Court Opinion

ID: 9724595
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 11:03:49.592509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:02.876082
License: Public Domain

*1338Snell, J.
I respectfully dissent from the holding in Division IV of the opinion. I have no quarrel with Divisions I, II, III and V.
That a plea of guilty is an admission against interest is admitted. As such, except for the statute, evidence relative thereto would be admissible in a subsequent civil action. Ample authority, including our own pronouncements prior to the enactment of section 321.489, Code of Iowa, so hold. That is not the question before us. If such evidence is now inadmissible it is because of the statute.
I would hold that such evidence is now inadmissible because in my opinion the statute so provides.
Section 321.489, Code of Iowa, provides:
“No record of the conviction of any person for any violation of this chapter shall be admissible as evidence in any court in any civil action.”
This statute erected a bar against the use of evidence that prior thereto was admissible.
To now say that under the statute the record itself is inadmissible, but that a plea of guilty entered as a part of the record is admissible, places a strained, unnatural and destructive construction and interpretation on the statute.
No one contends that the record of a conviction entered after a plea of not guilty would be admissible. A plea of guiity is an integral part of the record. It is not something separate and distinct or outside the record. It is the very thing proscribed by the statute.
The legislature must have had some purpose in enacting the statute. To me that purpose is clear, i. e. to prevent the proceedings in a criminal action from influencing the result in a civil action by its coercive impact.
In my opinion the holding of the majority emasculates, violates the intent, and, for all practical purposes, repeals the statute.
A person charged with some minor traffic violation will be forced to plead not guilty and stand trial for fear a plea of guilty will be used against him later in a civil action.
Mathews v. Beyer, 254 Iowa 52, 116 N.W.2d 477, cited by *1339the majority, does not require the holding reached in the case at bar but the fear expressed in the dissenting opinion has now been realized. As said in that dissent I would construe the statute as having a greater perimeter than does the majority opinion.