Iowa Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Davenport building collapse lawsuits

DES MOINES — The Iowa Supreme Court is set to decide whether Davenport city employees are immune from liability in a court case regarding the 2023 partial building collapse that killed three people, injured another person and displaced numerous residents.

Justices heard oral arguments Tuesday in a lawsuit brought against the city of Davenport, contractors and the building’s owner by the family and estates of the three men who were killed, those who were injured, and others who were in or around the building at the time of the collapse.

On May 23, 2023, an apartment building in downtown Davenport partially collapsed, killing three men, severely injuring a woman leading to her leg being amputated, and displacing numerous residents.

A few lawsuits were initially brought against the city and building owner, including wrongful death suits filed on behalf of the estates of building tenants Branden Colvin, Daniel Prien and Ryan Hitchcock. Authorities recovered the bodies of the three men from the rubble.

These actions were later unified into a single consolidated lawsuit with other plaintiffs, including Lexus and Quanishia “Peach” Berry, who lost her leg to amputation after rescuers found her trapped in the debris. Additional plaintiffs joined in subsequent months.

In April 2024, a district court judge rejected the city's legal effort to have two city employees, former chief building official Trishna Pradhan and director of development and neighborhood services Rich Oswald, removed from the lawsuit, and ruled the employees did not have qualified immunity. The city appealed the case to the Iowa Supreme Court.

Qualified immunity prevents a municipal employee or officer from being liable for monetary damages under specific criteria, according to the statute. Those criteria include that the law was not clear enough at the time of the alleged violation to where “every reasonable employee would have understood that the conduct alleged constituted a violation of the law.”

While the original case revolves around the question of whether the defendants are negligent regarding the building collapse, the Iowa Supreme Court will decide on the limited question of whether the Davenport city employees have qualified immunity in this case.

On Tuesday afternoon, attorney Jason O’Rourke, who is representing the city, asked the Iowa Supreme Court to reverse the district court’s ruling, arguing that the city employees do have qualified immunity and that the district court erred in not dismissing the case under the public duty doctrine.

The public duty doctrine is a legal concept that generally does not allow individuals to sue the government for breach of a duty owed to the public at large.

O’Rourke argued that the public duty doctrine applied to the two city employees based on two factors that come into play: the injury to the plaintiff was directly caused or inflicted by a third party or other independent force and the plaintiff alleges a governmental entity or actor reached a unique governmental duty, usually, but not always, imposed by statute, rule or ordinance, to protect the plaintiff from the third party or other independent force.

“Both factors apply. That's exactly what we have,” O’Rourke said. “What happens here to cities having a concern now, if they inspect the building or fail to vacate a building, but they've just taken on grave liability, huge potential liability.”

Attorney Ryan G. Koopmans, representing the plaintiffs, argued that qualified immunity does not apply to negligence claims, adding that if the state’s qualified immunity code barred every negligence action against the government, it would “bring us back to complete sovereign immunity.”

“They (the defendants) don't claim any of them here on this motion to dismiss. They concede, essentially, that they have control of the building, because that's one of the immunities,” Koopmans said. “If they don't have control of the building, it involves an inspection … they stopped construction. It led to damages. We can just go home, meaning we can send it back to District Court.”

Before the case can move forward, it could take months for the Supreme Court to release its decision.

Quad-City Times reporters Tom Lowey and Sarah Watson contributed to this report.