A Truly Dizzying Intellect
How Iowa Said the State Could Not Be Sued Under § 1983 (rights violations) in Federal Court —
And That It It Was Not a “Person” Who Could Be Sued in State Court.
By Sondra Wilson | Updated August 18, 2026
This article examines one of several questionable dismissal arguments raised in Wilson v. State of Iowa and Kim Reynolds for Iowa. This case would not have to be about civil-rights for it to be important. The fact that State Officials are raising these types of defenses, and our courts are accepting them in order to deny due process to our citizenry, is something every Iowan ought know about.
About The Case
This article arises out of Wilson v. State of Iowa and Kim Reynolds for Iowa, Polk County No. LACL157953. The article series, which documents what transpired during the proceedings wherein I was denied substantive due process, includes several of the State's grossly unconstitutional defenses that were used (and accepted by the court) to deny the claims alleged in my petition regarding:
1. The horrible harms caused by local officials in Ames Iowa/Story County between 2006-2009, which led me to remaining homeless ever since;
2. Medicaid rights violations caused by color of law violations by Republican actors who unjustly enriched their campaigns for office via acts of defamation and promises of rights violations against transgender Iowans (using euphemisms and implications rather than directly stating it outright); and
3. The State's harmful civil-rights process that aids and abets discrimination against protected classes instead of following the process that was described on the Iowa Civil Rights Commission at the time I filed my complaint (their website was changed after
There is a separate federal case I filed after Wilson v. State, Wilson v. Trump, et al., case no. 4:25-cv-00116-SHL-WPK. That case was filed federally because of the State's unconstitutional defenses raised in this case, some of which are documented in this article, some of which are documented in the Strain Out a Gnat article, and some of which are documented as a case study for one of Wild Willpower's key justice reforms: Disrecognize Government Immunity and Privilege Doctrines Where They Would Otherwise Displace Rights.
In summary, Christopher Deist, acting under color of authority as the Asst. Atty. Gen for the State of Iowa, argued that as you will see in this article, the State argued that it cannot be held liable in state courts for §1983 claims (discussed below) and the State also cannot be sued in federal courts for §1983 claims due to an infamous U.S. Supreme Court ruling that happened in 1890, Hans v. Louisiana. That case is thoroughly discussed the previously linked Disrecognize article.
So, Wilson v. Trump, et al. grew out of the Wilson v. State, with my understanding that Hans v. Louisiana will need to be challenged and overturned so that my due process rights may finally be exercised, and see their day in court.
One last thing before we move on to the article: in Wilson v. State, I explicitly requested the court to issue an injunction to stop future harm against transgender Iowans such as myself, by by state officials and Kim Reynolds. The injunctive relief, damages, and my due process rights were all denied under Judge Huppert's rulings. My right to appeal was also violated due to two procedural irregularities that will be unpacked in a future article.
A Truly Dizzying Intellect
There is a famous scene in The Princess Bride in which Westley and Vizzini engage in a “battle of wits.”
Vizzini attempts to determine which goblet contains poison. His reasoning becomes increasingly elaborate. Every fact becomes evidence for one choice—and then evidence for the opposite choice—and then evidence that his opponent must have anticipated that conclusion too.
Westley finally replies:
“Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.”
I thought of that scene while rereading the State of Iowa's argument against my federal civil-rights claim in Wilson v. State of Iowa and Kim Reynolds for Iowa.
Except my version was not fiction.
It involved a basic question of constitutional redress:
If the State violates a federal right, where does an ordinary citizen go to ask a court to hold the State accountable?
The answer I encountered looked something like this:
Federal court?
The State invokes sovereign immunity.
Then state court?
The Eleventh Amendment does not apply there.
Fine—state court.
Except now:
The State is not a “person” who can be sued under § 1983.
At some point, an ordinary citizen is entitled to ask:
Where, exactly, is the door?
What Title 42 United States Code § 1983, "Civil action for deprivation of rights", Says
42 U.S.C. § 1983 provides a federal civil remedy against a “person” who, acting under color of state law, deprives another person of rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States. The text of the statute reads:
"Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer's judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable. For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a statute of the District of Columbia."
That statute formed part of my attempt to obtain redress for governmental conduct I alleged violated federally protected rights.
In its motion to dismiss, however, the State argued that it was not a proper defendant under § 1983.
It relied upon Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 68–70 (1989), under which a State is not treated as a “person” for purposes of a § 1983 damages action.
That alone is already counterintuitive to many lay readers.
A State can own property.
It can enter contracts.
It can employ people.
It can tax.
It can sue.
It can regulate.
It can enact laws.
It can exercise enormous legal power over natural persons.
But when § 1983 uses the word “person,” Supreme Court precedent does not treat the State itself as one for purposes of this damages remedy.
That was only the beginning.
The State First Pointed Toward Federal-Court Immunity
In my August 5, 2024 resistance, I reproduced the State's argument:
“When § 1983 claims are brought in federal court, the State and its agencies are protected by Eleventh Amendment immunity.”
The State cited Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 68–69 (1989); Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 345 (1979); and Kruger v. Nebraska, 820 F.3d 295, 302 (8th Cir. 2016).
My response was straightforward:
“The State here has argued that § 1983 claims may not be brought against states [in] federal courts. Therefore, we must deduce that such claims must be brought in state courts, which I have done.”
— Plaintiff's Resistance, ¶ 53, p. 24.
If federal sovereign immunity was the obstacle, I reasoned, then Iowa's own courts seemed the natural place to bring the claim.
And the State itself immediately acknowledged an important fact.
The Eleventh Amendment Does Not Apply in Iowa State Court
The State wrote:
“The Eleventh Amendment is ‘inapplicable to suits filed in state courts.’”
It cited Harrington v. Schossow, 457 N.W.2d 583, 586 (Iowa 1990).
So far, the logic appeared simple.
If the Eleventh Amendment restricts particular federal suits against States but does not apply in Iowa state court, then I had brought my claim to a forum where that particular obstacle did not apply.
Except the State's argument was not finished.
Now Iowa Was Not a "Person"
The State continued by invoking a different rule.
Under Will, it argued, States are not “persons” for purposes of § 1983.
And according to the State, Iowa courts had adopted that interpretation in Harrington and therefore applied it to § 1983 claims brought against Iowa in Iowa state court.
So the path looked like this:
Federal court: the State invokes sovereign immunity.
State court: the Eleventh Amendment itself does not apply.
But in state court: the State says it is not a § 1983 “person.”
That is the point at which the Princess Bride analogy began to feel uncomfortably appropriate.
Every time the citizen identifies what appears to be another available path, another doctrinal classification waits behind it.
My Response:
Iowa Is a "Body Politic" — and Therefore a Legal Person
I challenged the State's argument directly.
In my August 5, 2024 resistance, after reproducing the State's reliance upon Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989), and Harrington v. Schossow, 457 N.W.2d 583 (Iowa 1990), I wrote:
“However, the State of Iowa is in fact a ‘person’ when it comes to legal interpretation!”
— Plaintiff's Resistance, ¶ 55, p. 25.
I then cited Black's Law Dictionary's definition of a body politic, which I quoted as:
“A term applied to a corporation, which is usually designated as a ‘body corporate and politic.’ The term is particularly appropriate to a public corporation invested with powers and duties of government. It is often used ... to designate the state or nation or sovereign power, or the government of a county or municipality....”
— Id., quoting Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed.).
I also quoted the dictionary's definition of person:
“[E]ither an individual or an organization; that is, either a human woman, man, or child (a natural person), or a corporation or other artificial person. Thus, depending upon the statutory or constitutional provision under consideration, a person may be ... a municipality, or a government, among other entities.”
— Id.
My argument therefore was not merely, “I think Iowa should count as a person.”
It was:
Iowa is a legally recognized body politic—an artificial juridical entity through which governmental power is exercised. Why should that legal personality disappear when a person invokes § 1983 to seek redress for governmental injury?
Then I Discovered That Supreme Court Justice William Brennan
Had Already Made Essentially the Same Argument
My 2024 filing said that there “appears to be no mention” of the body-politic definition in the cases cited by the State.
After later examining the complete Will opinion, I learned that this part of my filing was mistaken.
The issue had been raised—and sharply contested.
Justice William Brennan's dissent began with the 1871 Dictionary Act, enacted only months before § 1983. That Act provided:
“the word ‘person’ may extend and be applied to bodies politic and corporate ... unless the context shows that such words were intended to be used in a more limited sense.”
Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 78 (1989) (Brennan, J., dissenting).
Brennan then marshaled historical authority demonstrating that States had long been described precisely that way. Among the authorities he cited was Cotton v. United States, 52 U.S. (11 How.) 229, 231 (1851):
“Every sovereign State is of necessity a body politic, or artificial person.”
He also cited Chief Justice Marshall's observation that the United States, because it is a government, is “a body politic and corporate,” as well as congressional debate surrounding the very legislation from which § 1983 emerged.
Brennan's conclusion was direct:
“As a ‘body politic and corporate,’ a State falls squarely within the Dictionary Act's definition of a ‘person.’”
The majority rejected that interpretation.
So the argument I presented in Iowa in 2024 was not an idea that the Supreme Court had never encountered.
It closely resembled an argument already made by a Justice of the United States Supreme Court—and rejected by the five-Justice majority whose interpretation Iowa later invoked against me.
That is an enormously better section.
The dispute therefore is not whether there exists serious historical and textual authority for treating a State as a legal person. Will itself proves that such authority exists. The dispute is which interpretation should control.
I Identified the Larger Problem While the Case Was Pending
I then stepped back from the individual cases and told the court what I believed their combined effect was:
“I request the court to take notice of the fact that, based upon the above rulings cited by the defense, the State has completely barred § 1983 claims in general based on arguments that such claims are not suable in federal courts, nor are they permitted in state courts.”
— Plaintiff's Resistance, ¶ 56, pp. 25–26.
That sentence was broader than current law.
Federal law still recognizes important avenues against government officials in particular circumstances. The identity of the defendant, the capacity in which an official is sued, whether damages or prospective relief are requested, waiver, congressional authorization, and other questions can alter the analysis.
But the structural problem I was identifying was real:
Closing one doctrinal door does not necessarily open another.
A citizen may instead discover another door immediately behind it.
And another behind that.
So Why Did the Majority Reject the "Body Politic" Argument?
The five-Justice majority did not ignore Justice Brennan's argument. It rejected it.
But the way it did so is revealing.
The majority began from a presumption that the ordinary statutory word “person” does not include the sovereign. It then invoked another presumption: Congress must speak unmistakably clearly before disturbing the traditional federal-state balance. And it repeatedly relied upon the background of sovereign immunity—including Eleventh Amendment doctrine—even though the Court expressly acknowledged that the Eleventh Amendment did not apply to the state-court proceeding before it.
In other words, the majority did not merely ask:
What did Congress mean by “person” in 1871?
It asked that question through a set of interpretive rules already weighted in favor of preserving state sovereignty.
Justice Brennan objected to precisely that method.
He wrote that although the majority conceded that the Eleventh Amendment did not apply, the Amendment nevertheless “lurks everywhere in today's decision and, in truth, determines its outcome.”
Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71–72 (1989) (Brennan, J., dissenting).
Brennan argued that the ordinary statutory inquiry should instead begin with the statute Congress actually enacted, the Dictionary Act Congress had enacted immediately beforehand, the meaning of “body politic and corporate” at the time, the history surrounding Reconstruction, and the purpose for which Congress created the civil-rights remedy.
On that record, he concluded that a State was a “person.”
The majority's answer was essentially that none of this showed the unmistakably clear congressional intent the Court believed necessary before imposing liability upon States.
That is where the dispute becomes larger than a dictionary definition.
Brennan was asking what Congress's words meant.
The majority was also asking whether Congress had spoken clearly enough to overcome a judicial presumption protecting sovereign States.
Those are not quite the same inquiry.
And that distinction has consequences.
Section 1983 was enacted in the aftermath of the Civil War to provide redress when state power was being used—or state authorities were failing—to protect federally guaranteed rights. The majority itself acknowledged that history. Yet it interpreted the statute so that the State itself could not be the damages defendant.
The result is difficult to ignore:
A statute enacted to remedy abuses committed under color of state law was construed through sovereignty-protective doctrines to exclude the sovereign State itself from the category of persons answerable in damages.
The majority acknowledged alternative routes, but it did not meaningfully confront the cumulative problem created when the State itself is excluded, sovereign immunity limits the federal forum, and separate immunity doctrines may then protect the individual governmental actors.
This Was Not the Only Door the State Closed
The § 1983 argument did not occur in isolation.
The State's motion presented a series of threshold arguments against different parts of my petition:
1. certain federal criminal civil-rights statutes did not create private civil causes of action;
2. the State argued I had not pleaded valid claims under other Iowa statutes;
3. the § 1983 claim failed because the State was not a proper defendant;
4. tort claims were challenged under Iowa Tort Claims Act exhaustion requirements;
5. negligence encountered the public-duty doctrine;
6. defamation, misrepresentation, and due-process claims encountered sovereign immunity;
7. an abuse-of-power claim encountered judicial-process immunity.
I reproduced those seven positions in my resistance before answering them individually.
This is why the problem cannot adequately be described as one bad rule.
It is an architecture.
One doctrine determines the defendant.
Another determines the forum.
Another determines the cause of action.
Another determines whether the State has consented to suit.
Another determines whether a duty is individually enforceable.
Another protects a particular government official.
Another limits the remedy.
And all of that can occur before a jury ever hears what happened.
Why should the right to governmental redress depend upon a citizen successfully solving this doctrinal maze before the facts can even be developed?
The Tort-Claims Door Had Its Own Puzzle
My tort claims produced a different problem.
I had actually filed an administrative tort claim with Iowa.
The State later expressly acknowledged:
“Here, Plaintiff satisfied the first step by filing a tort claim with the Department of Management on September 11, 2023.”
But the State had not issued a final disposition.
I had also failed to send a separate notice saying I was “withdrawing” the still-unresolved claim before filing suit.
That omitted step became another ground for dismissal.
The absurdity I perceived there became sufficiently involved that I have addressed it separately in Strain Out a Gnat.
The point here is simply this:
The § 1983 door was not the same as the tort-claims door.
They were different doors.
But both could close before adjudication of the underlying facts.
Then There Was the Public-Duty Doctrine
For another claim, the State invoked the public-duty doctrine.
It relied upon Estate of McFarlin v. State, 881 N.W.2d 51, 58 (Iowa 2016), quoting Kolbe v. State, 625 N.W.2d 721, 729 (Iowa 2001), for the proposition that when a duty is owed to the public generally, an individual member of the public ordinarily cannot recover upon that duty.
The State also cited Raas v. State, 729 N.W.2d 444, 448 (Iowa 2007), distinguishing that doctrine from sovereign immunity.
The distinction is remarkable:
Sovereign immunity can prevent liability for breach of an otherwise enforceable duty.
The public-duty doctrine asks whether the individual possessed an enforceable duty in the first place.
Different doctrine.
Different reasoning.
Potentially the same practical moment for the citizen:
the merits remain unreached.
And If You Sue the Individual Officer? Another Doctrine May Appear
The obvious response to the State's § 1983 “person” argument is:
Then sue the person who actually exercised the governmental power.
And sometimes current law does permit exactly that.
But it does not end the architectural problem.
Different governmental actors receive different protections.
In my case, when allegations involved judicial conduct, the State invoked Venckus v. City of Iowa City, 930 N.W.2d 792, 801–03 (Iowa 2019); Blanton v. Barrick, 258 N.W.2d 306, 308 (Iowa 1977); and other judicial-immunity precedents.
The State quoted Iowa law providing immunity even where a judge is alleged to have acted “maliciously and corruptly.”
Then it went further.
It argued:
“Judge Van Marel—and, by virtue, the State—is absolutely immune from Plaintiff's claims.”
So consider the architecture from the citizen's perspective:
Sue the State?
The State may say it is not the proper § 1983 “person.”
Sue the individual?
An individual immunity may apply.
Then hold the government responsible because it protected the individual?
In my case, the State answered that, “by virtue” of the individual's immunity, it was immune too.
And again the question becomes:
Who does answer?
The Court Ignored My § 1983 Rebuttal
This is an important part of the story.
The district court did not issue a ruling explaining why my “body politic,” statutory-purpose, or broader redress arguments failed one by one.
Instead, after summarizing the State's multiple dismissal arguments and my responses, the court stated:
“It would unnecessarily lengthen this ruling by addressing each one of the defendant's positions as expressed in its motion point by point.”
It then concluded:
“It is sufficient to say that all of the defendant's arguments are properly supported by appropriate legal authority and none of the plaintiff's arguments are.”
The claims against the State were dismissed with prejudice.
No jury ever resolved the underlying factual allegations.
That matters because readers who know only that I “lost” may reasonably assume that a jury heard the evidence and determined that the allegations were false.
That is not what occurred.
Threshold law ended the case before factual adjudication.
"Truly, You Have a Dizzying Intellect"
The title is humorous.
The subject is not.
In The Princess Bride, Vizzini's reasoning keeps folding back upon itself: one conclusion produces its opposite, which produces yet another reason to return to the first.
The State's § 1983 argument felt remarkably similar from the perspective of a self-represented citizen:
Federal court? Sovereign immunity.
State court? The Eleventh Amendment does not apply.
Then state court.
No—the State is not a § 1983 “person.”
Then the individual official.
Another immunity may apply.
Then the State should remain responsible.
“By virtue,” the State says it may be immune too.
Unlike Vizzini's battle of wits, however, constitutional redress should not be a puzzle in which citizens lose if they select the wrong goblet.
The constitutional system exists for human beings.
A person alleging unlawful governmental injury should not need the “dizzying intellect” of a career constitutional litigator merely to identify who can be required to answer.
That is one reason Wild Willpower's Justice Across Iowa reform proposes a simpler starting point:
Start with the governmental injury. Identify the governmental actors. Determine what happened. Then allocate responsibility according to the facts and law.
Government can defend itself.
Officials can establish that their conduct was lawful.
Claims can fail.
Plaintiffs can lose.
But the system should be designed to determine what happened, not to reward whoever can construct the most intricate path around adjudication.
Closing one doctrinal door does not necessarily open another.
The purpose of reform is to make sure there is a door at all.