Opinion ID: 2221873
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether the Iowa Court Should Have Abated the Iowa Action as a Matter of Comity to Abide the Result of the Texas Litigation.

Text: We next consider Norman's claim that the Iowa court should have abated the action before it as a matter of comity until such time as the Texas action had been tried to conclusion. In support of this contention, it relies on a practice employed by some federal courts that the court in which an action is first filed is the appropriate court to determine whether subsequently filed cases involving substantially similar issues should proceed. See Save Power Ltd. v. Syntek Fin. Corp., 121 F.3d 947, 948 (5th Cir.1997). A reading of that case and similar federal cases suggests that this is a rule of comity to be applied between two courts of the same sovereignty. See Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinea v. Insurance Co. of N. Am., 651 F.2d 877, 887 (3d Cir.1981) (first-to-file rule was never meant to apply when the two courts involved were not courts of the same sovereignty). Under the circumstances of this case in which separate actions in different states were filed within one and one-half hours of each other, we are convinced that comity did not require the Iowa court to defer to the Texas court.