Iowa Court of Appeals Rules that Iowa’s One Call Statute Does Not Provide a Private Cause of Action
In MidAmerican Energy Co. v. Knife River Midwest, LLC, 2024 WL 3290375 (Iowa Ct. App. 2024), the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled that Iowa’s One Call statute at Iowa Code Chapter 480 “does not provide for a private cause of action.”
MidAmerican Energy Company is owner of a gas main in Sioux City. It alleged in the lawsuit that Knife River Midwest, LLC’s excavation activities damaged the gas main, and it sought to recover those damages from Knife River. MidAmerican Energy claimed that Iowa’s One Call statute at Iowa Code Chapter 480 requires an excavator like Knife River to submit a One Call locate request “at ‘least forty-eight hours prior to the commencement of the excavation.’” It alleged that Knife River began its work in violation of that 48-hour requirement and one day before its One Call locate request indicated it would start work. As a result, according to MidAmerican Energy, Knife River was liable for the damages to the gas main because of its violation of the One Call statute.
Knife River asked the district court to dismiss MidAmerican’s claim because the One Call statute “does not provide an express or implied right for a private cause of action for money damages.” The district court agreed and dismissed the lawsuit.
The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed on appeal. It explained, “To determine whether a private cause of action may be implied from a statute that does not expressly authorize such an action, courts use a four-part test: (1) ‘is the plaintiff “one of the class for whose benefit the statute was created”’; (2) ‘is there any indication of legislative intent, explicit or implicit, either to create such a remedy or to deny one’; (3) ‘is it consistent with the underlying purposes of the legislative scheme to imply such a remedy for the plaintiff’; and (4) ‘is the cause of action one traditionally relegated to state law, in an area basically the concern of the States, so that it would be inappropriate to infer a cause of action based solely on federal law?’” As to the fourth element, the Court noted that it “has more recently been stated as, ‘whether ‘the implication of a private cause of action [will] intrude into an area over which the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction or which has been delegated exclusively to a state administrative agency.’” The Court stated that “[i]f any of the four factors has not been met, there is no implied right to bring a private cause of action.”
As to the first factor of the four-part test, the Court indicated that “chapter 480 is part of the Iowa Code dealing with public utilities. The chapter applies to all excavations. Section 480.4(1)(a) requires that before an excavation, an excavator must ‘contact the notification center and provide notice of the planned excavation.’ Following notification, an operator locates and marks underground facilities. These markings seek to avoid damage to the underground facilities. The statute was enacted to benefit excavators, such as Knife River, and operators, such as MidAmerican Energy.” Therefore, the Court concluded that the first factor favored a private cause of action.
As to the second factor, the Court noted that “[t]here are two sections of chapter 480 that provide remedies. Section 480.6 provides: ‘1. A person who violates a provision of this chapter is subject to a civil penalty as follows: a. For a violation related to natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines, an amount not to exceed ten thousand dollars for each violation for each day the violation continues, up to a maximum of five hundred thousand dollars. b. For a violation related to any other underground facility, an amount not to exceed one thousand dollars for each violation for each day the violation continues, up to a maximum of twenty thousand dollars. 2. The attorney general, upon the receipt of a complaint, may institute any legal proceedings necessary to enforce the penalty provisions of this chapter. 3. All amounts collected pursuant to this section shall be remitted to the treasurer of state, who shall deposit the amount in the general fund of the state.’” The other Section was “section 480.7 [which] provides, ‘Any affected person may make application to the district court for injunctive relief from any violation of this chapter.’” The Court concluded that “Chapter 480 does not contain any provision for a private cause of action for money damages. Under section 480.6, the attorney general may seek civil penalties for violations of the provisions in chapter 480. Members of the general public can seek an injunction under section 480.7. By including the remedies in sections 480.6 and 480.7, we conclude the legislature did not intend to provide a private cause of action for damages regarding violations of chapter 480.” Therefore, the Court concluded that the second factor did not favor a private cause of action.
In response, MidAmerican Energy stated that Iowa Code Section 480.9 reads, “An owner of farmland used in a farm operation, as defined in section 352.2, who complies with the requirements of this chapter shall not be held responsible for any damages to an underground facility, including fiberoptic cable, if the damage occurred on the farmland in the normal course of the farm operation, unless the owner intentionally damaged the underground facility or acted with wanton disregard or recklessness in causing the damage to the underground facility. For purposes of this section, an ‘owner’ includes a family member, employee, or tenant of the owner.” It argued that “by providing owners of farmland are generally not liable ‘for any damages to an underground facility,’ this means other entities may be liable.” The Court rejected that argument and concluded that “[i]t is reasonable to believe the legislature intended to provide additional protections for owners of farmland against general negligence actions relating to damage to underground facilities and chose to do so under Chapter 480. Establishing a different burden, duty or standard of care for owners of farmland to operators of underground facilities, however, does not implicitly create a private cause of action for any and all violations of Chapter 480.”
Because there can be no implied right to bring a cause of action under a statute unless all four factors of the four-part test are satisfied, there is no implied right to bring a cause of action under Iowa Code Chapter 480 because the second factor is not satisfied.
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