Court Opinion

ID: 9385559
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-07 14:03:57.11773+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:02.903382
License: Public Domain

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA

                                  No. 21–1092

               Submitted February 21, 2023—Filed April 7, 2023

DES MOINES CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION,

      Appellee,

vs.

PATRICK KNUEVEN and MARY KNUEVEN,

      Appellants.

      Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Sarah Crane, Judge.

      A landlord appeals the district court judgment against him for housing

discrimination based on religion or national origin. REVERSED                AND

REMANDED.

      Christensen, C.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which all justices

joined.

      John F. Fatino (argued) and Nicholas J. Gral of Whitfield & Eddy, P.L.C.,

Des Moines, for appellants.

      Luke DeSmet (argued) and Michelle Mackel-Wiederanders, Assistant City

Attorneys, for appellee.
                                         2

CHRISTENSEN, Chief Justice.

      The Des Moines Civil and Human Rights Commission alleged the

defendants, a husband and wife who own rental properties together,

discriminated against prospective tenants in violation of municipal law by

steering prospective tenants of a protected religion or national origin away from

their rental properties. A jury found only the husband liable and imposed a

penalty against him for $50,000. He appealed and raises several issues, ranging

from challenges to the district court’s evidentiary rulings to the jury instructions

on the elements of steering and the sufficiency of the evidence to submit the

claim of steering to the jury. Both husband and wife challenge the district court

attorney fee award to the Commission.

      On our review, we reverse the district court judgment. The district court

incorrectly instructed the jury that steering occurs merely by “discouraging” a

member of a protected class from pursuing housing and “encouraging” a member

not of the protected class. Such an instruction exposed the defendants to liability

for conduct not prohibited by the Iowa Civil Rights Act or the relevant Des Moines

ordinance. There is insufficient evidence against the defendants under the

proper jury instruction. Accordingly, we reverse the district court judgment,

vacate the award of attorney fees to the Commission, and remand for dismissal

of the steering charge against Patrick and a determination of whether Patrick

should be awarded attorney fees as the now prevailing party.
                                         3

      I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

      Patrick and Mary Knueven are a married couple who own various rental

properties in the Des Moines area that Patrick rents to tenants while operating

as the landlord. They came to the attention of the Des Moines Civil and Human

Rights Commission (Commission) when an individual filed a complaint alleging

that Patrick had engaged in housing discrimination in 2015. Upon further

review, the Commission chose to investigate the complaint through the use of

housing testers to gauge whether Patrick was participating in some type of

discriminatory housing practice.

      Joshua Barr, the Commission’s director, explained:

      Housing testers are persons who go in and try to rent a property, et
      cetera, and they determine how they are treated and typically have
      two types: It’s the control which is typically someone that’s of
      European descent or white, as others may say, and then we have
      someone of another [protected] characteristic . . . [such as] someone
      of a different skin color.

The Commission conducted this testing over the course of a few months in 2015

and 2016 and then again later in 2017.

      A. 2015–16 Testing. On December 22, 2015, Chris Fultz, a white male

acting as a control tester, called Patrick to schedule an in-person tour of the

Knuevens’ Porter Avenue rental property. Fultz met with Patrick at the rental

property the next day, which Fultz described as a “relatively uneventful” visit

that involved Patrick walking him through the property. There is no recording of

the phone call or visit in the record.

      On December 28, Deeq Abdi, a protected tester, called Patrick to inquire

about the same property in a recorded call. Abdi has an accent that indicates he
                                          4

is not a native English speaker. During the call, Abdi told Patrick his name and

noted that he was calling to see if the rental property was available. Patrick

responded, “It’s rented. It’s taken and they’re living there.” When Abdi asked who

he was speaking to, Patrick said his name was “Joe.” Abdi asked if any other

units would be coming available, and Patrick answered, “Nope.” Abdi thanked

Patrick, and Patrick ended the call without a response. Overall, Abdi described

Patrick as evasive, explaining that Patrick avoided his questions and gave him

the impression “that he doesn’t want to rent the apartment to me because [for]

no reason [he] was trying to cut me off and you can see that.”

      Fultz called Patrick again on January 4, 2016, about the rental property

at issue. After Patrick informed him that he rented the property to someone else,

Fultz asked if Patrick had anything else available to rent. Patrick told him that

he had a different property that would be available in a week. There is no

recording of this call in the record.

      The Commission conducted similar testing during that time period

involving two females: one a white control tester and the other a Muslim

protected tester. The control tester, Jodi Mashek, spoke with Patrick over the

phone on January 27 about a different rental property and arranged an

in-person visit. That visit occurred on January 29. She reported that Patrick gave

her a tour of the property, answering any questions she had and pointing out

new appliances and flooring. He also mentioned that “it was a really nice

neighborhood, [and] that neighbors on both sides had been there for a very long

time.” There is no recording of this call or visit in the record.
                                         5

      The protected tester, Nadia Ingram, first interacted with Patrick over the

phone on January 28 in a recorded call that does not reveal any of her protected

characteristics. Patrick asked her a few questions about when she was looking

to move in and arranged for Ingram to view the property with him the next day.

Ingram arrived for the visit wearing a hijab, which she describes as a “head scarf”

that “easily identifie[s]” her as Muslim, with her two young children in tow. She

discreetly captured an audio recording of her visit.

      Ingram testified that Patrick “didn’t really say hi when I initially said hi.”

He immediately asked her if her husband was with them and “seemed a little

disappointed” that she did not bring her husband. Ingram described Patrick as

“tense,” explaining,

      [E]very time I walked into a room, [Patrick] walked out. It seems like
      he didn’t want to be around me. I also noticed a lot of times when
      he would be leaving a room, he would be muttering expletives under
      his breath not loud enough that he wanted me to hear it but I could
      certainly hear what he was saying.

When she asked Patrick what the neighborhood was like, he claimed he didn’t

know about the neighborhood or what the neighbors were like.

      Ingram summarized the differences in her experience with Patrick over the

phone when he was unaware of her protected status compared to her subsequent

in-person visit when she was identifiable as Muslim. She testified,

      On the phone, like I said before, he was polite, he was asking lots of
      questions about our situation, when we were looking to move. He
      even said thank you at the end of the conversation when I hung up
      with him and thanked him. He generally seemed to be interested in
      us as potential tenants.

            In person it was a very different situation. He wasn’t overtly
      rude in that he didn’t call me names. He wasn’t saying anything that
                                        6

      was unkind directly to me with the exception of obviously the
      expletive that he kept muttering under his breath but he certainly
      wasn’t the same person as he was on the phone.

            He gave me very short answers. At times he said he didn’t
      know. He wasn’t offering any different options. He seemed to be more
      forthcoming over the phone. In person he just didn’t seem like he
      wanted to be around me at all.

             On the phone I used my real name which is a very
      multi-cultural name. It doesn’t expressly show what my ethnic or
      religious background is. In person as I said before about what I was
      wearing, very obviously Muslim or at least not a typical Caucasian
      Christian or whatever. I’m pretty easily identified as Muslim.

None of the testers mentioned applied to rent a property from Patrick.

      B. 2017 Testing. The 2017 testing began when Carla Cox, the test

coordinator at the Fair Housing Center of Nebraska and Iowa who was working

with the Commission, called Patrick on August 4 to inquire about an

advertisement on Craigslist for the Knuevens’ East Kenyon Avenue rental

property that was posted on July 31. That posting listed the monthly rent as

$650, but Patrick posted a new Craigslist advertisement on August 3 that raised

the monthly rent to $800 after consulting with a residential property

management company.

      When Cox called Patrick, she asked if the East Kenyon Avenue property

was still available to rent for $650 per month. Patrick confirmed the property

was still available at that rate based on his assumption that Cox must have had

the old printout of the advertisement before he had updated it to raise the

monthly rent. Cox’s voice does not demonstrate any obvious protected

characteristics regarding religion or national origin, but there is no recording of

this call in the record.
                                         7

      On August 7, tester Laurie Madison called Patrick about the same rental

property in a recorded call that lasted less than two minutes. She started the

call by identifying herself as a caseworker at the Omaha Refugee Resettlement

Program, to which Patrick responded, “Alright, what do ya got?” Madison

informed Patrick that she was seeking housing for a married Muslim couple from

Pakistan and asked whether the property was still available to rent. Patrick

answered, “Well, yes, it is.”

      Madison mentioned the Craigslist posting that stated the monthly rent was

$650 per month, and Patrick interjected, “Oh, that’s an old ad, it’s $800.”

Madison asked follow-up questions about the availability of a garage and

whether Patrick showed the property during certain hours. Patrick simply

answered “No” to each question without offering any additional information.

When Madison stated that she would follow up with him once she knew the

couple’s availability to view the property, Patrick did not respond and ended the

call. A control tester called the same day as Madison to inquire about the

property, but Mary answered the phone instead of Patrick and spoke with the

control tester about the property’s availability.

      On August 10, Cox called Patrick again in a recorded call that lasted

around five and a half minutes. Cox reminded Patrick of her previous call on

August 4 and asked if the property was still available to rent. Patrick informed

her that it was, but he also told her that he had shown it to others who had filled

out applications and might have another possible applicant in the works. Cox

again asked Patrick if the monthly rent for the property was $650, and Patrick
                                          8

confirmed that was correct. She told Patrick she would be in touch to schedule

a viewing and said goodbye, leading Patrick to respond, “Bye.” Neither Cox nor

anyone from the Omaha Refugee Resettlement Program applied to rent a

property from Patrick.

      C. Legal Proceedings. Following testing, the Commission initiated a

formal investigation under the Federal Fair Housing Act and the City of

Des Moines’s Municipal Code governing discriminatory housing practices. The

Commission completed this investigation on May 21, 2019, and filed its notice

of probable cause determination that the complaints against the Knuevens for

charging higher rent and steering based on applicants’ national origin and/or

religion were founded shortly thereafter. The steering charge in the Commission’s

petition specifically alleged that Patrick exhibited a “policy and practice of illegal

steering through effective discouragement of rental [property] because of religion

and national origin.”

      On June 28, the Commission filed a petition and request for injunctive

relief in district court against the Knuevens for those same charges, noting the

Knuevens elected to have the charges decided in a civil action under Iowa Code

sections 216.16A(1)(a) and 216.17A and sections 62-106 and 62-107 of the

Des Moines Municipal Code. Although the petition’s allegations of rent

discrimination and steering are the result of the interactions between the

Knuevens and the testers in August 2017, the petition cited the interactions

between Patrick and the testers in 2015 and 2016 as “further evidence[]” that
                                        9

Patrick engaged in “illegal steering through effective discouragement of rental

[property] because of religion and national origin.”

      The matter proceeded to pretrial conference on May 7, 2021, which

involved the Knuevens’ motion in limine. Relevant to this appeal, the Knuevens

sought to exclude any evidence of the steering allegations from the 2015 and

2016 testing, arguing they were stale because the Commission did not file

complaints concerning these allegations within 300 days of their occurrence as

required under city ordinance. See Des Moines, Iowa, Code of Ordinances

§ 62-2(b) (“Any complaint must be filed within 300 days after the complainant

knew or should have known of the most recent act constituting the alleged illegal

discriminatory practice.”). The district court ruled that this evidence was

admissible to show motive under Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.404(b)(2). The jury trial

commenced on May 17.

      With the exception of the female control tester who talked to Mary in 2017,

all of the testers mentioned above testified about their interactions with Patrick.

The jury also heard testimony from Joshua Barr, the director of the Commission;

Emily Cohen, a human rights specialist for the Commission; and the Knuevens.

The jury returned a verdict on May 20 finding no liability for Mary on either claim

and no liability for Patrick on the rental price discrimination claim. However, it

found Patrick was liable for steering and imposed a civil penalty of $50,000

against Patrick.

      Patrick filed a timely motion for new trial and motion for judgment

notwithstanding the verdict, both of which the district court denied. Additionally,
                                        10

the Commission filed a motion for injunctive relief and attorney fees, and Mary

filed a motion for attorney fees. After a July 13 hearing, the district court denied

the Commission’s motion for injunctive relief and partially granted both the

Commission’s and Mary’s request for attorney fees. Mary and Patrick filed timely

appeals, which we consolidated and retained. Mary is a party on appeal only to

the extent that the outcome could impact the attorney fee awards.

      II. Standard of Review.

      We review the district court’s jury instructions for prejudicial error,

considering the instructions as a whole. Eisenhauer ex rel. T.D. v. Henry Cnty.

Health Ctr., 935 N.W.2d 1, 9 (Iowa 2019). There is no reversible error if the

instructions have not misled the jury. Id. We review a district court’s refusal to

give a requested jury instruction for correction of errors at law. Id. Likewise, our

review of the district court’s denial of a motion for judgment notwithstanding the

verdict is also for correction of errors at law. Carter v. Carter, 957 N.W.2d 623,

631 (Iowa 2021). We review the district court’s attorney fee award for an abuse

of discretion. Guge v. Kassel Enters., Inc., 962 N.W.2d 764, 770 (Iowa 2021).

      III. Analysis.

      Patrick raises numerous issues, arguing the district court erred by:

(1) failing to instruct the jury properly on the requisite elements of steering,

(2) denying his motion for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict because the

Commission failed to prove steering, (3) allowing the Commission to “offer unduly

prejudicial prior bad acts evidence that did not concern the charges in question,”

(4) denying his request to present evidence of his good character, and
                                        11

(5) admitting impeachment evidence concerning Patrick’s collateral testimony

from a deposition in an unrelated matter. Should we overturn the district court’s

ruling in Patrick’s favor, Mary joins him in this appeal asking us to overturn the

Commission’s attorney fee award. We address these issues in turn as necessary.

      A. Jury Instructions on Steering. Patrick contends the district court

erred in failing to instruct the jury properly on the elements required to establish

a legal claim of steering. The district court’s jury instructions required the

Commission to prove:

             1.    In August 2017, a tester (hereinafter referred to as the
      protected tester) is a member of a protected class based upon
      religion or national origin.

            2.   The protected tester sought to rent housing from the
      defendant Patrick Knueven.

            3.    The defendant Patrick Knueven engaged in steering by
      discouraging the protected tester from pursuing the housing and
      encouraging someone not of the protected class to pursue such
      housing.

             4.    The tester’s religion or national origin was a motivating
      factor in defendant Patrick Knueven’s steering.

      Patrick believes these instructions were too expansive, arguing he must

have performed some affirmative act that denied or obstructed the protected

class member from receiving housing beyond simply discouraging protected

testers and encouraging the control testers to pursue his rental housing. He

requested the jury be instructed as follows:

            In order to find “steering” in violation of the law, you must find
      that the Defendants took some steps to show or guide the tester to
      an alternative property according to their [protected class], or
      presented information that the property was undesirable for the
      prospect because of the tester’s [protected class].
                                         12

We agree with Patrick that the district court should have given this requested

instruction because it aligns with the law. See Eisenhauer ex rel. T.D., 935

N.W.2d at 10 (“Iowa law requires a court give a requested instruction as long as

the instruction is a correct statement of law, is applicable to the case, and is not

otherwise embodied elsewhere in the instructions.”).

      We begin with the plain language of the relevant ordinance. Section 62-101

of the Des Moines Municipal Code enumerates illegal discriminatory housing

practices based on certain protected classes, including religion and national

origin. See Des Moines, Iowa, Code of Ordinances § 62-101. Although it lists

eleven different illegal housing practices, only one—section 62-101(a)(10)—

expressly mentions “steer.” See id. That section establishes that it is illegal for a

person to “[s]teer or channel a prospective buyer into or away from an area

because of [their protected class].” Id. § 62-101(a)(10).

      As the language of the ordinance expresses, steering involves the landlord

intentionally channeling someone into or away from a specific area based on

protected status. See Vill. of Bellwood v. Dwivedi, 895 F.2d 1521, 1528 (7th Cir.

1990). The Supreme Court has explained that steering is the practice of

“preserv[ing] and encourag[ing] patterns of racial segregation in available

housing by steering members of racial and ethnic groups to buildings occupied

primarily by members of such racial and ethnic groups and away from buildings

and neighborhoods inhabited primarily by members of other races or groups.”

Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 366 n.1 (1982). This includes the

refusal “to show properties because of the race of the customer, or misleading
                                        13

the customer about the availability of properties because of his race, or cajoling

or coercing the customer because of his race to buy this property or that or look

in this community rather than that.” Vill. of Bellwood, 895 F.2d at 1530

(emphases omitted).

      The district court’s jury instructions were incorrect because they allowed

the jury to conclude Patrick engaged in illegal steering by merely “discouraging

the protected tester from pursuing the housing and encouraging someone not of

the protected class to pursue such housing.” Patrick’s disposition in his

interactions with the testers may have some bearing in determining whether he

engaged in steering, but he was correct in asserting that the jury also should

have been instructed to find more than that for a steering violation. This could

have been accomplished through his proposed jury instruction, which read:

            In order to find “steering” in violation of the law, you must find
      that the Defendants took some steps to show or guide the tester to
      an alternative property according to their [protected class], or
      presented information that the property was undesirable for the
      prospect because of the tester’s [protected class].

(Emphasis added.) Therefore, we must reverse the district court’s judgment

because the jury instructions misled the jury to Patrick’s detriment. See State v.

Coleman, 907 N.W.2d 124, 138 (Iowa 2018) (explaining errors in jury

instructions require reversal when prejudice occurs because the jury

instructions misled the jury or materially misstated the law).

      With that said, the district court did not err in rejecting Patrick’s other

requested jury instructions on steering. Regarding Patrick’s instruction that

“[t]one of voice, the detail by which a party responds to a question, facial
                                        14

gestures, etc. are not steering under the law,” we have already established that

these may be considerations in deciding whether an individual engaged in

steering. See Fair Hous. Just. Ctr., Inc. v. Broadway Crescent Realty, Inc.,

No. 10 Civ. 34(CM), 2011 WL 856095, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 9, 2011) (“[T]he overall

tenor of the conversations could lead a reasonable juror to find that Defendant

Celaj was intentionally trying to hinder the African American testers from

inquiring further about apartment availability, because of their race.”). Moreover,

the Supreme Court has already indirectly rejected Patrick’s argument that to find

steering, there must be evidence that protected class members actually sought

to rent housing from him only for Patrick to take some affirmative act to deny

them housing. See Havens Realty Corp., 455 U.S. at 373–74. By Patrick’s logic,

he could not be liable for steering if none of the protected testers submitted a

rental application. The Supreme Court repudiated a similar argument in Havens

Realty Corp. v. Coleman. There, the Court held that a tester who had been given

untruthful information that apartments were not available when they actually

were had standing to sue under a statute making it unlawful “[t]o represent to

any person because of [their protected class] that any dwelling is not available

for inspection, sale, or rental when such dwelling is in fact so available.” Id. at

373 (first alteration in original) (emphasis omitted) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 3604(d)).

      In the process, the Supreme Court made two statements that are

dispositive here. First, it described testers as “individuals who, without an intent

to rent or purchase a home or apartment, pose as renters or purchasers for the

purpose of collecting evidence of unlawful steering practices.” Id. (emphasis
                                         15

added). Second, the Court remarked, “That the tester may have approached the

real estate agent fully expecting that he would receive false information, and

without any intention of buying or renting a home, does not negate the simple fact

of injury within the meaning of § 804(d)” of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Id. at

374 (emphasis added).

      Since then, other courts have accepted evidence from testers to examine

discrimination claims. See, e.g., Laufer v. Acheson Hotels, LLC, 50 F.4th 259, 269

(1st Cir. 2022) (“Just as the Black tester plaintiff’s lack of intent to rent an

apartment in Havens Realty ‘d[id] not negate the simple fact of injury,’ neither

does Laufer’s lack of intent to book a room at Acheson’s Inn negate her standing.”

(alteration in original) (quoting Havens Realty, 455 U.S. at 374)); Vill. of Bellwood,

895 F.2d at 1527 (“If the plaintiffs’ evidence is believed, the testers were treated

in a racially discriminatory fashion, even though they sustained no harm beyond

the discrimination itself, just as testers are not fooled by the misrepresentations

made to them.”); Fair Hous. Just. Ctr., Inc., 2011 WL 856095, at *5 (“Plaintiffs

have failed to sustain their burden of presenting a prima facie case of [housing]

discrimination against [the defendant], because they have not shown that she

provided the African American testers with any different information than she

gave the white testers.”); Rixner v. James W. Boyd Revocable Tr., No. 18–0811,

2019 WL 5067143, at *4–5 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 9, 2019) (ruling the Sioux City

Human     Rights   Commission     had    standing   to   sue   the   defendants    for

discriminating in the rental of housing in violation of state and municipal law
                                        16

based on the evidence collected on the commission’s behalf by a third-party

tester).

       In light of these decisions, we cannot accept Patrick’s interpretation of

steering to require a showing that “a protected class member attempted to rent

or purchase the Knuevens’ properties.” Accordingly, the district court correctly

chose not to instruct the jury that such a showing was an element of steering.

       We also reject Patrick’s assertion that the district court should have

instructed the jury that it must enter a verdict in his favor if the jury found

“based upon the evidence, Defendants did not suggest some alternative

properties according to their [protected class].” Not only is this not required for

a steering violation, but it would have confused the jury because it conflicts with

another part of Patrick’s proposed jury instructions. Two sentences before

stating the jury must find in Patrick’s favor if he did not suggest some alternative

properties, Patrick’s proposed instructions would allow the jury to find steering

if “Defendants took some steps to show or guide the tester to an alternative

property according to their [protected] class, or presented information that the

property was undesirable for the prospect because of the tester’s [protected

class].” (Emphasis added.)

       Thus, under Patrick’s own proposed instructions, the jury could have

found Patrick committed steering without suggesting alternative properties

based on the tester’s protected class. This conclusion also aligns with section

62-101(a)(10), which Patrick cited as his authority for that proposed instruction,

which makes it illegal to “[s]teer or channel a prospective buyer into or away from
                                         17

an area because of [their protected characteristic], by action by a real estate

broker or salesperson which is intended to influence the choice of a prospective

dwelling buyer on the basis of [their protected characteristic].” Des Moines, Iowa,

Code of Ordinances § 62-101(a)(10). Steering a prospective renter away from an

area can be done without providing that prospective renter with alternative

properties.

      Finally, the district court did not err in denying Patrick’s request for the

instructions to include the protected class of gender in addition to religion and

national origin. The jury heard evidence from both male and female testers about

their 2015 and 2016 interactions with Patrick, but the parties agreed that only

the August 2017 testing could result in liability for Patrick. All of those 2017

testers were women, so the jury could not have found that Patrick was treating

those testers differently than men. Even considering the 2015 and 2016

evidence, the protected testers describing their negative interactions with Patrick

during that time frame consisted of both a man and a woman. There was no

factual basis to submit an instruction that included gender as a protected class

at issue, so the district court decided correctly not to include it.

      While the district court did not err in rejecting many of the aforementioned

proposed instructions on steering, it ultimately failed to convey the applicable

law when it declined Patrick’s request for the following jury instruction:

            In order to find “steering” in violation of the law, you must find
      that the Defendants took some steps to show or guide the tester to
      an alternative property according to their [protected class], or
      presented information that the property was undesirable for the
      prospect because of the tester’s [protected class].
                                       18

In doing so, the district court did not provide the jury with “a proper

understanding of the law to be applied in reaching a verdict.” Sanders v. Ghrist,

421 N.W.2d 520, 522 (Iowa 1988).

      B. Patrick’s Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict.

Patrick filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict based on his

claim that the district court failed to instruct the jury properly on the elements

of steering, which the district court denied. Under the inadequate instructions

that the district court provided the jury, this denial would have been the correct

decision because the jury merely had to find that Patrick “discourag[ed] the

protected tester from pursuing the housing and encourag[ed] someone not of the

protected class to pursue such housing.” This is an exceptionally low bar that

would have allowed the jury to reach a verdict against Patrick based solely on

the differences in Patrick’s tone and conversational manner during interactions

with the protected testers compared to the control testers. See Carter, 957

N.W.2d at 635 (“A motion for directed verdict or judgment notwithstanding the

verdict should be denied if there is substantial evidence in support of each

element of the plaintiffs’ claim.”).

      Nevertheless, there was insufficient evidence to justify submitting this case

to the jury under the proper jury instruction because there was no evidence that

Patrick performed some affirmative act to deny or obstruct the protected tester

from receiving housing or guide the protected tester to an alternative property

based on religion or national origin. Patrick’s curtness in his phone call with a

protected tester in comparison to his more amiable phone conversation with a
                                       19

control tester is inadequate to conclude that Patrick discriminated against the

protected tester based on her national origin or religion—even considering

Patrick’s 2015 and 2016 treatment of protected testers. See id. (explaining

substantial evidence exists if a reasonable mind would find it adequate to reach

a conclusion). Therefore, we dismiss the steering charge against Patrick. Further,

it is clear from the record that all material facts of this case have been fully

developed, so we direct the district court to enter final judgment in his favor as

if it had initially sustained Patrick’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the

verdict. Iowa R. App. P. 6.1206 (“When a judgment is reversed for error in

overruling a motion and granting the motion would have terminated the case in

favor of appellant, the appellate court may enter or direct the district court to

enter final judgment as if such motion had been initially sustained.”).

      C. Attorney Fee Award. Because we are reversing the district court

judgment and ordering dismissal of the steering charge against Patrick, we must

vacate the Commission’s attorney fees award now that it is no longer the

prevailing party. Des Moines, Iowa, Code of Ordinances § 62-107(m) (“A court in

a civil action brought under this section or the commission in an administrative

hearing under sections 62-4 and/or 62-8 of this chapter may award reasonable

attorney’s fees to the prevailing party and assess court costs against the non-

prevailing party.”); see also Burns v. Bd. of Nursing, 495 N.W.2d 698, 701 (Iowa

1993) (“Fee awards, under the statute, can be awarded only to the prevailing

party. Because Burns does not prevail under our review, the award must be set

aside.”). As the new prevailing party, Patrick may receive attorney fees, so we
                                      20

remand to the district court for a determination of any fees. Based on this

holding, we need not address Patrick’s remaining issues.

      IV. Conclusion.

      For the aforementioned reasons, we reverse the district court judgment

against Patrick, vacate the award of attorney fees to the Commission, and

remand for dismissal of the steering charge against Patrick and a determination

of whether Patrick should be awarded attorney fees as the now prevailing party.

      REVERSED AND REMANDED.