IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 24-1208 Filed November 13, 2025
MARGARET SADDORIS, LARRY SADDORIS, GARY GOODWIN, SHEILA GOODWIN, STEVE HARRISON, PATTY HARRISON, JOHN HAMILTON, ALICE HAMILTON, MATT SADDORIS, GARY HARRISON, JULIE HARRISON, KEN BOSE and SUE BOSE, Plaintiffs-Appellants,
vs.
MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL, MAYOR FOR THE CITY OF JEFFERSON and the CITY OF JEFFERSON, a MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, Defendants-Appellees. ________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Greene County, Jennifer Miller,
Judge.
Property owners appeal the district court’s dismissal of their petition for writ
of certiorari challenging a rezoning decision by the City of Jefferson. AFFIRMED.
Clinton M. Fichter (argued), Avoca, for appellants.
Julia C. Adams (argued), Zachary D. Clausen, and Douglas L. Phillips of
Klass Law Firm, L.L.P., Sioux City, for appellees.
Heard at oral argument by Tabor, C.J., and Ahlers and Langholz, JJ. 2
LANGHOLZ, Judge.
Thirteen property owners in the City of Jefferson appeal the district court’s
dismissal of their petition for a writ of certiorari challenging the city council’s
decision to rezone a parcel of land. They make two arguments for reversal. First,
they argue that the court erred in holding that their petition failed to plead sufficient
facts to show their standing to challenge the rezoning decision. And second, they
argue that the court abused its discretion in not letting them amend their petition
to cure any deficiency by alleging more facts.
Neither argument succeeds. The district court correctly dismissed the
petition for lack of standing. The mere ownership of property in the city—none of
which was alleged to be near the rezoned property—does not show a specific
personal or legal interest that has been or is imminently likely to be harmed by the
rezoning decision. Nor does the conclusory allegation that they were “substantially
injured” by the city’s decision satisfy the requirement to plead standing.
And the property owners’ second argument—that the court should have let
them amend their petition—is not preserved for our review. They did not raise this
issue to the district court before its dismissal ruling by making a written or oral
motion for leave to amend—suggesting at oral argument that they “could amend”
the petition “if the Court wishes” is not a motion. What’s more, they could have
filed an amended petition—without needing the court’s permission—at any time in
the two months between the city moving to dismiss and the court’s dismissal ruling.
But they did not do so. And asking the court to reconsider its dismissal order to
permit an amended petition is too late to raise this new issue. We thus affirm the
district court’s dismissal of the property owners’ petition for a writ of certiorari. 3
I. Factual Background and Proceedings
“A new, 50-unit apartment complex with a modern design that ties nicely
with the aesthetic of the city.” 1 That was what an Indianapolis developer proposed
to build on West Head Street in Jefferson. The developer bought the 6.93-acre
tract of land in November 2023 and, that same month, asked the city to rezone the
property from light industrial to multi-family residential.
The city mailed notices to property owners whose land was within two-
hundred feet of the tract at issue. In response, the city received eleven protest
petitions, representing about eighty percent of the neighboring property owners.
That level of protest triggered the requirement for a supermajority vote of the city
council for the proposed ordinance change. See Iowa Code § 414.5 (2023).
In February 2024, the city council held a public hearing on the rezoning
request. The minutes from that meeting reported that “there was a very lengthy
discussion with several residents and citizens that voiced concerns and spoke
against the zoning change.” On the other side, the mayor and city council shared
letters of support for the change from Wild Rose Casino & Hotel, the Greene
County Community School District, and Jefferson Telecom. After the public
hearing, the city council approved the first reading of the ordinance changing the
zoning classification. Two weeks later, the council heard more discussion from
citizens supporting and opposing the project before approving the second reading
of the zoning ordinance. Then in March, by a four-to-one vote, the city council
adopted the ordinance, which rezoned the property of the new development.
1 As this appeal is from a ruling on a motion to dismiss, we take our facts from the
property owners’ petition for a writ of certiorari and its attachments. 4
One month later, thirteen property owners petitioned for a writ of certiorari
and injunctive relief from the new zoning ordinance.2 They named members of the
city council, the mayor, and the city itself as respondents. And they described
themselves as “residents and property owners who are subject to the zoning
jurisdiction.” The property owners also alleged that they had “standing as
taxpayers of the city of Jefferson and as persons substantially injured by the
actions of the respondents.” The petition listed six couples and one individual, and
alleged that each had “an interest in” a particular identified address.
The property owners claimed that the adoption of the zoning ordinance was
illegal for a host of reasons, including that it violated the city’s comprehensive plan
and was “arbitrary and capricious” in “encourag[ing] the creation of nuisance
conditions and incompatible land uses by rezoning industrial property for
residential uses.” They also claimed that one of the city council members had a
conflict of interest because he was a teacher at the Greene County Community
School District, which had publicly endorsed the zoning change. And so, the
property owners asked the court to declare the ordinance void and grant other
temporary and permanent injunctive relief.
In early May—before filing their answer—the city respondents moved to
dismiss the petition for failing to state a claim. See Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.421(1)(f).
Along with other arguments no longer relevant, they argued that the petition failed
2 See Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.1401 (“A party may commence a certiorari action . . . when
the party claims an inferior . . . board . . . exercising judicial functions, . . . exceeded proper jurisdiction or otherwise acted illegally.”); Sutton v. Dubuque City Council, 729 N.W.2d 796, 797–80 (Iowa 2006) (holding that a certiorari action was a proper remedy for challenging the legality of a city council’s rezoning action). 5
as a matter of law because it did not allege facts showing that any of the property
owners had standing. The property owners filed a two-page resistance with only
one paragraph responding to the lack-of-standing argument. They argued that
they had standing as “taxpayers of the City of Jefferson” and “due to the substantial
injuries sustained to their property interests.” They did not point to any allegations
in their petition supporting either allegation or explain how their property interests
were injured. And they did not file an amended petition adding more factual
allegations or ask for the opportunity to do so.
At the June hearing on the motion to dismiss, the property owners’ counsel
expanded on the argument, explaining that they “were damaged because they are
within the immediate area of the rezoned property, the single property that was
rezoned by the city council in an island of industrial property.” He also said that
they “did force the city council to have to” adopt the ordinance with a supermajority
vote by exercising their “special rights under the zoning code” for “every property
owner within 200 feet of the rezoning area.” And he offered, “if the Court wished
us to amend our petition to reflect that, we could.”3 This was not the counsel’s only
offer to the court—when arguing on other issues, he also repeatedly suggested he
could provide supplemental briefing on different points “if you wanted.”
In rebuttal, the city respondents pointed out that the counsel’s assertions
“appear[] nowhere on the face of the petition or any of the supplemental or
additional pleadings that were filed in support of the petition.” They said that they
3 The property owners’ counsel also kicked off his standing argument with a similar
offer: “And then the—the last question for standing, if it’s not appropriately detailed in the petition, we could amend that, if the Court wishes, but the Respondents are all members of a special class under [the city zoning code].” 6
“would strongly resist any opportunity or any requests by opposing counsel to
amend,” noting that “[w]e have had this particular motion on file for almost a month
and a half” and “[n]o written motion to amend has been made.” And they similarly
said they “would also resist any opportunity for supplemental briefing, as many—
most of the arguments that we have raised today were all set forth in our initial
motion and brief, and opposing counsel had ample opportunity to respond to that
in his reply, and so there should not be now a further opportunity for him to submit
supplemental briefing.”
The court closed the hearing without expressing any “wish” that the property
owners amend the petition or submit supplemental briefing. Instead, it took the
motion to dismiss under advisement, saying that it would issue a written ruling as
soon as it could. And over the next two-and-a-half weeks before the court issued
its ruling, the property owners still did not file an amended petition or a motion
asking for permission to do so.
In its ruling, the district court granted the city respondents’ motion to dismiss
for failing to allege facts showing the property owners’ standing. The court
explained that it could not “find a link between the passing of the ordinance and an
injury to the” property owners anywhere in the petition. And it reasoned that “[t]he
petition fails to set forth where the [property owners’] property is located in relation
to the property that has been rezoned and how the [property owners’] property is
impacted by the rezoning” and instead “only set[s] forth general concerns with
regard to the legality of the enactment of the ordinance.” So the court held that the
property owners “have not adequately demonstrated a special injury or substantial
interest different from the general public” and thus “do not have standing.” 7
The property owners moved to reconsider and amend the ruling under Iowa
Rule of Civil Procedure 1.904(2) “based upon additional information related to the
standing to sue of the parties in this matter.” They conceded that some of the
property owners did not have standing and “may be properly dismissed.” But they
“ask[ed] the Court to reconsider the [property owners] separately so that those
meeting the threshold for standing can continue this important claim.” Specifically,
they argued that five of the property owners “are owners of residential rental
property and their property values, profit expectations, and property interests
associated with their rental properties have been injured by the actions of the City
Council.” They also argued that two of these rental-property-owners had standing
as owners “by virtue of their holdings in Harrison Rental Properties, LLP” of two
properties “directly across the street to the west” of the rezoned property. And for
the first time, they asked the court “for leave to amend [their] petition to state the
basis for standing” of these five property owners.
The district court denied the property owners’ 1.904(2) motion. The court
reasoned that a 1.904(2) motion asking “the district court to amend its prior ruling
based solely on new evidence is generally improper” and that the property owners’
motion did just that by offering “supplemental information about the [property
owners], the location of their property, and the damages they will incur as a result
of the zoning ordinance.” The property owners now appeal.
II. The Property Owners’ Standing
The property owners first argue that the district court erred in dismissing
their certiorari petition for failing to allege facts showing their standing. A party
must have standing to sue in Iowa court. See Iowa Citizens for Cmty. Improvement 8
v. State, 962 N.W2d 780, 790 (Iowa 2021) (noting that while “standing is a self-
imposed rule of restraint,” it is not “any less real” because it is rooted in the Iowa
Constitution and longstanding precedent (cleaned up)). This means “that a
complaining party must (1) have a specific personal or legal interest in the litigation
and (2) be injuriously affected.” Id. (cleaned up). At bottom, “a party must have
sufficient stake in an otherwise justiciable controversy to obtain judicial resolution
of that controversy.” Alons v. Iowa Dist. Ct. for Woodbury Cnty., 698 N.W.2d 858,
863 (Iowa 2005) (cleaned up).
Petitioning for a writ of certiorari requires standing the same as bringing any
other proceeding. See id. Merely being a citizen of the jurisdiction governed by
the challenged board, officer, or tribunal is not alone enough. See id. at 865. Nor
is being a taxpayer—except under “the well-established rule that a taxpayer may
maintain an action in his own name to prevent unlawful acts by public officers which
would increase the amount of taxes he is required to pay, or diminish a fund to
which he has contributed.” Id. (cleaned up). Rather, parties seeking certiorari
review of a governmental body’s action—like the city council’s rezoning action
here—must show “that they have been injured in a special manner, different from
that of the public generally.” Id. at 870.
Property owners adjacent to or nearby a rezoned property may have
sufficiently specific interests that are specially damaged to satisfy the standing
requirement. See 1000 Friends of Iowa v. Polk Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors,
19 N.W.3d 290, 297 (Iowa 2025). To decide whether they do, we look to four
factors: “(1) the proximity of the person’s property to the property to be . . . rezoned,
(2) the character of the neighborhood, including existence of common restrictive 9
covenants and set-back requirements, (3) the type of change proposed, and
(4) whether the person is one entitled to receive notice under the zoning
ordinance.” Id. (cleaned up). Applying these factors, the supreme court has held
that five rural property owners who lived between one-and-a-half and four miles
away from rezoned agricultural property that would be “a marked change” had
standing to challenge a county rezoning decision. See id. at 298. And our court
reached a similar conclusion for property owners challenging the approval of a new
residential subdivision in agricultural land where they “[a]ll live adjacent or near the
proposed subdivisions, the affected area is primarily farm land, and . . . several of
the plaintiffs would be entitled to notice of a zoning variance or rezoning.”
Reynolds v. Dittmer, 312 N.W.2d 75, 78 (Iowa Ct. App. 1981).4
The standing “inquiry is separate from, and precedes, the merits of a case.”
Iowa Citizens, 962 N.W.2d at 790 (cleaned up). It is thus often raised and resolved
in a motion to dismiss. See, e.g., id. at 790–94 (reversing the denial of a motion
to dismiss for lack of standing); Citizens for Responsible Choices v. City of
Shenandoah, 686 N.W.2d 470, 475 (Iowa 2004) (affirming grant of motion to
4 While relying on much of the same general standing precedent, the city respondents frame their argument as a matter of statutory standing—whether the property owners were “aggrieved” under Iowa Code section 414.15. But the property owners have never relied on that statute to authorize their certiorari action. And by its text, the statute only authorizes review of “any decision of the board of adjustment under the provisions of this chapter.” Iowa Code § 414.15. The property owners are seeking review of a decision of the city council—not the board of adjustment. We thus do not consider statutory standing. We recognize too that the supreme court was interpreting a similar statute for county boards of adjustment in 1000 Friends. See 19 N.W.3d at 297. But in doing so, it applied traditional standing doctrine, including our decision in Reynolds. See id. at 297–300; see also id. at 303 (McDonald, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting that the court was “[a]pplying our traditional standing jurisprudence”). So we see no reason not to follow 1000 Friends here. 10
dismiss for lack of standing). When standing is raised at this stage of the
proceeding, we—like the district court—consider “[w]hether the petition presents
sufficient facts to establish that the plaintiffs have standing to sue.” 1000 Friends,
19 N.W.3d at 297. We do so “based only on the allegations in the petition” or
matters properly judicially noticed. Id. at 298, 300. And “we accept the facts as
alleged in the petition as true.” Id. at 293. Our review of the district court’s ruling
is for correction of errors at law. Iowa Citizens, 962, N.W.2d at 787.
The district court did not err here because the property owners did not plead
sufficient facts to show their standing to sue. From the petition, we know only that
they are “residents and property owners who are subject to the zoning jurisdiction,”
and that they each are “property owners and taxpayers having an interest in” a
specific piece of real estate identified by street address in the city. The petition
does not allege their proximity to the rezoned property or that any of them were
close enough to be entitled to notice under the zoning ordinance or special protest
rights under the statute. See 1000 Friends, 19 N.W.3d at 297; Iowa Code § 414.5.
Even taking judicial notice of online maps of the city to assess the property owners’
proximity gives them no help because none of their pleaded addresses is
anywhere near the rezoned property, considering the urban nature of the area.
Cf. id. at 298. Most of the property owners are about four miles away, some are a
little less than two miles away, and the closest is just shy of a mile away. True, the
petition pleads that the property would be rezoned from light-industrial to
residential-multifamily use and is immediately surrounded by commercial and
industrial property. But the change is occurring within a city of more varied
character rather than an agricultural rural area—making it much less significant. 11
Cf. 1000 Friends, 19 N.W.3d at 298; Reynolds, 312 N.W.2d at 78. All four standing
factors thus weigh against the property owners. They have not alleged facts
showing “that they have been injured in a special manner, different from that of the
public generally.” Alons, 698 N.W.2d at 870.
In arguing that their petition still adequately pleaded standing, the property
owners point mainly to their bare-bones assertion that they had “standing as
taxpayers of the city of Jefferson and as persons substantially injured by the
actions of the respondents.” They contend that this should be “sufficient to meet
the threshold for standing under notice pleading, especially when viewed in light
of the information provided in the hearing” on the motion to dismiss. But such a
conclusory assertion, without factual allegations showing some special injury is
insufficient to plead standing. See 1000 Friends, 19 N.W.3d at 300. The property
owners’ interests, “as pleaded, appear[] to be no greater than any member of the
general public.” Id. The property owners’ reliance on additional factual information
their counsel asserted during the hearing on the motion to dismiss is similarly
misplaced—the court must base a motion-to-dismiss ruling “only on the allegations
in the petition” or matters properly judicially noticed. Id. at 298, 300.
The property owners also argue that the district court’s decision is
undermined because it failed to separately consider their claim that the rezoning
action “should be invalidated by reason of conflict of interest” of one of the council
members. But the standing analysis focuses “on the party, not on the claim.”
Alons, 698 N.W.2d at 864. It matters not whether “the claim could be meritorious.”
Id. So the district court did not err in considering standing without any separate
analysis of the merits of the property owners’ conflict-of-interest claim. 12
Bottom line, the district court correctly held that the property owners failed
to plead facts showing that they have standing to pursue their challenge to the city
council’s rezoning decision.
III. Amending the Petition
As their fallback position, the property owners argue that even if they failed
to plead facts showing their standing, the district court “abused its discretion in
disallowing leave to amend the Petition.” But the failure to amend their petition lies
squarely on the property owners—not the district court. They did not need the
court’s permission to amend their petition yet still failed to do so. And even setting
that aside, they never properly asked the court for leave to amend or got a ruling
on the merits of such a request.
Under our rules of civil procedure, parties “may amend a pleading once as
a matter of course at any time before a responsive pleading is served.” Iowa R.
Civ. P. 1.402(4). After that, they “may amend a pleading only by leave of court or
by written consent of the adverse party,” and such leave “shall be freely given when
justice so requires.” Id. We review a ruling on leave to amend for abuse of
discretion. 1000 Friends, 19 N.W.3d at 300.
The city respondents did not file a responsive pleading to the property
owners’ petition—they filed a pre-answer motion to dismiss. See Brekken v. Cnty.
Bd. of Rev., 223 N.W.2d 246, 247 (Iowa 1974) (“[A] Motion is not a Pleading.”). So
under rule 1.402(4), the property owners had the right to file an amended petition
without seeking any approval from the court. See id. But they did not do so any
time after (1) the standing issue was first raised in the city respondent’s May 1
motion to dismiss, (2) the city respondents pointed out the property owners’ 13
resistance's defects in their written reply later that month, or (3) the mid-June
hearing on the motion to dismiss at which the city respondents emphasized they
were asserting new facts that “appear[] nowhere on the face of the petition.” A
party cannot seek reversal for error that it caused. See McCracken v. Edward D.
Jones & Co., 445 N.W.2d 375, 378 (Iowa Ct. App. 1989) (“[I]t is elementary a
litigant cannot complain of error which he has invited or to which he has
assented.”). This alone would reason to affirm the district court’s dismissal.
Even if we were to overlook that failure, the property owners also did not
make a timely or proper request to the district court for leave to amend. They point
to their counsel’s offer at the motion-to-dismiss hearing that “if the Court wished us
to amend our petition to reflect that, we could.” But that is not a request for leave
to amend.5 It is a passive statement, seemingly inviting the court to ask them to
amend. And that approach is backwards—it is not the court’s role to tell a party
whether it should rest on its pleading or amend it. So we will not say that the district
court abused its discretion in failing to grant a motion that was never made. Cf.
1000 Friends, 19 N.W.3d at 300–01 (reversing denial of oral motion for leave to
amend as an abuse of discretion when the denial was “based on an erroneous
application of the heightened pleading standards in § 670.4A, which accord
plaintiffs no opportunity to amend a deficient pleading”).
True, the property owners included a paragraph in their eight-page 1.904(2)
motion arguing that the ruling should be reconsidered to give them leave to amend.
5 Neither did the city respondent’s conditional argument in rebuttal at the hearing
convert the statement into an oral motion. Their counsel merely said, “We would strongly resist any opportunity or any requests by opposing counsel to amend,” which does not concede that he in fact made a request. (Emphasis added). 14
But this too was improper. A party cannot raise a new issue, like a request for
leave to amend, in a rule 1.904(2) motion. See Winger Contracting Co. v. Cargill,
Inc., 926 N.W.2d 526, 543 (Iowa 2019) (holding that an issue raised for the first
time in 1.904(2) motion was not preserved for appellate review, following
longstanding precedent that the rule “is not designed as a replacement of the
requirement to preserve error”). It would be different if they moved for leave to
amend before the motion-to-dismiss ruling and the court overlooked an issue
properly submitted to it. But that is not what happened here. Even in their 1.904(2)
motion, the property owners never argued that they had orally moved for leave to
amend and the court ignored their motion. They were trying to present a new
issue—their request for leave to amend—to the court for the first time. Yet after
the court granted the motion to dismiss, it was too late for the property owners to
seek to revive their case with an amended petition.
We thus affirm the district court’s dismissal of the property owners’ certiorari
petition for lack of standing.
AFFIRMED.
Ahlers, J., concurs; Tabor, C.J., dissents. 15
TABOR, Chief Judge (dissenting).
As their petition stands, the property owners have not shown a personal or
legal interest that has been or is imminently likely to be harmed by the rezoning
decision. On that point I agree with the majority. But that does not resolve the
appeal. See 1000 Friends of Iowa v. Polk Cnty. Bd. of Supervisors, 19 N.W.3d
290, 300–01 (Iowa 2025). Because we are evaluating this standing challenge at
the motion-to-dismiss stage, we must decide whether the district court abused its
discretion in denying the property owners’ request to amend. See id. (finding
district court should have granted oral motion to amend petition to show standing).
Unlike the majority, I believe that the property owners should be allowed to amend
their petition to prove standing.
At the hearing on the city’s motion to dismiss, the property owners told the
court that if their petition did not plead sufficient facts to show standing, “we could
amend that, if the Court wishes, but the [property owners] are all members of a
special class under Iowa Code [chapter] 414 [(2023)].”6 Counsel continued:
They were damaged because they are within the immediate area of the rezoned property, the single property that was rezoned by the city council in an island of industrial property, so we feel strongly that they meet any questions for standing. And if we wanted to—if the Court wished us to amend our petition to reflect that, we could.
In response, the city attorney asserted, “regarding [the property owners]
allegedly being a special class under chapter 414, that [] appears nowhere on the
face of the petition or any of the supplemental or additional pleadings that were
6 Chapter 414 governs city zoning decisions. Counsel for the property owners described that “special class” as owners of property located within two hundred feet of the boundary of the property for which the zoning change is proposed. See Iowa Code § 414.5. 16
filed in support of the petition.” The city attorney opposed the property owners’
offer to amend the petition: “We would strongly resist any opportunity or any
requests by opposing counsel to amend. We have had this particular motion on
file for almost a month and a half. No written motion to amend has been made.”
As the majority notes, the property owners had the right to amend their
petition without asking leave of the court because the city’s motion to dismiss was
not a response pleading. See Meade v. Christie, 974 N.W.2d 770, 780 n.2 (Iowa
2022) (discussing Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.402(4)). But instead, the property owners
made a contingent request for leave to amend while resisting the city’s motion to
dismiss.7 “A contingent request for leave to amend with a resistance to a motion
to dismiss is permissible and allows courts to provide leave to amend as an
alternative form of relief.” Id. at 780.8 The city resisted the property owners’
contingent request, highlighting the time that its motion to dismiss had been
pending and the lack of a written motion to amend. But the district court dismissed
the property owners’ petition for lack of standing without addressing their
contingent request to amend.
Unhappy with that result, the property owners moved to reconsider under
Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.904(2). Their motion conceded that under the
court’s analysis some of the property owners did not meet the criteria for standing.
7 The majority mischaracterizes the property owners’ contingent request to amend
as “a passive statement, seemingly inviting the court to ask them to amend.” 8 In that case, our supreme court denied Meade’s motion to amend because he
included only a single sentence in his resistance and failed to make the request at the motion-to-dismiss hearing. Meade, 974 N.W.2d at 780 n.2. But here, as next discussed, the property owners timely made their request at the hearing and renewed it in their rule 1.904(2) motion. 17
But the motion alleged that “at least five of the petitioners can meet the standard
of the public interest exception.” The motion also argued that “Iowa Code 414.5
treats owners of real property located within 200-feet of the property boundaries of
an area subject to a change in zoning district designation (rezoning) as having
interests manifestly different than that of the general public.” From there, the
motion asserted that two petitioners owned property across the street from the
rezoned tract, and that other petitioners owned residential rental property that
would have lowered profit expectations based on the new development. The
property owners also renewed their request to amend the petition to properly state
the petitioners’ basis for standing.
The district court denied the property owners’ motion to reconsider, finding
it was improper to include supplemental information about the location of their
properties and the damage they would incur from the zoning ordinance in their
rule 1.904(2) motion. In doing so, the district court erred in two ways: One, it
overlooked the fact that the property owners had lodged a timely contingent
request to amend the petition at the motion-to-dismiss hearing. Two, the court
disregarded the property owners’ right under rule 1.402(4) to supplement their
pleadings to cure the deficiency as to their standing to challenge the zoning
change.
The district court’s refusal to entertain the property owners’ contingent
request to amend was an abuse of discretion. Leave to amend a petition should
be “freely given when justice so requires.” Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.402(4); see 1000
Friends, 19 N.W.3d at 301. “[P]ermitting amendments should be the rule and
denial should be the exception.” Baker v. City of Iowa City, 867 N.W.2d 44, 51 18
(Iowa 2015). This preference for allowing amendments is just as strong—or even
stronger—when the party may amend without permission and, as here, asks to
exercise that right if the court intends to dismiss the petition if left unamended.
In fact, even post-dismissal motions to amend may be granted under certain
circumstances. See Meade, 974 N.W.2d at 780. True, a district court does not
abuse its discretion in denying a post-dismissal motion for leave to amend when
the party opts to rest on its original pleadings despite a motion to dismiss that
identified the deficiency prompting the court to dismiss the complaint. See Gomez
v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 676 F.3d 655, 665 (8th Cir. 2012). But that was not the
case here. The property owners did not cling to their original theory of standing.
They recognized the potential shortcomings in their petition and requested
contingent leave to amend at the motion-to-dismiss hearing. The court’s failure to
address that request deprived the property owners of their right to correct the
deficiency in their pleading. In this situation, they should have been granted the
right to amend their petition to satisfy the question of standing. See 1000 Friends,
19 N.W.3d at 301.
Our supreme court has taken a “dim view” of motions to dismiss,
underscoring that they should be denied unless there is “no conceivable set of
facts entitling the non-moving party to relief.” Id. at 296–97. Here, the property
owners have offered a conceivable set of facts showing that under various theories
at least some of them have standing to proceed. Even the city acknowledges that
had the property owners included the information in their rule 1.904(2) motion in
the petition, “perhaps the result would have been different.” But the result can still
be different. The property owners displayed their intent to amend if the court was 19
not satisfied with their current standing argument at the motion-to-dismiss hearing
and preserved their chance to renew that contingent request in their rule 1.904(2)
motion. By not acknowledging their contingent request, the district court deprived
the property owners of the chance to be heard. Dismissal was improper, and we
should remand to the district court to give the property owners the chance to
amend their petition to show standing.