Case Title: Sergeant Bluff-Luton Sch. v. Sioux City

Citation: 562 N.W.2d 154

Docket Number: 

State: iowa

Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Date: 1997-04-23T00:00:00Z

Document:
562 N.W.2d 154 (1997) SERGEANT BLUFF-LUTON SCHOOL DISTRICT, Appellant, v. CITY OF SIOUX CITY, Appellee. No. 96-306. Supreme Court of Iowa. April 23, 1997. Daniel D. Dykstra and Edward C. Poulsen of Heidman, Redmond, Fredregill, Patterson, Schatz & Plaza, L.L.P., Sioux City, for appellant. James L. Abshier, City Attorney, and C. Maurice Rawe, Chief Deputy City Attorney, for appellee. Considered by HARRIS, P.J., and LARSON, NEUMAN, SNELL, and ANDREASEN, JJ. HARRIS, Justice. A school district brought this equitable action against a city, seeking a permanent injunction to restrain the city from including a high income residential area as a part of an economic development area under Iowa Code chapter 403 (1993). The district court denied relief because it considered injunctive relief inappropriate. We agree. It seems apparent why the school sought to bring its claim as an equitable action. The school believes the city used high-handed methods to illegally deprive the school of a substantial portion of its rightful tax base. So the school district understandably wants the dispute resolved on the basis of equity, even though the normal method for a party of standing to claim illegal conduct by a governmental entity is by petitioning for a writ of certiorari, a legal proceeding. For a statement of facts we cannot improve on the findings of the trial court, which we quote and adopt as our own: In denying an injunction as inappropriate, the district court applied the balancing of equities test contemplated in Lakota Consolidated Independent School v. Buffalo Center/Rake Community Schools, 334 *156 N.W.2d 704, 709 (Iowa 1983). We affirm the denial on a different basis; we think injunctive relief was inappropriate because the plaintiff school district had an adequate legal remedy in certiorari. I. Certiorari under Iowa rule of civil procedure 306 is an action at law to test the legality of an action taken by a court or tribunal. Bear v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 540 N.W.2d 439, 440 (Iowa 1995). A city exercising a governmental function is a tribunal within the meaning of rule 306. Smith v. City of Fort Dodge, 160 N.W.2d 492, 495 (Iowa 1968). We defined the nature of a judicial function by a tribunal that is not a court in Buechele v. Ray, 219 N.W.2d 679, 681 (Iowa 1974). We stated that a judicial function is exercised if it (1) involves proceedings in which notice and an opportunity to be heard are required, or (2) "a determination of rights of parties is made which requires the exercise of discretion in finding facts and applying the law thereto." Id. The city's act challenged here was clearly a judicial one under this definition. II. The school district makes no real claim that it could not have raised its challenge by certiorari. Rather it rests its case on the assertion that certiorari is not an exclusive remedy. See Iowa R. Civ. P. 308 (certiorari shall not be denied or annulled because party has other remedy). The school district relies on three cases in which we reached the merits of challenges to a city's action under the urban renewal chapter which were raised by proceedings other than certiorari. Brady v. City of Dubuque, 495 N.W.2d 701 (Iowa 1993); Dilley v. City of Des Moines, 247 N.W.2d 187 (Iowa 1976); Richards v. City of Muscatine, 237 N.W.2d 48 (Iowa 1975). Although Dilley did include a prayer for an injunction, the three cited equitable actions were brought for declaratory relief. In none of them did we impugn the well-established rule that an action for an injunction will not lie where the petitioner has an adequate remedy at law. Matlock v. Weets, 531 N.W.2d 118, 122 (Iowa 1995); Planned Parenthood of Mid-Iowa v. Maki, 478 N.W.2d 637, 639 (Iowa 1991). The school district's focus is wrong. The question does not turn on the variety of claims that could be asserted in a certiorari proceeding, a proceeding that it could havebut did notbring. Rather the question turns on the limited circumstances under which an action for an injunction can be brought. Because the school district clearly had a legal remedycertiorariavailable, its proceeding for an injunction was correctly dismissed. AFFIRMED. [1] Iowa Code chapter 403, Iowa's urban renewal law, was explained in detail in Richards v. City of Muscatine, 237 N.W.2d 48 (Iowa 1975).