Opinion ID: 1984482
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Diacide I and the law of the case doctrine.

Text: We first point out that the district court correctly sustained McHose's Iowa rule of civil procedure 252 motion to vacate the June 9, 1997 order based on the clerk of court's mistake or neglect in the delay in notifying the parties of the judgment entered that date. As to the proper content of a judgment after remand, the State contends that the district court's only remedy was to enter judgment against McHose holding him jointly and severally liable for the $1.4 million judgment entered against the other defendants. The State's contention is that the district court was prohibited from reconsidering the issue of McHose's knowledge of the fraudulent scheme. Upon our review, we conclude that the district court erred in reconsidering the knowledge element because of the law of the case doctrine. The doctrine of the law of the case represents the practice of courts to refuse to reconsider what has once been decided. State v. Grosvenor, 402 N.W.2d 402, 405 (Iowa 1987); see also Springer v. Weeks & Leo Co., 475 N.W.2d 630, 632 (Iowa 1991) (noting that the law of the case doctrine may not apply when law has been changed by legislative enactment, or where controlling law has been clarified by judicial decisions following remand). Pursuant to this rule, legal principles announced and the views expressed by a reviewing court in an opinion, right or wrong, are binding throughout further progress of the case upon the litigants, the trial court and this court in later appeals. Grosvenor, 402 N.W.2d at 405; 5 Am. Jur.2d Appellate Review § 605, at 300-01 (1995) (discussing doctrine). The law of the case doctrine does not apply to dictum, Feller v. Scott County Civ. Serv. Comm'n, 482 N.W.2d 154, 159 (Iowa 1992), or if the facts before the court upon the second trial are materially different from those present in the first case. Grosvenor, 402 N.W.2d at 405. Additionally, the doctrine applies only to so much of an opinion by an appellate court in a former decision in the same case as was essential to the determination required of the court. Wolfe v. Graether, 389 N.W.2d 643, 651 (Iowa 1986). We now consider what aspects of our Diacide I opinion were binding upon the district court on remand according to the law of the case doctrine.