Iowa subpoenas: the radius is fifty miles, not a hundred

The hundred-mile figure is so widely copied that it reads like a fixed feature of American procedure. Iowa uses fifty, and pairs it with a provision that makes the limit self-enforcing.

Fifty miles — and trial is the exception

Rule 1.1701(4)(d)(1) lists what the court must quash, and the second ground carries the figure:

Requires a person who is neither a party nor a party's officer to travel more than 50 miles from where that person resides, is employed, or regularly transacts business in person, except that a person may be ordered to attend trial anywhere within the state in which the person is served with a subpoena

Three measuring points — residence, employment, or regular in-person business — and the shorter radius applies to depositions and productions alike.

The exception is trial, and it is drawn broadly: a person may be ordered to attend trial anywhere in the state in which they are served. So the fifty miles constrain pre-trial process; the trial subpoena reaches statewide.

Even then there is a discretionary protection. Under Rule 1.1701(4)(d)(2), the court may quash or modify a subpoena that requires "A person who is neither a party nor a party's officer to incur substantial expense to travel more than 50 miles to attend trial."

Rule 1.715(2) states the same limit for deposition subpoenas in one line: "No resident of Iowa shall be subpoenaed to attend more than 50 miles from where the deponent resides, or is employed, or transacts business in person."

Exceeding the radius excuses the failure automatically

Rule 1.1701(7):

The issuing court may hold in contempt a person who, having been served and if necessary been provided fees and traveling expenses allowed by law, fails without adequate excuse to obey the subpoena. A nonparty's failure to obey must be excused if the subpoena purports to require the nonparty to attend or produce at a place outside the limits of rule 1.1701(4)(d)(1)2.

Two protections in one sentence.

The fees condition. Contempt is available against a person "having been served and if necessary been provided fees and traveling expenses." A witness entitled to fees who was not paid them has not been placed under an enforceable command.

And the radius is self-executing. A non-party commanded beyond fifty miles need not move to quash and need not appear. The failure to obey "must be excused."

For the party issuing the subpoena, the consequence is that the radius cannot be treated as a rule the other side has to raise. Get it wrong and there is no enforcement available at all.

Any party may simply turn up

Rule 1.1701(4)(c) is two sentences, and it answers a question that generates a lot of correspondence elsewhere:

Any party shall be permitted to attend at the same time and place and for the same purposes specified in the subpoena. No prior notice of intent to attend is required.

No notice, no leave, no cross-subpoena. A party who wants to be present at a non-party's document production or premises inspection is entitled to be there, and does not have to say so in advance.

That is worth knowing on both sides. If you are issuing the subpoena, assume opposing counsel may appear. If you are opposing one, you do not need to negotiate attendance.

The same instinct runs through Rule 1.1701(6), which shares what the subpoena produces:

When a party on whose behalf a subpoena under rule 1.1701(1) has been issued thereby creates or obtains copies of designated electronically stored information, books, papers, documents or tangible things, that party shall make available a duplicate of such copies at the request of any other party, who shall be responsible for payment of the reasonable cost of making the copies.

The rule travels on the subpoena, and the clerk takes oral requests

Rule 1.1701(1)(a) sets out four required contents, and the fourth puts the protections in the recipient's hands:

(4) Set out the text of rules 1.1701(4) and 1.1701(5).

Subrule (4) is the protection provision — the objection right, the quashing grounds, the fifty-mile limit — and subrule (5) is the response duties. Both are printed on the subpoena, so a non-party does not have to find the rules to know what they can do.

Issuance is unusually informal. Rule 1.1701(2):

The clerk must issue a subpoena, signed but otherwise in blank, to a party who requests it. That party must complete it before service. A request may be made either orally or in writing. An attorney licensed or otherwise authorized to practice law in Iowa also may issue and sign a subpoena as an officer of the court.

An oral request to the clerk is enough. And an attorney authorized to practice in Iowa may issue and sign directly, as an officer of the court.

Forms are supplied: "Subpoena forms can be found in rule 1.1901, Form 13, 14 and 15."

Serving it, and telling the parties first

Rule 1.1701(3)(a) sets three requirements in one paragraph:

Any person who is at least 18 years old and not a party may serve a subpoena. Serving a subpoena requires delivering a copy to the named person and, if the subpoena requires that person's attendance and, if demanded, tendering the fees for one day's attendance and traveling fees to and from the court. If the subpoena commands the production of documents, electronically stored information, or tangible things or the inspection of premises before trial, then before it is served, a notice must be served on each party.

Note the sequence in the last sentence: the parties are noticed before the subpoena is served on the custodian. Iowa sets no fixed number of days for that notice, but it does fix the order.

Fees are tendered "if demanded" — so a witness who says nothing is not owed them at service, unlike states where tender is a condition of the obligation.

Proof of service requires "filing with the issuing court a statement showing the date and manner of service and the names of persons served," certified under Iowa Code section 622.1.

Fourteen days to object, or the compliance date if sooner

Rule 1.1701(4)(b)(2) gives a records recipient the usual alternative to a motion:

The objection must be served before the earlier of the time specified for compliance or 14 days after the subpoena is served.

If an objection is made, the serving party may move to compel "At any time, on notice to the commanded person," and any order "must protect a person who is neither a party nor a party's officer from significant expense resulting from compliance."

A person commanded only to produce or permit inspection "need not appear in person at the place of production or inspection unless also commanded to appear for a deposition, hearing, or trial."

The duty not to overburden, and what the court must do about it

Rule 1.1701(4)(a):

A party or attorney responsible for issuing and serving a subpoena must take reasonable steps to avoid imposing undue burden or expense on a person subject to the subpoena. The issuing court must enforce this duty and impose an appropriate sanction, which may include lost earnings and reasonable attorney's fees, on a party or attorney who fails to comply.

Both verbs are mandatory — "must enforce" and "impose an appropriate sanction" — and lost earnings are named first, ahead of fees.

Alongside the mandatory quashing grounds, Rule 1.1701(4)(d)(2) allows the court to quash or modify where a subpoena requires disclosure of "a trade secret or other confidential research, development, or commercial information" or of "an unretained expert's opinion or information that does not describe specific occurrences in dispute and results from the expert's study that was not requested by a party."

And rather than quashing, the court may order production on conditions where the serving party shows "a substantial need for the testimony or material that cannot be otherwise met without undue hardship" and "Ensures that the subpoenaed person will be reasonably compensated."

Responding, withholding, and clawback

Rule 1.1701(5) carries the response duties: documents produced as kept in the ordinary course of business or organized and labeled to correspond to the demand; electronically stored information in the form specified or, if none is specified, as ordinarily maintained or in a reasonably usable form; and never the same information in more than one form.

Inaccessible sources may be withheld, but the responding person "must show that the information is not reasonably accessible because of undue burden or cost" on a motion to compel or for a protective order — and the court may order discovery anyway on good cause, specifying conditions.

A privilege claim must be made expressly and described sufficiently "to enable the parties to assess the claim." Where privileged material goes out anyway, a notified party "must promptly return, sequester, or destroy the specified information and any copies it has," must not use or disclose it, must retrieve anything already disclosed, and "may promptly present the information to the court under seal for a determination of the claim."

A short checklist

If you are issuing one:

1. Check the fifty miles before you draft. It is half the figure most states use.
2. Serve the parties before the custodian on any pre-trial production subpoena.
3. Set out the text of rules 1.1701(4) and (5) on the subpoena itself.
4. Tender fees if demanded — and remember contempt is unavailable without them.
5. Expect opposing counsel to attend the production; they need not tell you.
6. Share duplicates on request, at the requesting party's cost.

If you have been served:

1. Measure the distance. Beyond fifty miles, your failure to obey must be excused.
2. Object within 14 days, or by the compliance date if that is earlier.
3. Demand your fees. They are tendered "if demanded," so silence costs you.
4. Ask for conditions rather than quashing where the subpoena is burdensome but the material is genuinely needed.

Where these rules live

• Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.1701 — Subpoena
• Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.715 — Deposition subpoena
• Iowa motion to compel discovery
• Responding to an Iowa petition
• Iowa summary judgment
• Iowa temporary injunctions

This page explains what the rules say. It isn't legal advice, and the witness fee statutes referred to in rule 1.1701(7) are not carried on this site.