If you have ever signed an employment agreement, or asked your employees to sign one, it probably had a covenant not to compete with the employer if the employee leaves the business. These clauses are usually called “non-competes.” They typically limit the time and the geographic area within which the former employee can perform the […]
After analyzing the federal regulations, case law, and Iowa law, the Iowa Supreme Court determined there was no conflict between federal and local law here and, in fact, the federal laws contemplated that local rules could be more restrictive than FAA Part 77 regulations.
The Iowa Supreme Court holds that the Dakota Access pipeline provides beneficial side effects for Iowans despite not providing any oil to Iowa.
There are two main schools of thought about how to read statutes. One is that judges should read the words and apply them, period, whatever the result. The second school is that judges should read the words in the context of the problem the writers were trying to resolve and give them a meaning that the writers intended, or would have intended if they had foreseen the problem in the case before the court, even if the writers did not use exactly the right words. The Iowa Supreme Court recently looked at this question in the context of agricultural leases, specifically whether a single horse makes a farm.
A great deal of ink has been spilled writing about the Bakken Pipeline currently being built across Iowa and how eminent domain is being used to acquire the land for the project. Not all of the writings have been entirely clear and some of the statements quoted in articles have not been entirely accurate. This post attempts to provide readers enough information about a) the power of eminent domain and b) the Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) decision about the Bakken Pipeline to provide at least a basic understanding of the issue.