STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellant, vs. CHRISTOPHER JEROME TARBOX, Defendant-Appellee.
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 6-538 / 05-1281
Filed February 28, 2007
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
vs.
CHRISTOPHER JEROME TARBOX,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Johnson County, Sylvia A. Lewis,
District Associate Judge.
The State appeals from a district court order that dismissed the trial
information charging Christopher Tarbox with leaving the scene of a personal
injury accident. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Steven E. Ballard and Patrick J. Ford of Leff Law Firm, L.L.P., Iowa City,
for appellee.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Cristen Douglass, Assistant Attorney
General, J. Patrick White, County Attorney, and Meredith Rich-Chappell,
Assistant County Attorney, for appellant.
Considered by Huitink, P.J., and Mahan and Zimmer, JJ.
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ZIMMER, J.
The State appeals from a district court order that dismissed the trial
information charging Christopher Jerome Tarbox with leaving the scene of a
personal injury accident in violation of Iowa Code section 321.261 (2003). The
State contends when the driver is the only person to sustain a personal injury in a
single vehicle accident, section 321.261 requires the driver to remain at the
scene of the accident. We reverse the district court’s order and remand for
further proceedings.
I.
Background Facts and Proceedings
On May 3, 2005, the State filed a trial information charging Tarbox with
leaving the scene of a personal injury accident in violation of section 321.261.
The minutes of testimony, which accompany the trial information, allege that on
December 17, 2004, at approximately 6:00 p.m., three witnesses observed a
Mitsubishi Galant traveling north on Governor Street in Iowa City. The driver lost
control of the vehicle. The witnesses saw the car leave the roadway on two
occasions and then strike a cement wall located to the west of the street. The
vehicle came to a stop after striking the wall. The witnesses next observed a
male exit the car from the driver’s side and flee the area on foot, leaving the car
behind. The witnesses were able to observe injuries on the driver’s face. The
witnesses called the police.
Officers Bill Welch and Terry Tack responded to the call. They observed
the car’s left front side had sustained damage from contacting the wall. They
also observed the car’s airbags had deployed. The officers located a cellular
telephone near the scene of the accident and determined the telephone
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belonged to Tarbox. The officers ran a check on the abandoned vehicle’s license
plate and determined it was owned by Marie Rolling Tarbox. Later that evening,
the police located Tarbox at his home in Iowa City. The defendant matched the
description of the driver given by the eyewitnesses to the accident. In addition,
Tarbox had fresh injuries on his face.
Tarbox filed a motion to dismiss the trial information. Among other things,
he argued section 321.261 does not apply to a single vehicle accident when only
the driver sustains personal injury. The State resisted the motion. Following a
hearing, the district court agreed with the defendant and dismissed the trial
information. The State has appealed.
II.
Issue
The only issue presented by this appeal is whether Iowa Code section
321.261 applies when there is a personal injury only to the driver in a single car
accident.
III.
Scope and Standards of Review
We review a district court’s grant of a defendant’s motion to dismiss a trial
information for the correction of errors at law. State v. Johnson, 528 N.W.2d 638,
640 (Iowa 1995). We accept the facts alleged by the State in the trial information
and attached minutes of testimony as true. Id.
We also review questions of statutory interpretation for the correction of
errors at law. Id. The goal of statutory construction is to determine and give
effect to legislative intent. State v. Sullins, 509 N.W.2d 483, 485 (Iowa 1993).
We seek a reasonable interpretation that will achieve the purpose of the statute
and avoid an absurd result. Harden v. State, 434 N.W.2d 881, 884 (Iowa 1989).
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In determining legislative intent, we consider the objects the legislature sought to
accomplish and the evils and mischief the legislature sought to remedy. Harris v.
Olson, 558 N.W.2d 408, 410 (Iowa 1997).
We consider all portions of the statute together, and we do not attribute
undue importance to any single or isolated portion. Harden, 434 N.W.2d at 884.
When more than one statute is pertinent to our inquiry, we consider the statutes
together and attempt to harmonize them.
Id.
We strictly construe criminal
statutes and resolve doubts in favor of the accused.
State v. Schultz, 604
N.W.2d 60, 62 (Iowa 1999).
IV.
Discussion
The State contends when the driver is the only person to sustain a
personal injury in a single vehicle accident, section 321.261 requires the driver to
remain at the scene of the accident. Section 321.261(1) states:
The driver of any vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury
to or death of any person shall immediately stop the vehicle at the
scene of the accident or as close as possible and if able, shall then
return to and remain at the scene of the accident in accordance
with section 321.263.
Section 321.263(1) imposes additional duties on a driver involved in an
accident:
The driver of a vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to
or death of a person or damage to a vehicle which is driven or
attended by a person shall give the driver's name, address, and the
registration number of the vehicle the driver is driving and shall
upon request and if available exhibit the driver's driver's license to
the person struck, the driver or occupant of, or the person attending
the vehicle involved in the accident and shall render to a person
injured in the accident reasonable assistance, including the
transporting or arranging for the transporting of the person for
medical treatment if it is apparent that medical treatment is
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necessary or if transportation for medical treatment is requested by
the injured person.
For the reasons which follow, we agree with the State’s argument that section
321.261 has application here.
First, we believe the plain language of section 321.261 contradicts
Tarbox’s claim that the statute does not apply to the facts of this case. Section
321.261(1) requires “[t]he driver of any vehicle involved in an accident resulting in
injury to or death of any person” (emphasis added) to stop and remain at the
scene of the accident. Furthermore, section 321.261(2) states that “[a]ny person”
who fails to comply with the requirements of section 321.261(1) in the event of an
accident that injures “any person” is guilty of a serious misdemeanor. If the
legislature had only intended the requirements of section 321.261 to apply to the
driver of a vehicle who injures another individual in an accident, it could easily
have limited the reach of the statute to accidents involving injury or death to “any
other person.”
Moreover, the definition of the word “any” supports the conclusion that the
statute applies to “any” driver without exception.
See State v. Evans, 671
N.W.2d 720, 724 (Iowa 2003) (stating we may consult a dictionary in order to
determine the ordinary meaning of words used by the legislature). The word
“any” means:
one indifferently out of more than two . . . used as a function word
especially in interrogative and conditional expressions to indicate
one that is not a particular or definite individual of the given
category but whichever one chance may select.
WEBSTER’S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY 97 (Philip Babcock Gove ed.,
Merriam-Webster Inc. 1993) (1961). If we accept the facts alleged by the State
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in this case as true, Tarbox is both “the driver of any vehicle” and “any person”
who sustained injury from the accident within the meaning of section 321.261.
We are not inclined to supply statutory exceptions that the legislature chose to
omit.
We also believe the conclusion that section 321.261(1) applies to any
driver without exception is also consistent with the purpose of the statute. In
State v. Sebben, 185 N.W.2d 771, 774 (Iowa 1971), our supreme court agreed
“with the State’s suggestion that the manifest intent of section 321.261 is to
prevent a motorist involved in personal injury or property damage accidents from
evading liability, civil or criminal . . . by escaping before his [or her] identity can
be established.” 1 In the case before us, the defendant’s flight from the scene of
the accident could have been an attempt to evade possible criminal and civil
liability for driving recklessly, driving while intoxicated, driving with a suspended
or revoked license, or using another’s vehicle without permission. In addition,
after an accident occurs, it is not always immediately apparent that only one
1
The accident in which Sebben was involved resulted in the death of another person.
Sebben, 185 N.W.2d at 772. Sebben moved for a directed verdict at the close of the
State’s case. Id. He argued the State failed to generate a jury question on his
noncompliance with the portion of the trial information charging him with failure to give
information to the person struck in violation of section 321.263 and the provision of this
section incorporated by reference in section 321.261 under a theory of legal
impossibility. Id. The Iowa Supreme Court held the State failed to generate a jury
question on the issue of the defendant’s noncompliance with the portion of the
information charging him with failure to give information to the person struck in violation
of section 321.263, but a jury question was generated on the issue of the defendant’s
failure to render reasonable assistance, a separate and distinct requirement of 321.263.
Id. at 775-76. The court stated:
Obviously, the failure to stop which we have said is the first duty of a
driver of a vehicle involved in an automobile accident under 321.261, is a
violation of the statute and notwithstanding the injunction to stop should
be complied with, the accused would still be guilty if he failed to comply
with the various provisions of 321.263 which include the duty to render
assistance.
Id. at 775.
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vehicle was involved or that no other person sustained injury. By leaving the
scene, the driver loses the opportunity to acquire such knowledge. Because the
statute is intended to prevent drivers from evading civil or criminal liability, we
conclude section 321.261 should apply to drivers such as the defendant.
V.
Disposition
We find the district court erred in finding section 321.261 did not apply
when only the driver sustained a personal injury in a single vehicle accident.
Therefore, we reverse the district court’s order dismissing the trial information,
and we remand this case for further proceedings.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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