By Richard H. Doyle, Senior Judge, Iowa Court of Appeals
This year marks 50 years of service by the Iowa Court of Appeals. In celebration, we look back on some highlights of its history.
In the early 1970s, the Iowa Supreme Court was awash in appeals. The number of cases docketed each month had more than doubled during the decade before. To meet this demand, the court enhanced its productivity by several means, including sitting in panels of five, writing more per curiam and memorandum opinions, and considering more cases without oral argument. Despite these measures, by the end of 1975, the supreme court was still drowning in a backlog of appeals, and it took an average of 22 months for the court to decide a civil case.
In 1976, the Iowa legislature rescued the supreme court by creating the Iowa Court of Appeals. The court of appeals is a transfer court. All appeals continue to be filed with the supreme court, and the court of appeals decides only those appeals transferred to it by the supreme court. A decision of the court of appeals is final unless the supreme court grants further review.
On Sept. 23, 1976, Governor Robert Ray appointed the first five judges to the new court of appeals: Robert G. Allbee and Leo E. Oxberger, Fifth Judicial District judges; James H. Carter, Sixth Judicial District judge; Allen (“Barney”) L. Donielson, U.S. Attorney, Southern District of Iowa; and Bruce M. Snell, Jr., an attorney from Ida Grove. They were sworn in five days later. The court was scheduled to begin work on November 1.
But no sooner had the new judges taken their oaths and donned their robes when Iowa Attorney General Richard Turner opined the three district court judges’ appointments to the court of appeals were void as violating Article V Section 18 of the Iowa Constitution. This provision made district court judges ineligible to hold any other state office while serving on the court and for two years after that, except they were eligible to the office of supreme court judge. To get a quick resolution of the controversy, State Senator James Redmond, an advocate for the creation of the court, filed a petition for supervisory review in the supreme court. At a special Saturday hearing on October 23, the supreme court accepted original jurisdiction of the case but refused to enter an injunction to bar the appointees from beginning work on November 1. Turner, who had filed suit in Polk County District Court, was allowed to intervene. After hearing oral arguments on November 10, the court filed its decision, Redmond v. Carter, 247 N.W.2d 268 (Iowa 1976), 13 days later. Holding that Article V, Section 18 could not be applied to bar district judges from appointment to the court of appeals because to do so would infringe their equal protection rights, the court dismissed Senator Redmond’s petition for supervisory review and Turner’s petition of intervention, thus allowing the district court judges to take their seats on the court of appeals.
In a supreme court conference room filled with stacks of briefs awaiting their consideration, the newly appointed judges met for the first time as a court on Nov. 1, 1976. Allbee was elected as the court’s first chief. For the first two months, the judges worked out of the state law library in the Iowa State Capitol, before moving to offices in a nondescript two-story commercial building at 615 East 14th Street.
The court heard its first oral arguments on Jan. 17, 1977, in the supreme court courtroom. With little fanfare, Chief Judge Allbee opened the proceedings with: “This session is the first occasion for oral submission of cases and, therefore, marks the beginning of the public history of the Iowa Court of Appeals.” Twenty-five cases were argued orally during three days that week and an additional 15 cases were submitted non-oral. On Jan. 28, 1977, the court filed its first batch of decisions. The court filed 329 decisions in 1977.
When space became available in the Capitol Building after the secretary of agriculture moved to the new Henry A. Wallace Building in 1978, the court relocated into offices on the first floor of the Capitol against protests from the legislature. Chief Justice Moore told the legislature, “Well, gentlemen, you can argue all you want to, but when the case comes to court, the court will decide and we've decided this space goes to the court of appeals.” Out-of-town, Judges Carter and Snell traveled to Des Moines at their own expense once a month to hear cases and spent nights at the homes of friends or on couches in their chambers.
In the following years, the court’s workload grew, with the number of cases ballooning by 75 percent. In 1983, the legislature increased the size of the court by one judge to allow the court to hear and submit cases in three-judge panels. By its 10th anniversary in 1986, the court was handling two-thirds of all appeals. Facing a logjam of cases, Chief Judge Oxberger’s suggestion that the court could use three more judges fell on deaf ears. And by its 20th anniversary in 1996, the court of appeals was overwhelmed with work. To process the appellate case load, the supreme court began sitting in panels of five and retained cases that should have been transferred to the court of appeals. In response to the circumstances, the legislature restructured the appellate courts in 1998 by reducing the number of supreme court justices from nine to seven and expanding the court of appeals from six judges to nine. This permitted the court of appeals to bear more of the appellate load, which enabled the supreme court to sit en banc on all cases and limit its consideration to cases with substantial precedential or public policy implications. The court of appeals offices were expanded to the basement of the Capitol Building.
In 2003, the new Judicial Branch Building (JBB) at 1111 E. Court Avenue was opened. The court moved from the Capitol Building and now occupies the entire third floor of the JBB with offices for its judges and staff, conference rooms, and its own courtroom.
The Iowa Court of Appeals has a long history of trailblazing women. (See page 12 of the March 2026 issue of The Iowa Lawyer). In 1978, Drake University Law School professor Janet Johnson, the first woman ever nominated for a position on an Iowa appellate court, became the first woman to serve on the court of appeals. When the size of the court increased to six judges in 1983, Governor Terry Branstad appointed Rosemary Shaw Sackett, an attorney from Spencer, to fill the new position. In 1996, Judge Sackett was elected chief judge, becoming the first woman to lead an Iowa appellate court. When elected again in 1999 to serve as chief judge, the Des Moines Register took the occasion to recognize Chief Judge Sackett for “the path she has blazed for women in the law as Iowa's longest-tenured female appellate judge.” With Governor Chet Culver’s appointment of Assistant Attorney General Mary E. Tabor to the court in April 2010, Chief Judge Sackett led a court comprised of a majority of women. This occurred again in 2019 when Gayle Vogel was elected Chief, and again in 2024 when Mary Tabor was elected Chief.
Veterans also play a role in the court’s history. Judge Snell served in the U.S. Army from 1951-53. Judge Oxberger served in the Iowa Air National Guard from 1950-52 during the Korean War. During World War II, Judge Schlegel served in the U.S. Army Air Force from 1942-46 as a fighter pilot. Judge Hayden served during the Korean conflict in the U.S. Army from 1955-57. Judge Habhab served in the U.S. Army, 87th Infantry Division, and fought in the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. He was awarded the Bronze Star and three Combat Infantry Badges. Judge Zimmer served as an officer in the U.S. Army from 1969-73 and was honorably discharged from the Army Reserves in 1985 with the rank of Captain. Judge Eisenhauer served in the U.S. Army for two years from 1968-70, including a tour of duty in Vietnam assigned to an artillery unit. Judge Doyle served in the U.S. Army from 1971-73 and was assigned to a military intelligence group. Since 2017, the court annually offers up its office space to host the Veterans History Project. This nationwide project, created by Congress in 2000, collects and preserves the personal accounts of American veterans. The veterans’ interviews are video recorded and transcribed by local court reporters. The interviews are preserved in the Library of Congress “so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.”
The core work of the court – deciding justly a high volume of cases – has not changed over the years, but how the court does its work has. Gone are the stacks of red and blue briefs and white appendixes. The court went completely electronic in 2015. When COVID struck in 2020, most of the staff and judges worked from home. Oral arguments were held by videoconferencing. Today things have pretty much returned to pre-COVID normalcy. Most personnel are back to working in their offices, and oral arguments are again heard in the courtroom. But occasionally, under special circumstances, the court will hear an oral argument by videoconference.
The court of appeals continues to be the workhorse of Iowa’s appellate system. In the last ten years, the court filed 1,389 opinions in 2016; 1,298 in 2017; 1,167 in 2018; 1,164 in 2019; 1,168 in 2020; 1,061 in 2021; 987 in 2022; 997 in 2023; 941 in 2024; and 1,076 in 2025. The court usually files its opinions twice monthly. The court’s record for a single filing was on December 21, 2016, when it filed 119 opinions. Since the supreme court grants further review in very few cases, the net effect is that a court of appeals decision is the last word in most appeals decided by formal opinion.
The nine current judges serving on the court of appeals are (in order of seniority): Chief Judge Mary Tabor, Judge Sharon Soorholtz Greer, Judge Julie Schumacher, Judge Paul Ahlers, Judge Gina Badding, Judge Mary Chicchelly, Judge Tyler Buller, Judge Samuel Langholz, and Judge John Sandy.
About the author:
Senior Judge Richard Doyle of Des Moines was appointed to the Iowa Court of Appeals in 2008, following a career in private practice and earlier service as an assistant attorney general after graduating from Drake University Law School. A Drake University alumnus, Army veteran, and co-author of History of the Iowa Court of Appeals, he is active in numerous legal organizations and is widowed with two children and two grandchildren.
