Background
Brad Carman taught in Iowa Western Community College’s commercial driver’s license program. The college fired him in February 2025, citing inefficiency, incompetence, or negligence. Carman denied performance problems and alleged that he was fired for reporting potential violations of state and federal third-party tester standards for CDL applicants.
Carman alleged that a student who lacked a required learner’s permit was entered in the Training Provider Registry and that the college did not properly assign the student to a different instructor for testing after completion of instruction. He reported the concerns to an Iowa Department of Transportation auditor. Carman then sued for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy and retaliation under Iowa Code section 70A.28. The district court dismissed both claims before an answer was filed.
The Court’s Holding
The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed. Carman’s wrongful-discharge claim failed because the federal and state CDL-testing regulations he cited did not establish a clearly defined and well-recognized public policy sufficient to support Iowa’s narrow public-policy exception to at-will employment. Although the regulations may promote highway safety, their general purpose did not express the specific legislative policy required for the tort.
The court also affirmed dismissal of the statutory whistleblower claim. Section 70A.28 protects state employees, while Carman’s petition alleged that he was not a state employee and that the college was not a state agency. Carman’s appellate argument that he could plead alternative theories was not preserved because the district court did not decide it and Carman did not seek a ruling. Moreover, the whistleblower count did not affirmatively allege that he was a state employee.
Key Takeaways
- Regulations supporting a wrongful-discharge claim must articulate a specific, clearly defined public policy; a general connection to public safety is insufficient.
- Iowa’s notice-pleading standard does not prevent dismissal when the pleaded legal theory affords no right to relief.
- A party must seek a ruling on an argument the district court did not decide to preserve that issue for appeal.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the limited reach of Iowa’s common-law public-policy wrongful-discharge claim. Employees alleging retaliation for reporting regulatory noncompliance must identify a statute or regulation that clearly protects the reported conduct through a sufficiently specific policy expression.
It also illustrates the pleading risk in statutory retaliation cases: where statutory coverage turns on employment status, the petition must affirmatively allege facts bringing the claimant within the statute’s protected class.