Ambiguous statutes — interpretation
Applied in 28 court decisions — leading case Amended September 30, 2015 Iowa Insurance Institute, Iowa Defense Counsel Association, Iowa Self-insurers' Association, Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, and Iowa Association of Business and Industry v. Core Group of the Iowa Association for Justice Christopher J. Godfrey, Workers' Compensation Commissioner, Division of... (2015)
Most recently applied in Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc. (April 2020)
[C73, 75, 77, 79, 81, §4.6]
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
If a statute is ambiguous, the court, in determining the intention of the legislature, may consider among other matters:
1. The object sought to be attained.
2. The circumstances under which the statute was enacted.
3. The legislative history.
4. The common law or former statutory provisions, including laws upon the same or similar subjects.
5. The consequences of a particular construction.
6. The administrative construction of the statute.
7. The preamble or statement of policy.
Official source: Iowa Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Iowa statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.