Court Opinion

ID: 9673529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:14:12.199612+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:22.714039
License: Public Domain

NEUMAN, Justice
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but for a different reason. Statutes and our procedural rules should be interpreted and applied to sanction parties who are late in their filings, not those who are early. Conversely, we should not reward parties who withhold their complaints about the procedural posture of a case until it is too late for the offending party to correct the mistake.
In fairness, the board should have filed a pre-answer motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted under Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 104(b). See Tombergs v. City of Eldridge, 433 N.W.2d 731, 734 (Iowa 1988). That way, even if the board prevailed on the motion, the appellants would not have lost the opportunity to refile their petition at the proper time. Because the board did not alert the appellants to the “trap” that awaited them, *322see id., the majority has properly reversed and remanded for hearing on the merits.