Case Title: Doe v. State

Citation: 

Docket Number: 

State: wyoming

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Date: 1977-10-11T00:00:00Z

Document:
5/21/2020 4:21:43 PM 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA 
 
No. 19–1402 
 
Filed May 22, 2020 
 
 
JANE DOE, 
 
 
Plaintiff, 
 
vs. 
 
STATE OF IOWA, 
 
 
Defendant. 
 
 
Certiorari to the Iowa District Court for Polk County, William A. 
Price, District Associate Judge. 
 
 
The petitioner seeks review of a district court order denying her 
application for expungement of the record of a dismissed criminal case.  
WRIT SUSTAINED AND CASE REMANDED. 
 
 
Andrew Duffelmeyer (until withdrawal) and Robert J. Poggenklass 
(until withdrawal), and Alexander Vincent Kornya of Iowa Legal Aid, 
Des Moines, for appellant. 
 
 
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Louis S. Sloven, Assistant 
Attorney General, and John P. Sarcone, County Attorney, for appellee. 
 
 
 
 
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McDONALD, Justice. 
In 2011, Jane Doe was charged with one count of unauthorized use 
of a credit card.  The charge was dismissed.  In 2019, having satisfied all 
of her financial obligations in the dismissed case, Doe filed an application 
to expunge the criminal record pursuant to Iowa Code section 901C.2 
(2019).  The district court denied Doe’s application on the ground Doe had 
had court-ordered financial obligations remaining in other cases and thus 
had not met the requisite condition set forth in section 901C.2(1)(a)(2).  
The question presented in this appeal is whether the district court erred 
in denying Doe’s application for expungement on the ground Doe had 
court-ordered financial obligations in other cases.  This is a question of 
statutory interpretation, and our review is for the correction of errors at 
law.  See State v. Doe, 903 N.W.2d 347, 350 (Iowa 2017). 
Before addressing the merits, we first address a jurisdictional issue.  
The State contends this court lacks jurisdiction over the case because an 
order denying an application for expungement is not appealable as a 
matter of right.  See Iowa Code § 814.6(1).  Doe responds that the district 
court acted illegally in denying her application and that this court may 
choose to treat her notice of appeal as a petition for writ of certiorari.  See 
Iowa R. App. P. 6.107(1)(a) (“Any party claiming . . . an associate district 
court judge . . .  acted illegally may commence an original certiorari action 
in the supreme court by filing a petition for writ of certiorari as provided 
in these rules.”); State v. Propps, 897 N.W.2d 91, 97 (Iowa 2017) 
(“Additionally, if a case is initiated by a notice of appeal, but another form 
of review is proper, we may choose to proceed as though the proper form 
of review was requested by the defendant rather than dismiss the action.”).  
We agree with Doe’s response, and we choose to treat Doe’s notice of 
appeal as a petition for writ of certiorari. 
 
3 
 
Turning to the merits of the case, in questions of statutory 
interpretation, “[w]e do not inquire what the legislature meant; we ask only 
what the statute means.”  Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Theory of Legal 
Interpretation, 12 Harv. L. Rev. 417, 419 (1899).  This is necessarily a 
textual inquiry as only the text of a piece of legislation is enacted into law.  
Any interpretive inquiry thus begins with the language of the statute at 
issue.  See Doe, 903 N.W.2d at 350.  Using traditional interpretive tools, 
we seek to determine the ordinary and fair meaning of the statutory 
language at issue.  See State v. Davis, 922 N.W.2d 326, 330 (Iowa 2019) 
(“We give words their ordinary meaning absent legislative definition.”); In 
re Marshall, 805 N.W.2d 145, 158 (Iowa 2011) (“We should give the 
language of the statute its fair meaning, but should not extend its reach 
beyond its express terms.”); Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading 
Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 33 (2012) [hereinafter Scalia & 
Garner, Reading Law] (defining “fair reading method” as “determining the 
application of a governing text to given facts on the basis of how a 
reasonable reader, fully competent in the language, would have 
understood the text at the time it was issued”).  In determining the 
ordinary and fair meaning of the statutory language at issue, we take into 
consideration the language’s relationship to other provisions of the same 
statute and other provisions of related statutes.  See Iowa Code § 4.1(38) 
(“Words and phrases shall be construed according to the context and the 
approved usage of the language . . . .”); Doe, 903 N.W.2d at 351 (stating 
we consider the “relevant language, read in the context of the entire 
statute”).  If the “text of a statute is plain and its meaning clear, we will 
not search for a meaning beyond the express terms of the statute or resort 
to rules of construction.”  In re Estate of Voss, 553 N.W.2d 878, 880 (Iowa 
1996); see State v. Richardson, 890 N.W.2d 609, 616 (Iowa 2017) (“If the 
 
4 
 
language is unambiguous, our inquiry stops there.”).  If the language of 
the statute is ambiguous or vague, we “may resort to other tools of 
statutory interpretation.”  Doe, 903 N.W.2d at 351.   
We begin our inquiry in this case with the language of the statute as 
a whole.  See State v. Pettijohn, 899 N.W.2d 1, 16 (Iowa 2017) (“Interpreting 
a statute requires us to assess it in its entirety to ensure our interpretation 
is harmonious with the statute as a whole rather than assessing isolated 
words or phrases.”); In re Estate of Melby, 841 N.W.2d 867, 879 (Iowa 
2014) (“When construing statutes, we assess not just isolated words and 
phrases, but statutes in their entirety . . . .”); Scalia & Garner, Reading 
Law at 167 (“Perhaps no interpretive fault is more common than the failure 
to follow the whole-text canon, which calls on the judicial interpreter to 
consider the entire text, in view of its structure and of the physical and 
logical relation of its many parts.”).   
The statute requires the district court to expunge the record of a 
criminal case upon the defendant establishing five conditions have been 
satisfied.  The statute provides, 
1.  a.  Except as provided in paragraph “b”, upon 
application of a defendant . . . in a criminal case . . .  the court 
shall enter an order expunging the record of such criminal 
case if the court finds that the defendant has established that 
all of the following have occurred, as applicable: 
(1) The criminal case contains one or more criminal 
charges in which an acquittal was entered for all criminal 
charges, or in which all criminal charges were otherwise 
dismissed. 
(2) All court costs, fees, and other financial obligations 
ordered by the court or assessed by the clerk of the district 
court have been paid. 
(3) A minimum of one hundred eighty days have passed 
since entry of the judgment of acquittal or of the order 
dismissing the case relating to all criminal charges, unless the 
court finds good cause to waive this requirement for reasons 
 
5 
 
including but not limited to the fact that the defendant was 
the victim of identity theft or mistaken identity. 
(4) The case was not dismissed due to the defendant 
being found not guilty by reason of insanity. 
(5) The defendant was not found incompetent to stand 
trial in the case. 
b.  The court shall not enter an order expunging the 
record of a criminal case under paragraph “a” unless all the 
parties in the case have had time to object on the grounds that 
one or more of the relevant conditions in paragraph “a” have 
not been established. 
Iowa Code § 901C.2.   
When the statute is considered as a whole, it is apparent the statute 
is concerned with only the singular case for which expungement is sought.  
The application for expungement must be filed in “a criminal case”—
singular.  Id. § 901C.2(1)(a).  The conditions prerequisite to expungement 
repeatedly refer to “the criminal case” or “the case.”  Id. § 901C.2(1)(a)(1), 
(3), (4), (5), .2(1)(b).  The statute’s use of the definite article “the” 
particularizes “the criminal case” and “the case.”  See Nielsen v. Preap, 586 
U.S. ___, ___, 139 S. Ct. 954, 965 (2019) (stating “grammar and usage 
establish that ‘the’ is ‘a function word . . . indicat[ing] that a following noun 
or noun equivalent is definite or has been previously specified by context.’ ” 
(alteration in original) (quoting Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 
1294 (11th ed. 2005))); Am. Bus. Ass’n v. Slater, 231 F.3d 1, 4–5 (D.C. Cir. 
2000) (“[I]t is a rule of law well established that the definite article ‘the’ 
particularizes the subject which it precedes.  It is a word of limitation as 
opposed to the indefinite or generalizing force of ‘a’ or ‘an.’ ” (quoting 
Brooks v. Zabka, 450 P.2d 653, 655 (Colo. 1969) (en banc))); State v. 
Hohenwald, 815 N.W.2d 823, 830 (Minn. 2012) (“The definite article ‘the’ 
is a word of limitation that indicates a reference to a specific object.”).  “The 
criminal case” and “the case” thus must refer to a particular antecedent.  
 
6 
 
Here, the antecedent is the singular “criminal case” in which the 
application for expungement was filed and for which expungement was 
sought.  See Iowa Code § 901C.2(1)(a).  
The text of the subsection at issue also relates only to the record of 
the singular criminal case in which the application for expungement was 
filed and for which expungement was sought.  The text provides the 
defendant must establish as a prerequisite to expungement that “[a]ll court 
costs, fees, and other financial obligations ordered by the court or assessed 
by the clerk of the district court have been paid.”  Id. § 901C.2(1)(a)(2).  
The State argues this provision is not limited to the singular case sought 
to be expunged because the provision does not specifically reference “the 
case” or the “criminal case.”  However, the State ignores other limiting 
language in the provision.  Section 901C.2(1)(a)(2) uses the definite article 
“the” in limiting the financial obligations at issue to those “ordered by the 
court or assessed by the clerk of the district court.”  Id.  Use of the definite 
article “the” means “the court” and “the clerk” have antecedents and must 
refer to a specific court or a specific clerk.  See Am. Bus. Ass’n, 231 F.3d 
at 4–5; Hohenwald, 815 N.W.2d at 830.  Here, those antecedents are the 
court that ordered the financial obligations or the clerk that assessed the 
obligations at a particular point in time in the past in “such criminal case.”  
Iowa Code § 901C.2(1)(a)(2).  “[S]uch criminal case” refers to the singular 
criminal case in which the application for expungement was filed. 
An additional textual consideration shows the provision at issue 
refers only to the criminal case in which the application for expungement 
was filed.  Iowa Code section 901C.3 provides a mechanism for the 
expungement of misdemeanor convictions.  As a prerequisite to the 
expungement of a misdemeanor conviction, the Code provides the 
defendant must prove she “has paid all court costs, fees, fines, restitution, 
 
7 
 
and any other financial obligations ordered by the court or assessed by the 
clerk of the district court.”  Id. § 901C.3(1)(d).  The misdemeanor 
expungement provision specifically identifies “fines” and “restitution” as 
amounts that must be satisfied as a prerequisite to the expungement of a 
misdemeanor conviction.  Fines and restitution are financial obligations 
incurred only upon conviction.  The absence of this language from the 
expungement provision in section 901C.2(1)(a)(2) strongly shows section 
901C.2 addresses only the financial obligations due in the case in which 
the application for expungement was filed. 
In addition to these textual considerations, we must also recognize 
the statute has the patina of prior judicial interpretation.  In Doe, the 
defendant was charged with several aggravated misdemeanors in one trial 
information and a simple misdemeanor in a separate complaint with all 
charges arising out of the same operative facts.  See Doe, 903 N.W.2d at 
349.  Pursuant to a plea agreement, the defendant in that case pleaded 
guilty to a lesser included offense of one count in the trial information, and 
the district court dismissed the remainder of the charges, including the 
separate simple misdemeanor.  See id.  Doe subsequently sought 
expungement of the record of the simple misdemeanor charge.  See id.  
“The fighting issue . . . [was] the meaning of ‘case’ as used in Iowa Code 
section 901C.2.  Is a case a particular numbered legal proceeding . . . or 
all the charges arising out of a single transaction or set of circumstances 
. . . ?”  Id. at 351.  We concluded “case,” within the meaning of section 
901C.2, referred to the particular case file with a separate case number 
for which expungement was sought.  See id. at 355.  Doe’s conclusion that 
“case” referred to a separate criminal file with a separate case number is 
consistent with our textual analysis that section 901C.2(1)(a)(2) refers to 
 
8 
 
the financial obligations only in the singular case in which the application 
for expungement was filed and for which expungement was sought.   
The State resists the conclusion that section 901C.2(1)(a)(2) requires 
Doe to establish only that she has satisfied the financial obligations arising 
out of the singular case for which expungement was sought.  In the State’s 
view, the statute’s use of “the court” and “the clerk” refer to the court or 
the clerk in the particular county in which the case was filed and thus the 
“plain meaning is that financial obligations arising from other cases in the 
same county would bar the expungement of any case files” in the county.  
In the State’s view, this includes financial obligations in both criminal and 
civil cases.  In the State’s view, this interpretation advances the legislative 
purpose of incenting defendants to pay court debt owed to the county in 
which expungement was sought. 
We find the State’s interpretation of the statute unconvincing.  First, 
the State ignores the structure of the statute as whole.  “[W]e read statutes 
as a whole rather than looking at words and phrases in isolation.”  Iowa 
Ins. Inst. v. Core Grp. of Iowa Ass’n for Justice, 867 N.W.2d 58, 72 (Iowa 
2015).  When an entire statute relates only to a single specific subject, it 
seems reasonable to conclude that all provisions in the statute relate to 
the same subject as a matter of structure and purpose.  See Den Hartog v. 
City of Waterloo, 847 N.W.2d 459, 462 (Iowa 2014) (“We have often 
explained we construe statutory phrases not by assessing solely words and 
phrases in isolation, but instead by incorporating considerations of the 
structure and purpose of the statute in its entirety.”).  For example, in 
Iowa Insurance Institute we concluded a statute that “waive[d] any privilege 
for the release of . . . information” did not constitute a waiver of work 
product.  Iowa Ins. Inst., 867 N.W.2d at 75.  We concluded, instead, the 
statute related only to a waiver of protection for medical information 
 
9 
 
because when the statute was considered as a whole “all the other 
subsections relate[d] to health care services.”  Id. at 72.  Similarly, here, 
the fact that the statute as a whole relates only to the particular case in 
which the application for expungement was filed counsels in favor of 
reading section 901C.2(1)(a)(2) as also being limited to the particular case 
in which the application for expungement was filed. 
Second, we disagree with the State’s purposive interpretation of the 
statute.  It is certainly true one of the critical aspects of statutory 
interpretation is to determine the purpose of a statute.  The purpose of a 
statute, however, is primarily determined from the language of the statute 
itself.  See, e.g., Bd. of Governors of Fed. Reserve Sys. v. Dimension Fin. 
Corp.,  474 U.S. 361, 373, 106 S. Ct. 681, 688 (1986) (“The ‘plain purpose’ 
of legislation, however, is determined in the first instance with reference 
to the plain language of the statute itself.”).  Here, the language of the 
statute does not support the conclusion that the purpose of the statute is 
to incent the payment of court-ordered financial obligations to the 
particular county where the application for expungement was filed.  
Nowhere does the statute indicate the relevant consideration for 
expungement is the defendant’s total court-ordered financial obligations 
to the particular county in which the application was filed.  The statute 
does not even use the word “county.”   
In our view, the State’s interpretation is actually contrary to the 
purpose of the statute.  “[A] driving concern behind chapter 901C was that 
a member of the general public—such as an employer doing an informal 
background check—could access our computerized docket and potentially 
draw inappropriate inferences from the mere presence of a criminal file 
relating to an individual, even though the criminal charges were dismissed 
or the individual was acquitted.”  Doe, 903 N.W.2d at 354.  To avoid these 
 
10 
 
inappropriate inferences and other “stigma,” the statute was enacted to 
facilitate the expungement of the record in criminal cases in which the 
defendant was acquitted or the case was dismissed.  Id.  Requiring a 
defendant to satisfy financial obligations in cases other than the case for 
which expungement was sought frustrates this statutory purpose.  This is 
particularly true with respect to the State’s proposed interpretation that 
requires the satisfaction of all financial obligations in civil cases in the 
same county.   
Consider an example.  Iowa Code section 901C.2(1)(a)(3) provides a 
defendant may seek expungement of a criminal file on an expedited basis 
where the “the defendant was the victim of identity theft or mistaken 
identity.”  The expedited process allows a victim of identity theft or 
mistaken identity to quickly expunge the criminal record to avoid any 
inappropriate inferences drawn from and stigma associated with a 
criminal charge.  See Doe, 903 N.W.2d at 354 (discussing purpose of 
statute).  Except, under the State’s interpretation, a victim of identity theft 
or mistaken identity would not be able to avail herself of the statute and 
avoid the stigma associated with criminal accusation if she had unpaid 
financial obligations in a dissolution of marriage case, a personal injury 
case, a landlord–tenant case, a small claims case, or any other civil case 
in the county.   
We do not see how including civil obligations within the meaning of 
the statute in any way advances or even remotely relates to the expressed 
statutory purpose of allowing a defendant to expunge the record of a 
criminal case in which the defendant was accused but not convicted of a 
crime.  We do understand, however, why the statute would require the 
defendant to satisfy the financial obligation in the particular case at 
issue—(1) the legislature wanted to ensure a defendant paid his or her 
 
11 
 
obligations in the case at issue before being allowed to exercise the right 
of expungement; and (2) after expungement, it would be practically 
impossible to collect the defendant’s court-ordered financial obligations in 
the expunged case.  The lack of any nexus between the State’s proposed 
interpretation of the statutory text and the clear purpose of the statute 
militates against the State’s interpretation.   
In sum, section 901C.2 provides the district court “shall enter an 
order expunging the record of such criminal case” if the defendant 
establishes five requisite conditions.  Iowa Code § 901C.2(1)(a).  Upon the 
defendant establishing each of the requisite conditions, expungement is 
mandatory.  See State v. Klawonn, 609 N.W.2d 515, 522 (Iowa 2000) 
(“Additionally, we have interpreted the term ‘shall’ in a statute to create a 
mandatory duty, not discretion.”).  Iowa Code section 901C.2(1)(a)(2) 
requires the defendant to establish she satisfied all financial obligations 
“ordered by the court or assessed by the clerk of the district court” in the 
singular criminal case in which the application for expungement was filed 
and for which expungement was sought.  This interpretation of the statute 
follows from the ordinary and fair meaning of the text.  This interpretation 
is consistent with the statute’s purpose as expressed in the text of the 
statute.  This interpretation is consistent with our prior interpretation of 
the statute in Doe.  And this interpretation allows the statute to “be applied 
predictably, quickly, and in a ministerial way.”  Doe, 903 N.W.2d at 353.   
For these reasons, the district court erred in concluding section 
901C.2(1)(a)(2) required the defendant to establish she satisfied all 
financial obligations in this case as well as any other case and erred in 
denying Doe’s application on that ground. 
 
12 
 
We grant Doe’s petition for writ of certiorari, sustain the writ, and 
vacate the order of the district court.  We remand this matter for further 
proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. 
WRIT SUSTAINED AND CASE REMANDED. 
All justices concur except Appel, J., who concurs specially and 
McDermott, J., who takes no part. 
 
 
 
13 
 
#19–1402, Doe v. State 
APPEL, Justice (concurring specially). 
 
I agree with the result in this case.  It seems to me the best 
interpretation of the statute is that the payment of restitution in the case 
at hand is all that is required for expungement.  I think the State’s 
interpretation of “all” in the statute is not entirely unreasonable and 
therefore gives rise to a degree of ambiguity.  But the State’s position is 
unpersuasive.  I come to this conclusion in part because of the language 
of the statute, as ably canvassed by the majority, but also in part because 
the clear legislative purpose of this remedial statute would be substantially 
undermined by the State’s interpretation of the statute.  Further, there are 
no persuasive countervailing arguments to the majority’s interpretation 
based upon, for example, any germane legislative history or significant 
linguistic departure from a model statute.  So, for me, it is a combination 
of text, purpose, and absence of meaningful countervailing considerations, 
that drives the result. 
 
In reaching this result, I do not endorse any sweeping 
methodological statements about textualism as the proper approach to 
statutory interpretation.  I fully agree that the starting point of analysis of 
any statute is the language.  Analysis of the language matters, and here, 
the case against the State’s interpretation is fairly strong. 
 
But textual analysis is often not the be-all and end-all of statutory 
interpretation and is merely the starting point.  Commentators have noted 
the difficulty in relying solely on textual analysis, or so called “plain 
meaning.”  See, e.g., State ex rel. Helman v. Gallegos, 871 P.2d 1352, 1359 
(N.M. 1994) (urging caution in applying the plain-meaning rule, stating 
that “[i]ts beguiling simplicity may mask a host of reasons why a statute, 
apparently clear and unambiguous on its face, may for one reason or 
 
14 
 
another give rise to legitimate (i.e., nonfrivolous) differences of opinion 
concerning the statute’s meaning”); 2A Norman Singer & Shambie Singer, 
Sutherland Statutory Construction § 46.1 (7th ed.), Westlaw (database 
updated Oct. 2019) (describing issues inherent in the plain-meaning rule 
in application); see generally Michael R. Merz, The Meaninglessness of the 
Plain Meaning Rule, 4 U. Dayton L. Rev. 31 (1979) (critiquing the plain 
meaning 
rule 
and 
proposing 
alternative 
methods 
of 
statutory 
interpretation).  A quick look at the legal encyclopedia Words and Phrases 
reveals that many frequently used verbal expressions are ambiguous and 
have multiple meanings.  Ambiguity arises from not only the meaning of 
particular words, but also “from the general scope and meaning of a 
statute when all its provisions are examined.”  Holiday Inns Franchising, 
Inc. v. Branstad, 537 N.W.2d 724, 728 (Iowa 1995).  Further, statutory 
terms cannot always be taken literally when considered in context.  See 
Iowa Ins. Inst. v. Core Grp. of Iowa Ass’n for Justice, 867 N.W.2d 58, 72 
(Iowa 2015) (“[E]ven if the meaning of words might seem clear on their face, 
their context can create ambiguity.”).  Sometimes the text pushes us 
toward absurd results that rightly drive the interpretation away from 
textual literalism.  Mall Real Estate, L.L.C. v. City of Hamburg, 818 N.W.2d 
190, 199 (Iowa 2012) (stating that, while the canon of construction noscitur 
a sociis would ordinarily apply, “we cannot apply this canon if its 
application thwarts legislative intent or makes the general words 
meaningless”). 
 
Because of the challenges of statutory interpretation, we have a long 
history of looking to legislative history and statutory purposes as so-called 
“extrinsic aids” in determining the proper approach to statutory 
interpretation.  See, e.g., Mulhern v. Catholic Health Initiatives, 799 N.W.2d 
104, 113 (Iowa 2011) (“We also consider the legislative history of a statute 
 
15 
 
when ascertaining legislative intent.”); Sherwin-Williams Co. v. Iowa Dep’t 
of Revenue, 789 N.W.2d 417, 427 (Iowa 2010) (noting that reliance on 
legislative history, purpose, and definitions are considered, even if it “leads 
to a result that seems contrary to the court’s expectations”).  We also 
sometimes consider what was not said in statutes, as when an Iowa 
statute departs from a model act from which it was derived.  See, e.g., State 
v. Lindell, 828 N.W.2d 1, 7–8 (Iowa 2013).  
 
Iowa Code section 4.6 (2019) provides that the court may consider 
seven extrinsic sources in the interpretation of statutes.1  The statute may 
raise serious questions of separation of powers, but there is certainly no 
legislative bar, and in fact we have been permitted, if not encouraged, to 
examine extrinsic indications of legislative purpose.  Indeed, one study of 
a ten-year timeframe of our court’s legislative interpretation cases found 
that the three members still on the court today utilized legislative history, 
on average, in 51.7% of the legislative interpretation opinions that they 
authored.2  See generally Karen L. Wallace, Does the Past Predict the 
                                      
 
1Iowa Code section 4.6 provides, 
 
If a statute is ambiguous, the court, in determining the intention 
of the legislature, may consider among other matters: 
 
1.  The object sought to be attained. 
 
2.  The circumstances under which the statute was enacted. 
 
3.  The legislative history. 
 
4.  The common law or former statutory provisions, including laws 
upon the same or similar subjects. 
 
5.  The consequences of a particular construction. 
 
6.  The administrative construction of the statute. 
 
7.  The preamble or statement of policy.” 
2This law review article categorized the percentage of statutory interpretation 
opinions that each justice authored that cited historical sources.  Justice Mansfield cited 
historical sources in 61.1% of his statutory interpretation opinions, as did Justice 
Waterman in 56.5% of his opinions, and Justice Appel in 37.5% of my opinions.  Karen 
L. Wallace, Does the Past Predict the Future?: An Empirical Analysis of Recent Iowa 
 
16 
 
Future?: An Empirical Analysis of Recent Iowa Supreme Court Use of 
Legislative History as a Window into Statutory Construction in Iowa, 63 
Drake L. Rev. 239 (2015).  To the extent the majority opinion’s dicta implies 
that extrinsic aids should not be used to divine legislative purpose or are 
disfavored, it is sailing dead against Iowa Code section 4.6 and the 
established recent practice in this court.  As a general rule, we have used 
extrinsic evidence to follow Judge Learned Hand’s admonition not to allow 
hypertextualism “to make a fortress out of the dictionary.”  Cabell v. 
Markham, 148 F.2d 737, 739 (2d Cir. 1945). 
 
I have no objection to the result reached in this case; but for me it 
is a combination of text, purpose, and absence of countervailing argument 
that reaches that result.  I arrive at that decision in its full statutory 
context.  If we are to do our jobs, we judges must continue to have the full 
panoply of intrinsic and extrinsic tools available to us when confronted 
with difficult issues of legislative interpretation.  Sometimes the text will 
control.  In those cases, there will rarely be appeals.  If such cases are 
appealed, they are handled crisply.  But when difficult questions of 
statutory interpretation arise, we will need a complete toolbox to make the 
best choices through the art of legislative interpretation. 
 
                                      
 
Supreme Court Use of Legislative History as a Window into Statutory Construction in Iowa, 
63 Drake L. Rev. 239, 270 (2015).