Iowa Supreme Court revives police shooting lawsuit, clarifying disputed law

A lawsuit filed by a man shot and paralyzed by Waterloo police is back on track after the Iowa Supreme Court, in a case clarifying a disputed "Back the Blue" state law on qualified immunity, ruled the trial judge was wrong to dismiss the case.

According to the Black Hawk County Attorney's Office, which ruled the shooting justified, the shooting occurred in April 2021 after officers responded to reports in of a man walking toward downtown Waterloo with a rifle or shotgun. When the first officer arrived on the scene, the man, Marcelino Alvarez-Victoriano, now 45, reportedly advanced on him with the gun and did not respond to orders to put down the weapon. Another officer, also arriving on the scene, shot Alvarez-Victoriano in the back.

Officers later determined the weapon Alvarez-Victoriano was carrying was an air rifle.

Alvarez-Victoriano sued the officers and the city in September 2021. They asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the complaint did not fulfill the requirements of a new state law that allowed government officials accused of misconduct to claim qualified immunity. In February 2022, Judge Joel Dalrymple agreed and threw out the case, denying Alvarez-Victoriano's attorney the opportunity to voluntarily dismiss the lawsuit and refile it to correct the procedural issues raised by the state.

For subscribers:DNA, qualified immunity, COVID among upcoming topics for Iowa Supreme Court's 7-0 conservative majority

Friday's decision by the state's highest court reverses that ruling. Justice Christopher McDonald, writing for a unanimous court, said the qualified immunity law does not require courts to dismiss cases before they have a chance to be considered on the merits.

"Depriving a plaintiff of an opportunity to establish a viable claim against government officials pursuant to long-established pleading rules undermines the ability to hold public officials accountable when they exercise power irresponsibly," McDonald wrote.

Courts differ on implementing 2021 law

Friday's decision clarifies a legal question that had divided judges around the state over the past year.

Qualified immunity is a legal doctrine in federal court under which officials cannot be held liable, even if they violate someone's constitutional rights, unless it was "clearly established" by prior caselaw that their conduct was wrong. At issue in the Waterloo case is the so-called 2021 "Back the Blue" law that seeks to encode those protections in Iowa statutes. The law seeks to supersede a 2018 Iowa Supreme Court decision that established a different, more plaintiff-friendly standard for qualified immunity in state lawsuits.

The Iowa law matches the federal standard, but goes further by requiring plaintiffs to specify, from their very first court filings, that the defendants' actions violated clearly established law. Failure to do so, according to the law, "shall result in dismissal with prejudice," meaning cases would be dismissed without any possibility to refile.

February 2022:What does Iowa's new 'Back the Blue' qualified immunity law actually mean? Judges disagree.

This provision has resulted in confusion as different courts have tried to interpret and apply it to cases. In two Polk County cases, judges ruled that a plaintiff can voluntarily dismiss and refile their case to comply with the new requirements, although the two disagreed on whether the law applies to lawsuits involving alleged misconduct that predated the law.

Dalrymple, in the Waterloo case, ruled not only that the law was retroactive, but that allowing plaintiffs to dismiss and refile their claims amounted to an end-run around the law. Alvarez-Victoriano's lawsuit was dead, he ruled, with no possibility to refile.

Court: no foul in refiling suit before

Attorney Molly Hamilton, representing Marcelino Alvarez-Victoriano, appealed, and argued that nothing in the law explicitly contradicted Iowa court rules allowing plaintiffs to voluntarily dismiss their case and refile it one time.

"If you’re arguing you’re going to get a dismissal before the plaintiff gets a foot in the door, based on not saying these magic words, that is a complete change," Hamilton told the Des Moines Register in February. "And if you don’t get to amend, you don’t get to dismiss and refile, that is a substantive change to all the previous rights we’ve had in civil litigation."

Previously:A rape, a shooting, an alleged beating: Legal shields may block lawsuits against police

McDonald, in his opinion Friday, agreed. In an extended football metaphor, he said plaintiffs can "bring players across the formation, shift them, call an audible at the line of scrimmage, or even take a timeout" before the start of a play by amending or dismissing their lawsuits prior to a court ruling on a motion to dismiss.

"Here, the plaintiff read the defense, did not like what he saw, and called a timeout," McDonald wrote. "The district court incorrectly threw the penalty flag; there was no penalty on the play."

Supporting the Supreme Court's position was the Iowa Attorney General's Office, which filed a brief arguing that the law does not address a plaintiff's right to refile their complaint and should not be used to bar otherwise meritorious claims.

"The clear purpose of the section is to incorporate federal pleading practices, enabling government defendants both to ascertain the nature of the claims against them and to dismiss nonviable claims quickly without incurring discovery costs," the Attorney General's Office argued. "Depriving plaintiffs of an opportunity to show viability serves none of these goals."

A representative of Waterloo's government said the city had no comment, while Hamilton praised the court's decision.

"My client and I are grateful and pleased with the expedient and just decision by the Iowa Supreme Court," she said in an email. "We are also encouraged that in the future other injured plaintiffs will no longer encounter the same legal challenge in pursuit of their Seventh Amendment Rights.”

Same principle applied in two malpractice suits

The Supreme Court also addressed a similar issue in two other cases Friday, each involving medical malpractice lawsuits.

A 2017 Iowa law requires plaintiffs to file a valid certificate from a medical expert within a certain time limit, or have their case dismissed. In two lawsuits, one against Myrtue Medical Center in Shelby County and one against Methodist Physicians Clinic in Council Bluffs, plaintiffs sought to dismiss and refile their cases to avoid running afoul of the deadline, and in both cases, the districts courts ruled against them.

Justice Dana Oxley, writing for all participating justices in both cases, reversed those rulings. The law in question and the court rule permitting one free dismissal do not conflict, she wrote, because the Legislature did not specifically say they did.

"Had the general assembly intended (not to permit plaintiffs to dismiss and refile their cases), we expect it would have been explicit," she wrote.

William Morris covers courts for the Des Moines Register. He can be contacted at wrmorris2@registermedia.com, 715-573-8166 or on Twitter at @DMRMorris.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Waterloo police shooting lawsuit revived by Iowa Supreme Court