MANSFIELD , Justice . The Bakken Oil Field has made North Dakota the second leading oil-producing state in our country. Almost all of America's oil-refining capacity, however, is located elsewhere in the nation. For this reason, an underground crude oil pipeline was proposed that would run from western North Dakota across South Dakota and Iowa to an oil transportation hub in southern Illinois. Following a lengthy administrative proceeding, the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) approved the...
WATERMAN , Justice . This appeal, submitted with Iowa State Education Ass'n v. State, 928 N.W.2d 11 (Iowa 2019), also filed today, presents constitutional challenges to the 2017 amendments to the Public Employment Relations Act, Iowa Code chapter 20. The amendments ended payroll deductions for union dues and narrowed the scope of mandatory collective bargaining topics for bargaining units comprised of less than thirty percent "public safety employees," defined to include most police...
WATERMAN , Justice . This appeal, submitted with AFSCME Iowa Council 61 v. State, 928 N.W.2d 21 (Iowa 2019), also filed today, presents constitutional challenges to the 2017 amendments to Iowa Code chapter 20, the Public Employment Relations Act (PERA). The amendments ended payroll deductions for union dues and narrowed the scope of mandatory collective bargaining topics for bargaining units comprised of less than thirty percent "public safety employees," defined to include most police...
MANSFIELD , Justice . In this case we are called upon to review the decisions of a county board of supervisors approving a wind energy ordinance and a specific wind energy project. Although the challengers raise a number of well-presented arguments, in the end we conclude they were matters for the board of supervisors—not the courts—to resolve. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment and dismissing the plaintiffs' claims. I. Background Facts and...
MANSFIELD , Justice . In this case we are asked to review a longstanding Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) legal standard for when a series of wind turbines constitute an "electric power generating plant or combination of plants at a single site" within the meaning of Iowa Code section 476A.1(5) (2017). The statute itself does not provide an obvious answer. Each wind turbine on its own generates energy, but wind turbines are often combined into "wind farms" or "wind projects" dispersed over a wide...
APPEL , Justice . In this case, employees and former employees of an Iowa manufacturing company brought a common law tort claim against the employer's workers' compensation insurance carrier. The claim alleged that the insurance carrier failed to conduct or negligently conducted an insurance inspection at the company's manufacturing facility and that the omission or action caused serious health problems for plaintiffs. The insurance carrier moved to dismiss the petition based on Iowa Code...
APPEL , Justice . In this case, a farmer sued his neighbor's heirs, claiming, among other things, that he and the decedent entered into an option contract to purchase farmland that was subject to a written lease and upon which the farmer made substantial improvements at his expense. In the alternative, the farmer sought to recover under various equitable theories of promissory estoppel, quantum meruit, and unjust enrichment. A jury found in favor of the plaintiff on his contract claim and...
