordinarily vanishes because it is axiomatic that we ordinarily do not answer academic or...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Riley Drive Entm't I, Inc. v. Reynolds
...legal authority of the head of a coequal branch of government. That is something we generally try to avoid. See Wengert v. Branstad , 474 N.W.2d 576, 578 (Iowa 1991) (en banc) ("We certainly should not go out of our way to answer a purely moot question because of its possible political sign......
-
Iowa Mut. Ins. Co. v. McCarthy
...(Iowa 1975). "[O]ur test of mootness is whether an opinion would be of force or effect in the underlying controversy." Wengert v. Branstad, 474 N.W.2d 576, 578 (Iowa 1991). In other words, will our decision in this case "have any practical legal effect upon an existing controversy"? 5 Am.Ju......
-
State v. Morris
...846 (Iowa 2003) (declining to address constitutional issues where statutory analysis was means of resolving the case); Wengert v. Branstad, 474 N.W.2d 576, 578 (Iowa 1991) ("We regularly decline to address constitutional questions unless their answers are necessary to dispose of the case.")......
-
Homan v. Branstad, 14–0178.
...the benefit increase precludes recovery by petitioners and obviates any necessity to resolve the other issues raised.” Id. at 93.In Wengert v. Branstad, the plaintiffs challenged a line-item veto striking the words “minimum security” from certain appropriations. 474 N.W.2d 576, 577 (Iowa 19......