Court Opinion

ID: 9571004
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:28:21.358758+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:04.595029
License: Public Domain

LeGRAND, Justice
(concurring specially)-
I concur in the result on the basis of what the majority says in Division III. However, I cannot agree with Division V, and I therefore dissent from that part of the opinion.
In the first place the issue as to whether the granting of a remittitur in condemnation cases is constitutionally permissible was not in this case until the majority put it there. I do not think we should adopt this sua sponte approach on such an important matter without first permitting the litigant who is thereby deprived of a trial court victory an opportunity to be heard on the question. Anything less waters down his right to an effective appeal.
Be that as it may, I am more concerned because I believe the result is unsound. It is apparently based on the premise — although not, so expressed — that Article I, section 18, of the Constitution of Iowa forbids any - remittitur in condemnation cases by saying “damages shall be assesssed by a jury.”
The authority cited to support the view that this means there can be no remittitur is unpersuasive. The most it shows is that some courts take such a view under similar constitutional language. Iowa, on the contrary, has never recognized that doctrine. Until now that provision has been taken to mean the legislature may not deprive one whose property is to be appropriated for public use of a trial by jury. However, that trial should then be conducted by the rules which apply to all jury trials. I cannot believe the .constitution meant to invest a condemnation jury with plenary power not possessed by other juries.
Another fallacy in the majority view is its rejection of the judicial right to modify a verdict and its simultaneous recognition that such a verdict may be set aside entirely. If courts are without authority to do one, why aren’t they equally inhibited as to the other?
As recently as 1970, we approved without a dissenting vote — although there was a dissent on other grounds — the right to grant a remittitur. Sonntag v. Iowa Public Service Co., 180 N.W.2d 124, 126. Other cases mentioned there recognize that prin*571ciple also. Now the majority overrules Sonntag because between that date and this it fyas — somehow—become unconstitutional to remit part of a condemnation verdict.
I disagree. I think the Sonntag case was right then and that it still is. I would reverse solely because the record in this case does not support a remittitur.