| Court: | Iowa Supreme Court |
| Facts: | Insurance contract, trying to protect against claims arising from inside jobs, requires that there be visible signs of a break-in. Some skilled burglars enter without leaving a trace on the building itself, and steal stuff. To the astonishment of the plaintiff and his insurance agent, the claim is denied. |
| Posture: | Judgment for the defendant at trial. |
| Issue: | Is this definition of "burglary" enforceable? |
| Holding: | Reversed and remanded. |
| Rule: | If non-dickered terms are counter-intuitive, it can't be said that the parties agreed to them. |
| Reasoning: | If a term is re-defined so as to eviscerate its meaning, it should not be considered part of the contract unless the parties are explicitly doing things that way. |
| Dicta: | Dissent: this wasn't "fine print:" the plaintiff just wants the court to re-write the contract in his favor. The court has no business using this case as a springboard to announce general rules-- the goal should just be to deal with this particular dispute. |