Clark v. State

1

Donald Lyle Clark, Appellee, v. State of Iowa, Appellant.

No. 23-0568

Supreme Court of Iowa

June 7, 2024

Submitted April 10, 2024

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Johnson County, Lars Anderson, Chief Judge.

The State appeals from a judgment on a jury verdict awarding emotional distress damages in a legal malpractice action against a state public defender. Reversed and Remanded with Instructions.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General; David M. Ranscht (argued), Assistant Attorney General; and Tessa M. Register (until withdrawal) Assistant Solicitor General, for appellant.

G Bryan Ulmer III (argued) and Mel C. Orchard III of the Spence Law Firm, LLC, Jackson, Wyoming, and Thomas P. Frerichs and Luke D. Guthrie of Frerichs Law Office, P.C., Waterloo, for appellee.

Waterman, Justice.

In this appeal, we must decide whether proof of negligence is enough to recover emotional distress damages in a legal malpractice action against a criminal defense attorney whose client was convicted and imprisoned. We previously affirmed the client's sexual abuse conviction and prison sentence in his direct appeal. See State v. Clark (Clark I), 814 N.W.2d 551, 567 (Iowa 2012). His defense counsel, a state public defender, died before the district court determined in postconviction proceedings that he had provided ineffective assistance and ordered a new trial. The State declined to prosecute, and the client filed this civil action for legal malpractice against the State as the lawyer's employer. The district court granted partial summary judgment, applying issue preclusion to hold that the finding of ineffective assistance in the postconviction proceedings established counsel's negligence as a matter of law. We reversed on interlocutory review and remanded for the factfinder to decide liability and damages. See Clark v. State (Clark II), 955 N.W.2d 459, 471-72 (Iowa 2021). At trial, the jury found the lawyer negligent and awarded the client $12 million in emotional distress damages. We retained the State's appeal from the resulting judgment.

On our review, we clarify Miranda v. Said, 836 N.W.2d 8 (Iowa 2013). The district court and the plaintiff misread Miranda as holding that a finding of negligence is sufficient to allow emotional distress damages in this criminal malpractice action^[1]To the contrary, we held in Miranda that to recover emotional distress damages for legal malpractice, the plaintiff must prove more than negligence. Id. at 33. There, it was sufficient to prove that counsel had pursued an "illegitimate course of conduct that had no chance of success if the independent decision-maker followed the law." Id. For the reasons explained below, we conclude that requiring nothing less than proof of illegitimacy sets the bar too high to recover emotional distress damages for criminal malpractice resulting in wrongful imprisonment. We instead clarify the standard for recovery of emotional distress damages to align with the showing required for punitive damages: proof by a preponderance of clear, convincing, and satisfactory evidence that the criminal defense attorney acted with willful and wanton disregard for the client's rights or safety. See Iowa Code § 668A.1(1)(a) (2017). The district court erred by instructing the jury that negligence was sufficient. We reverse the judgment for emotional distress damages and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

Donald L. Clark was hired in 2001 as a guidance counselor at Lemme Elementary School in Iowa City. In 2009, Clark was accused of sexually assaulting a student, C.B., during the 2003-2004 school year. C.B.-who was previously diagnosed with attention deficit disorder-began attending Lemme Elementary in fourth grade. The next year, while in fifth grade, C.B. began seeing Clark because of concerns about C.B.'s academic performance and lack of concentration in class.

Once or twice a week, Clark would retrieve C.B. from class and go to Clark's office to talk and play board games for about half an hour. Clark and C.B. would sit on the floor of Clark's classroom during each visit. Five years later, C.B. recounted at least two occasions that Clark sexually abused him in his office-both taking place during the second semester of C.B.'s fifth-grade year.

C.B.'s parents noticed a change in C.B. during the 2003-2004 academic school year. His mother observed that he became angry, frustrated, and unwilling to open up during the second semester. His father felt C.B.'s life "spiraled out of control" after fifth grade. C.B. began using drugs and drinking alcohol in seventh grade. He even attempted suicide. C.B. remained unwilling to open up to his parents.

In 2009, C.B.'s father-a deputy sheriff employed at the Johnson County jail-saw Clark serving time for drunk driving. "There was an incident where Clark was involved in sexual acts in the jail, and C.B.'s father raised the question to C.B. whether anything had ever happened between C.B. and Clark years before." Clark I, 814 N.W.2d at 555. C.B. told his father that nothing had happened.

C.B.'s parents enrolled him in Midwest Academy in Keokuk, "a highly structured school for troubled youth." Id. According to C.B., while attending group therapy there, another student recounted an incident of sexual abuse. This "brought back the memories" for C.B., prompting him to disclose that he had been sexually abused. C.B. emailed his parents, describing the alleged sexual abuse but without identifying Clark as the abuser. C.B.'s parents notified the school and police. A social worker and detective interviewed C.B., who named Clark as the perpetrator.

Clark was questioned by police in a two-hour recorded interview. When the officer first asked Clark if he touched C.B., Clark responded that "he did not touch or rub [C.B.] in any way." Id. at 559 (alteration in original). "This was surprising to the officer because he had not brought up any allegation of rubbing at that point." Id. Clark did acknowledge that he was repeatedly alone with C.B. and may have touched the child's leg. Clark also volunteered that he believed C.B. was gay and targeted Clark as a gay man. But Clark consistently denied any wrongdoing with C.B. By then, the police knew Clark had pleaded guilty to indecent exposure for the 2008 incident in jail, had been fired by the school district, and had lost his teaching license.

The State charged Clark with second-degree sexual abuse in violation of Iowa Code sections 709.1(3), 709.3(2), and 702.17 (2009). The court appointed assistant public defender John Robertson to represent Clark. Robertson handled over 500 cases that year, including nearly four dozen felonies. The trial was set for February 8, 2010. Robertson deposed C.B.'s parents and C.B. on January 20 without telling Clark. A redacted version of C.B.'s email to his parents was given to Robertson on February 3-only five days before trial. The next day, Clark requested an unredacted version of the email and a continuance and additional depositions. The State resisted. The district court held a hearing on February 5 and ordered the full email to be provided to Clark but denied a continuance or further depositions.

A. Clark's Criminal Trial.

On February 8, the criminal trial against Clark commenced. C.B. was age sixteen and still attending Midwest Academy. C.B. testified that Clark abused him. As told by C.B., the first incident occurred when they were sitting on the floor during a counseling session. Clark moved his hand up C.B.'s thigh and "started touching [C.B.'s] genitals outside of [his] pants." C.B. "tried to tell [Clark] to stop," but Clark "[p]ut his hand over [his] mouth." Clark told C.B. not to tell anyone and walked him back to his class after he calmed down. The second incident occurred a few sessions later when Clark "turned off the lights" and "put a stuffed animal over [C.B.'s] face." Clark then put his hands down C.B.'s pants and began rubbing C.B.'s genitals. After C.B. finished crying, Clark walked him back to his class. C.B. testified that he did not go back to Clark's office after this. When asked if there were other occurrences, C.B. said, "I do remember other times, but those were the only times that I remember in vivid detail." We summarized Robertson's cross-examination of C.B. as follows:

Clark's defense counsel then began cross-examination by bringing up the e-mail. His theme was that C.B. was highly troubled and not a credible witness. He got C.B. to admit that he had heard things which people had not said. He suggested that when C.B. was sent to the structured school in the spring of 2009, he made up the accusation against Clark as a way to get out of the school. Clark's counsel had C.B. confirm that earlier the same spring, Clark had been a topic of conversation between C.B.'s father and C.B. regarding sexual acts at the Johnson County jail. The implication of defense counsel's questioning was that C.B. had absorbed what he had heard from his father and then leveled a false accusation against Clark.

Id. at 558-59. A principal and a teacher at Clark's elementary school also testified at trial.

They described how Clark covered his narrow office window with paper because the window looked out into a heavily trafficked hallway. The principal testified that he told Clark that he could not cover the window. Clark responded that he wanted his students to have privacy and that he did not want his students to be visible to other students walking through the hallway. The pair reached a compromise: Clark would cover the bottom half of the window so that only adults, not children could see into the office. The teacher testified about talking with Clark about covering his window. The teacher...