holding that precedent should be followed where legislature reenacted statute “without attempting to disturb the holding”
How later courts described this case
- holding that precedent should be followed where legislature reenacted statute “without attempting to disturb the holding”
- noting the legislature’s repeated reenactment of a statute without disturbing the prior judicial interpretation was evidence affirming acquiescence
- “The rule of stare decisis ⅛ especially applicable where the construction placed on a statute by previous decisions has been long acquiesced in by the legislature (quoting Iowa Dep’t of Transp. v. Soward, 650 N.W.2d 569, 574 (Iowa 2002)
- explaining the purposes of punitive damages
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
WIGGINS, Justice
(concurring specially)-
I write to concur specially. I agree with the well-reasoned dissent. If we were to develop the common law further in this area, I might overrule our prior precedents for the reasons stated in the dissent and allow the court to award punitive damages awarded against the estate of a deceased tortfeasor. However, when the legislature jumped into the arena of punitive damages in 1986, it left most of our common law rules regarding punitive damages intact. In this instance, the legislature’s inaction as to these common law rules tips the scales not to overturn a precedent in existence when the legislature passed Iowa Code chapter 668A (2009). Accordingly, I am unable to join the dissent.
APPEL, J., joins this special concurrence.