by Gary Taylor
Dewit and Dewit v. Madison County Zoning Board and Madison County Zoning Board of Adjustment
Iowa Court of Appeals, September 13, 2017
In March 2015 the Madison County Zoning Office filed civil infractions against the Dewits for several zoning ordinance violations. The case number assigned to these infractions was CVCV034188. These infractions were resolved through a consent order in September 2015 which required the Dewits to abate the violations within six months (by February 2016). After the consent order was issued, the Dewits filed an application for an agricultural exemption from the county’s zoning ordinance, which the county zoning administrator denied. On appeal, the Madison County Zoning Board of Adjustment (ZBA) affirmed the denial.
On April 20, 2016 the Dewits filed a petition for writ of certiorari challenging the ZBA’s decision; however, they filed it in the civil infraction case CVCV034188. The county attorney accepted service of the petition, but the original notice was not included in the materials sent to or accepted by the county attorney. The county moved to dismiss the petition on the ground that the petition should have been docketed as a new action and not as a filing in the civil infraction case. On June 7, 2016 the district court denied the motion to dismiss, and ordered the clerk of court to transfer the petition and all related filings to the appropriate docket and to assign a new case number to the petition.
The ZBA then filed a motion to dismiss on September 1, 2017 for failure to timely serve original notice on the board. The next day the Dewits served notice on the ZBA, but this was 135 days from the original filing of the petition on April 20. (Iowa Rules of Civil Procedure require original notice to be served on a defendant within 90 days of filing a petition).
The Dewits contended that the original notice was served on the ZBA 80 days from the day the district court transferred the petition to a new docket with a new case number; however, at the time the district court specifically ordered that the petition “would relate back to and be deemed to have commenced on the date of filing, April 20.” Thus service of the original notice did fall outside the 90 day window.
The Dewits also contended that the county attorney’s acceptance of the petition alone is sufficient to comply with Iowa Rules of Procedure. The court rejected this as well.
The original notice and petition are separate and distinct….The contents of the original notice are prescribed by rule. In contrast, the petition is a pleading that sets forth a simple and concise statement of the claim or claims at issue. [While] it is true Iowa courts are committed to liberal construction of the rules of procedure to insure resolution of disputes on their merits, the failure to timely serve original notice cannot be deemed a minor or technical error.
The district court did not err in dismissing the Dewits’ petition.
