by Hannah Dankbar and Gary Taylor
Beaver and Sanderson v City of Davenport
Iowa Court of Appeals, April 27, 2016
Clifford Beaver and Pamela Sanderson have lived as common law husband and wife at their property in the City of Davenport for the past 14 years. In 2014 the City sent a letter to Beaver and Sanderson declaring their property a public nuisance under Davenport Municipal Code §8.12, after several neighbors circulated a petition seeking the property to be declared as such. The City’s letter explained that Sanderson’s “erratic behavior” prevented multiple neighbors from enjoying their property. The letter detailed nine directives regarding the activity on and around the property, including prohibitions against “criminal related activity”, harassment of neighbors and guests, calling authorities without cause, accosting people parking on the street, letting their dog run without a leash, and restrictions on using security cameras. The letter warned Beaver that failure to abate the nuisance could result in citations and fines.
Beaver requested an appeal hearing. After a two-day hearing in April at which seven police officers and seven neighbors were called as witnesses, the hearing officer determined that there was sufficient evidence to support the nuisance abatement and approved the “Nuisance Abatement Plan” which included seven directives. One of the directives prohibited recording or pointing security cameras at any part of any neighboring structure.
Beaver challenged in district court the legality of the hearing officer’s order. The court ruled in favor of the City and Beaver appealed.
On appeal, Beaver argued the district court wrongly upheld the city’s abatement order that declared his property a public nuisance. He presented two claims: (1) “Davenport’s Nuisance and Residential Camera Statutes are unconstitutional on their face; and (2) unconstitutional as applied to his situation.
The court concluded that these challenges were not preserved for their review. These two claims were not presented in district court and therefore cannot be ruled on in the appeal.
The only constitutional claim that was addressed in district court was regarding the residential-camera regulations. Beaver claimed that the City’s ordinance unconstitutionally restricted his “right to maintain surveillance for the purpose of monitoring or protecting [his] property.” The ordinance limits the camera’s field of view to less than fifty-percent of a neighbor’s property. The court determined that this balances a property owner’s right to survey their property with their neighbor’s right to privacy.
On appeal, Beaver claimed that the hearing officer misapplied the camera ordinance. This specific attack on the abatement order was not ruled on in district court, so the appeals court refused to rule on it.
On appeal, the court did not reach any conclusions on the propriety, constitutionality or enforceability of the City’s order due to the issue of preservation. Because of these issues the orders from the lower court were affirmed.
