Background
In the early morning hours of November 16, 2021, Waterloo police officer Connor Weber reported that Brent Boggess attempted to strike him with a truck. Weber gave chase and other officers joined, following Boggess through a prolonged, low-speed pursuit through residential areas. The chase ended in an alley where officers on foot attempted to communicate with Boggess through his open driver’s-side window. When Boggess suddenly accelerated forward — reaching a top speed of 8 mph before striking an occupied police cruiser stopped in front of him — Officer Kenneth Schaff fired six rounds in rapid succession. Multiple shots struck Boggess, killing him. He was unarmed.
Boggess’s widow filed suit in November 2022 against the City of Waterloo and Schaff, alleging excessive force. After initial state claims were complicated by the Iowa Supreme Court’s overruling of the implied constitutional damages action in Burnett v. Smith, the plaintiffs added federal claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Defendants removed the case to federal court, where the Northern District of Iowa found a genuine factual dispute about whether the use of deadly force was objectively unreasonable — but nonetheless granted summary judgment for the defendants on the § 1983 claims because the right was not “clearly established” under Harlow qualified immunity. The federal court declined supplemental jurisdiction over the state claims, returning the case to Iowa state court.
In Iowa district court, the plaintiffs pursued common law claims for assault (count I), battery (count II), and wrongful use of deadly force under Iowa Code §§ 704.12 and 804.8 (count III). The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, holding that Iowa Code § 670.4A — the “Back the Blue Act” — codified a qualified immunity mirroring Harlow, and applied issue preclusion based on the federal ruling to dismiss all three counts. Plaintiffs appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Iowa Supreme Court reversed and remanded, holding that the district court erred on two independent grounds. First, relying on its recent decision in Doe v. West Dubuque Community School District, 20 N.W.3d 798 (Iowa 2025), the court reaffirmed that Iowa Code § 670.4A’s qualified immunity does not apply to common law tort claims. The defendants urged the court to overrule or narrow Doe, arguing it swept too broadly and that the statute’s text and legislative history extend immunity to intentional torts. The court declined, citing stare decisis and a line of subsequent decisions consistently applying Doe to bar § 670.4A immunity for assault and battery claims against officers. Counts I and II were reinstated on this basis.
Second, the court held that issue preclusion was improperly applied to all three counts, including count III. Issue preclusion requires that the issue previously decided be identical to the one now raised. The federal court resolved whether Harlow immunity barred a § 1983 Fourth Amendment claim — a distinct question from whether Iowa’s § 670.4A immunity bars state common law tort claims. The elements of assault and battery under Iowa common law are not identical to those of a § 1983 excessive force claim, and § 670.4A does not apply to common law claims in any event. The court therefore reinstated count III as well, without deciding the unbriefed question of whether count III’s statutory-right framing might otherwise subject it to § 670.4A immunity under Doe and Estate of Kahn.
The court expressly declined to resolve on appeal whether excessive force claims premised on Iowa Code §§ 704.12 and 804.8 are common law claims or statutory-rights claims subject to qualified immunity, noting the issue had not been briefed by the parties and that the court is a court of review, not of first view.
Key Takeaways
- Iowa Code § 670.4A’s qualified immunity does not shield officers from common law assault and battery claims — a rule the Iowa Supreme Court has now applied consistently across multiple decisions since Doe v. West Dubuque (2025).
- A federal court’s grant of summary judgment on § 1983 claims under Harlow qualified immunity does not preclude relitigation of state common law tort claims in Iowa court; the issues are not identical for preclusion purposes.
- The court left open whether Iowa Code §§ 704.12 and 804.8 create “statutory rights” claims subject to § 670.4A immunity, as distinct from common law claims — that question returns to the district court on remand.
- The federal court’s own finding — that a reasonable jury could conclude Schaff’s use of deadly force was objectively unreasonable given the low speed of the vehicle, the lack of a serious crime, and Boggess’s apparent stop just before the shooting — remains in the record and may inform proceedings on remand.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces a significant limitation on Iowa’s “Back the Blue Act” that the state supreme court established in 2025: officers and municipalities cannot invoke § 670.4A to escape common law tort liability for assault and battery, even in use-of-force cases involving police pursuits and deadly force. The ruling closes a potential workaround where defendants might use a favorable federal qualified-immunity ruling to preclude state tort claims through issue preclusion — a tactic the court rejected here because the federal and state legal standards are not identical.
For plaintiffs in Iowa civil rights and excessive force cases, the decision confirms that state common law claims remain a viable path even when § 1983 claims fail on qualified immunity grounds. For municipalities and law enforcement defendants, it signals that separate litigation tracks — federal constitutional claims and state tort claims — must be defended on their own terms, and that a win on Harlow immunity will not automatically foreclose Iowa tort exposure.