Opinion ID: 2213266
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alternative Grounds of Motion for Summary Judgment by the County and Friend of Court.

Text: The plaintiff concedes that in order to recover against the county or the friend of court he is required under Monell to show that his imprisonment was caused by the defendants carrying out an official governmental policy or custom. In resisting the summary judgment claims of these defendants, plaintiff contends that an issue of fact exists concerning whether the defendants had an official policy which fostered jailing judgment debtors delinquent in child support payments without affording them a hearing to explain the reasons for their failure to pay. Plaintiff attempts to support this contention by referring to deposition exhibits consisting of parts of a handbook and accompanying legal forms developed by the child support recovery unit of DHS. Plaintiff asserts that these forms encourage child support recovery attorneys to try to obtain jailings without hearings where judgment debtors have failed to meet the conditions imposed by prior court orders. The forms in question relate to situations where the court has already made a finding that the judgment debtor has willfully failed to pay court-ordered child support, and the court has sentenced the offending person to jail but has withheld the order of commitment on condition that certain prescribed payments be made toward the arrearage. These forms were developed prior to our 1983 decision in Greene v. District Court . We find upon examination of the pleadings, depositions, and exhibits utilized in determining the summary judgment motion that, viewing the disputed facts most favorably to plaintiff, they fail to support a section 1983 recovery against the county or the friend of court under Monell. To the extent the handbook or forms represent official policy, it is policy established by DHS and not by the county or the friend of court. More significantly, it appears that the practices espoused in the handbook and forms are an attempt to conform the practices of child support recovery attorneys to the practices already in existence in the several judicial districts of the state. The DHS manual expressly states in this regard: In each judicial district of Iowa, the courts approved ... the contempt forms to be used.... In some instances, ... a certain judge will not allow an attorney to use [a particular] contempt form.... Each child support attorney should be aware of which forms are allowed by the district court judges.... We have provided forms which were approved by several judicial districts. The child support attorney should be aware of which form is an accepted practice. The practices of the Iowa District Court for Polk County in domestic contempt cases are discussed at length in testimony by deposition of the judge in charge of domestic relations cases at the time of plaintiff's jailing. In situations where the court, after one evidentiary hearing, found that a support obligor willfully failed to pay child support and the court withheld a jail sentence upon condition that the contemner make specific payments, the practice was to issue a mittimus without further hearing if a satisfactory showing of the contemner's failure to satisfy those conditions was received. The presiding judge also testified that, under the practice of the court, a professional statement by a friend of court staff attorney that the court-ordered conditions had not been met would be deemed sufficient proof for this purpose. It seems inescapable, from both the comments in the manual pertaining to use of the forms and the statements of judicial policy from the presiding judge of the court in which the forms were allegedly utilized, that plaintiff's jailing was the product of judicial action prompted by the recommendation of public agency attorneys attempting to represent their clients in accordance with the established practices of the court in which they were appearing. This factual setting does not permit a section 1983 recovery against the county or friend of court under Monell based on unconstitutional policy making by a governmental agency. The motion for summary judgment of these defendants was properly granted. We have considered all grounds urged for reversal and find that the judgment of the district court should be affirmed. AFFIRMED.