Opinion ID: 1844465
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Use of Iowa Code Section 665.5.

Text: The district court ordered the incarceration of Ahmed under Iowa Code section 665.5 (1987). That section provides: If the contempt consists in an omission to perform an act which is yet in the power of the person to perform, the person may be imprisoned until the person performs it. In that case the act to be performed must be specified in the warrant of commitment. Ahmed contends that Iowa Code section 598.23(1) (1987) was the applicable Code provision and it was error for the court to use section 665.5. Iowa Code section 598.23(1) provides: If a person against whom a temporary order or final decree has been entered willfully disobeys the order or decree, the person may be cited and punished by the court for contempt and be committed to the county jail for a period of time not to exceed thirty days for each offense. Ahmed offers Skinner v. Ruigh, 351 N.W. 2d 182, 184 (Iowa 1984), as support for his position. Skinner held that section 598.23(1) provided the penalty for contempt in dissolution cases. See id. Because this is a dissolution case, Ahmed contends that his penalty is limited to thirty days of incarceration for his act of contempt, which was removing Mujahid from this jurisdiction. In order to merits of this claim, it will be necessary to review the court's authority to incarcerate an individual found to be in contempt. A review of Iowa Code chapter 665 reveals two distinct situations in which a court is authorized to incarcerate a contemner. Compare Iowa Code § 665.4 (1987) with Iowa Code § 665.5 (1987). Section 665.4 authorizes specific periods of incarceration as punishment for past acts of contempt. Section 665.5, on the other hand, authorizes incarceration to forcefully coerce compliance with a court order. See State v. Longstreet, 407 N.W.2d 591, 593 (Iowa 1987); Phillips v. Iowa Dist. Court, 380 N.W.2d 706, 709 (Iowa 1986); Wilson v. Fenton, 312 N.W.2d 524, 528-29 (Iowa 1981); cf. Hicks ex rel. Feiock v. Feiock, ___ U.S. ___, 108 S.Ct. 1423, 1429-30, 99 L.Ed.2d 721, 731-33 (1988); Shillitani v. United States, 384 U.S. 364, 370, 86 S.Ct. 1531, 1535-36, 16 L.Ed.2d 622, 627-28 (1966). Incarceration for a past act of contempt is punitive when there is no action available to the contemner which can effect release. Skinner v. Ruigh, 351 N.W.2d 182, 184 (Iowa 1984), stated that chapter 665 provides the procedural framework in a dissolution case. When the provisions of chapter 665 are compared with chapter 598, it becomes apparent that the specific penalty provisions of section 665.4 have a counterpart in section 598.23. Section 665.5, which authorizes incarceration in order to compel performance, does not have a counterpart in chapter 598. Skinner involved a past act of contempt and did not limit the ability of the court in dissolution cases to use incarceration as a method to compel an unwilling individual to comply with a court order. To adopt Ahmed's interpretation of Skinner would relegate the court to the position of a helpless bystander in many extreme instances of contempt. Unless the court is allowed to enforce a custody award through the use of its contempt powers, a custody award could be meaningless and the child's best interest would be unprotected. Our interpretation is supported by previous Iowa cases. McNabb v. Osmundson, 315 N.W.2d 9, 14-15 (Iowa 1982), stated that Iowa Code section 598.23 is intended to be primarily punitive in nature, and is only indirectly coercive. See also Iowa Code § 598.22 (1987) (the court may act pursuant to section 598.23 regardless of whether the amounts in default are paid prior to the contempt hearing.); Ogden v. Iowa Dist. Court, 309 N.W.2d 401 (Iowa 1981) (per curiam). Because the court's contempt order expressly provided for Ahmed's release upon compliance, and did not impose a fine or fixed period of incarceration, it was coercive, not punitive in nature. The provisions of section 598.23 were not applicable.