Megan Jordan, Individually and as Mother and Next Friend of M.E.H. and K.J.J. v. Linn County, Iowa and Linn County Iowa d/b/a County Sheriff's Department

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-1601
Filed August 20, 2025

MEGAN JORDAN, Individually and as Mother and Next Friend of M.E.H. and
K.J.J.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,

vs.

LINN COUNTY, IOWA and LINN COUNTY, IOWA d/b/a LINN COUNTY
SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT,
Defendants-Appellees.
________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Christopher L. Bruns,

Judge.

A plaintiff appeals from the district court’s ruling on Linn County’s motion for

summary judgment. AFFIRMED.

James K. Weston II of Tom Riley Law Firm, Iowa City, for appellant.

Elena Wolford, Assistant County Attorney, for appellees.

Considered without oral argument by Greer, P.J., and Langholz and

Sandy, JJ.
2

SANDY, Judge.

Megan Jordan appeals from the district court’s ruling on Linn County’s

motion for summary judgment. Jordan1 sued Linn County2 for negligence after a

prisoner escaped the Linn County Sheriff’s custody during transport, broke into her

house, held her and her children hostage at knifepoint, and stole her vehicle. She

argues summary judgment was in error because the County’s conduct was

misfeasance and she was a foreseeable victim—thus, the public-duty doctrine

does not apply. Finding no error, we affirm.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings

We recite the facts in the light most favorable to Jordan. See Kolarik v. Cory

Int’l Corp., 721 N.W.2d 159, 162 (Iowa 2006) (“In ruling on a summary judgment

motion, the court must look at the facts in a light most favorable to the party

resisting the motion.” (citation omitted)). Tyler Deemer was being transported from

the Linn County Correctional Center to a medical appointment at private clinic by

a deputy for the Linn County Sheriff in Cedar Rapids on February 8, 2022. The

Linn County Sheriff was providing Deemer, an inmate at the correctional center,

medical care pursuant to the county’s statutory obligations under Iowa Code

section 356.5 (2022).

During the transport, Deemer managed to “partially remove his handcuffs

and leg shackles.” When the squad car transporting Deemer arrived at the clinic,

the deputy walked over to the rear passenger door and began to open it. As the

1 Jordan also sued on behalf of her two minor children, M.E.H. and K.J.J. We refer
to Jordan as the plaintiff for ease of reading.
2 Jordan’s petition also named “Linn County, Iowa d/b/a Linn County Sheriff’s

Department” as a separate defendant. We refer to the defendants as “the County.”
3

deputy opened the door, Deemer “violently pushed” the door open and emerged,

running east in the direction of Jordan’s home.

Deemer then “forcefully broke into” Jordan’s home. Jordan and her two

children were in the home at that time. Deemer found a knife and ordered Jordan

and her children into the laundry room. He then changed into Jordan’s husband’s

clothing and threatened the family, telling them, “I’ve got nothing to lose.” He then

moved the family upstairs to a bedroom where he demanded money, drugs, and

a gun. He “ransacked” the home in search of a gun. After an hour, Deemer left

the home in Jordan’s vehicle.

Following this incident, Jordan sued the County. The County moved for

summary judgment, which the district court granted. The district court found the

public-duty doctrine barred Jordan’s claims because Jordan’s “argument regarding

misfeasance is unpersuasive and [Jordan] assert[s] no special relationship to [the

County].” The court was “convinced by the record before it that [the County] did

not affirmatively act and did not stand in a special relationship with [Jordan].”

Jordan now appeals that ruling.

II. Standard of Review

We review district court rulings on motions for summary judgment for

correction of legal error. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.907. We view evidence in the light

most favorable to the party opposing summary judgment. Kunde v. Est. of

Bowman, 920 N.W.2d 803, 806 (Iowa 2018). Issues may be resolved through

summary judgment if there is no genuine factual dispute and only a legal dispute

remains. Wallace v. Des Moines Indep. Comm. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Dirs., 754 N.W.2d

854, 857 (Iowa 2008).
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III. Discussion

The public-duty doctrine establishes that “if a duty is owed to the public

generally, there is no liability to an individual member of that group.” Johnson v.

Humboldt Cnty., 913 N.W.2d 256, 260 (Iowa 2018) (citation omitted). If the

government owes a duty to the public at large, a breach of that duty “is not

actionable unless the plaintiff can establish, based on the unique or particular facts

of the case, a special relationship between the governmental entity and the injured

plaintiff.” Id. (cleaned up). Law enforcement has no obligation to protect the

general public from injuries inflicted by a criminal, unless a special relationship

exists between the law enforcement entity and the individual harmed. Raas v.

State, 729 N.W.2d 444, 450 (Iowa 2007).

The public-duty doctrine exists out of concern for “the limited resources of

governmental entities—combined with the many demands on those entities.”

Breese v. City of Burlington, 945 N.W.2d 12, 20 (Iowa 2020). The doctrine does

not protect a government “entity when it affirmatively acts and does so negligently.”

Id. When a government employee’s affirmative acts “‘actually cause the harm, the

public duty doctrine does not apply.’ ‘In practice, courts seem more likely to apply

the public duty doctrine when a government employee negligently fails to act and

allows harm to occur (nonfeasance) than when the employee negligently acts and

causes harm (misfeasance).’” Id. (internal citations omitted). But a law

enforcement officer’s failure to prevent a crime does not provide a basis for relief

barring a special relationship to the injured person. See Sankey v. Richenberger,

456 N.W.2d 206, 209 (Iowa 1990).
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Like the district court, we are unconvinced by Jordan’s claims that the

County’s conduct was misfeasance and she was a foreseeable victim which

created a special relationship between her and the County.

Jordan’s argues a special relationship existed because it was foreseeable

that Deemer would attempt to escape custody and break into a nearby home. We

fail to understand how this creates a special relationship unique to Jordan separate

from the general public. The County undoubtedly has the need to transport

prisoners to many different locations, requiring travel through and near many

residential neighborhoods. Jordan’s special relationship argument would thus

create a special relationship between the County and a large plurality of the

general public, which is at odds with the intent of the public-duty doctrine.

Even if we were to interpret Jordan’s argument to be that the special

relationship existed only for the homes near the route of this specific transport,

there are still many members of the public—possibly hundreds—that would have

a special relationship with the County due to the proximity of their homes to the

transport. Jordan cites no case law suggesting a special relationship might extend

to such a large and indefinite population. Jordan and her children were not invitees

at the medical clinic, had never met Deemer, and had never previously been

victimized by his criminal acts.

Her argument that she was a foreseeable victim of a prisoner’s crime is not

compelling—any member of the general public is in some sense a potentially

foreseeable victim of crime by an escaped inmate. Cf. Raas, 729 N.W.2d at 450

(finding that a man attacked by escaped prisoners while fishing along a river was

a member of the general public and not a foreseeable victim). Because no special
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relationship existed between Jordan and the County and Jordan was not a

foreseeable victim of Deemer’s criminal acts, her claims are barred by the public-

duty doctrine.

Additionally, the County engaged in no misfeasance which would

circumvent the public-duty doctrine. In situations where the public-duty doctrine

applies, the plaintiff must show that the government engaged in misfeasance,

rather than nonfeasance. Fulps v. City of Urbandale, 956 N.W.2d 469, 475 (Iowa

2021). The government’s “failure to adequately enforce criminal or regulatory laws

for the benefit of the general public” or its “failure to protect the general public from

somebody else’s instrumentality” are not misfeasance. Id. Failures to affirmatively

act to protect the public are nonfeasance. See id.

Jordan suggests that the County’s decision to fulfill its statutory duties to

provide its prisoners healthcare by “actively taking Deemer, a known violent

criminal” to his medical appointment created an “absurd series of negligent acts

that culminated in Deemer’s escape.” But the only affirmative3 negligent act

Jordan alleges is in the deputy’s failure to overpower Deemer when Deemer

violently pushed the car door open and ran away. The district court addressed the

other allegedly negligent acts in its well-reasoned ruling on summary judgment:

While [the County] did take Deemer outside the confines of the Linn
County Jail, and into the public, these actions are not affirmatively
negligent actions so as to bar the application of the public-duty
doctrine. The Court finds [Kolbe v. State, 625 N.W.2d 721 (Iowa
2001)] instructive on this point. In Kolbe, while the state took the
action of issuing a driver’s license to a driver with a congenital visual
impairment, the harm occurred due to the state’s failure to enforce
the licensing provisions of Chapter 321 of the Iowa Code. 625
N.W.2d at 729–30. Similarly, [the County] here took the action of

3 As opposed to failing to search Deemer for tools used to escape—nonfeasance.
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transferring Deemer to a public location, but the harm occurred
because of [the County’s] alleged failure to enforce certain safety
protocols. Similar to the defendants in Raas, Kolbe, and Sankey, the
public-duty doctrine is applicable here because [the County] failed to
adequately enforce criminal or regulatory laws for the benefit of the
general public. Accordingly, the Court finds [the County’s] actions
constitute nonfeasance and the public-duty doctrine should apply to
bar [Jordan’s] claims unless a “special relationship” exists between
the parties.

We concur with the district court’s analysis on the issue of misfeasance.

Jordan has not asserted any act of misfeasance which would circumvent the

public-duty doctrine and subject the County to liability for the injuries Deemer

inflicted on Jordan and her children.

Because the public-duty doctrine applies and Jordan has not identified any

acts of misfeasance by the County, the district court committed no legal error in

granting summary judgment for the County

AFFIRMED.