Court Opinion

ID: 9576324
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:23:13.543057+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:05:41.883160
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
The majority incorrectly assumes that the misconduct issue in this case is one of fact on which the agency must be affirmed under the substantial evidence rule. Because there is no serious dispute on any of the material issues of fact, the ultimate determination of whether misconduct occurred is necessarily one of law. As this court recognized many years ago, it is a “settled principle that whether a given state of evidence entitled a party to go to the jury is itself a question of law, and not of fact....” Jones v. Sioux City, 192 Iowa 99, 102, 182 N.W. 644, 645 (1921). The same principle is true in testing the sufficiency of evidence to sustain a decision of an administrative agency.
Before discussing the issue on the merits, I believe some statement is warranted as to this court’s practice of continually paying lip service to a supposed burden of proof on the employer seeking to establish a misconduct disqualification (as per 345 Iowa Admin.Code 4.32(4)), but then approving misconduct findings made by the agency sua sponte in inquisitorial, nonadversary proceedings. In case after case, the agency acts on its own initiative to cause such disqualifications without regard to whether an adversary position has been taken by the employer. The supposed adversary proceeding is in fact a conflict between the claimant and the agency acting as both contestant and adjudicator. Any pretense that the claimant does not bear the burden of proof in such a proceeding is completely without basis.
On the merits of the present case, the issue is simple. Does an employee of a licensed facility subject to oversight by the county board of supervisors have the same right to urge the oversight board to take action as that which is enjoyed by any other citizen of the county. I submit that the answer to this question necessarily has to be in the affirmative. The information communicated to the board member in the present case was only that of which the claimant was possessed with first-hand knowledge based on her own observations. The records which were shown to the board member added nothing to the detail of the *134communication but only corroborated that information which the claimant was free to communicate by word-of-mouth.
If the care facility had kept a log of these incidents separate from the personal records of the patient, the information which was disseminated would have been subject to oversight by the board of supervisors. The care facility should not be able to hide a series of traumatic incidents of the type involved in the present case from the scrutiny of the board by only making note of such occurrences in those records shielded by confidentiality.
There is absolutely no evidence in the present record that will permit a finding that the claimant’s motives were other than a desire to communicate to the board of supervisors that information which she believed the board was entitled to have. There has been no showing, nor has any claim been made, that she acted out of any malicious motive toward her superiors.
I would hold that the record shows as a matter of law that petitioner’s actions were undertaken in good faith and that such actions were not those which, under controlling principles of law, give rise to a misconduct disqualification.
SCHULTZ and SNELL, JJ„ join this dissent.