Iowa Code 729.6: Genetic Testing by Employers, the 2010 Consent Rule and the Civil Action

A 1992 Statute Rebuilt in 2010

Iowa's genetic testing statute sits in chapter 729, Infringement of Individual Rights. The current text of Iowa Code 729.6 lists its history as 92 Acts, ch 1059, followed by amendments in 2007, 2010 and 2023. Iowa's employment rule therefore predates the federal Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 by sixteen years.

The 2009 Code version shows what the original statute did. It defined genetic testing in its own words, as a test of genes, gene products or chromosomes "for abnormalities or deficiencies, including carrier status," and it was almost entirely about tests: bans on requiring them, on selling or interpreting them for employers, on paying people to take them, and on retaliation. It said nothing about consent to collect genetic information generally, and nothing about insurers.

2010 Acts, chapter 1153 (Senate File 2215), approved April 23, 2010, changed that. Titled "Genetic Testing and Use of Genetic Information," it replaced the state definition of genetic testing with a cross-reference to federal law, added definitions of genetic information, health insurance, health insurer and third-party administrator, inserted a written consent rule and a set of health insurer rules, and rewrote the civil action clause. The section has since been renumbered; the subsection numbers below follow the 2026 Code.

Who Iowa Code 729.6 Binds

Subsection 1(a) defines "employer" as "the state of Iowa, or any political subdivision, board, commission, department, institution, or school district, and every other person employing employees within the state." There is no employee count. The core prohibitions in subsection 2 also reach employment agencies, labor organizations and licensing agencies, and they bind "its employees, agents, or members," each of whom may not act "directly or indirectly."

Other subsections reach further. Subsection 3 applies to "a person," with no employment limit. Subsection 5 bars any person, outside the subsection 9 exceptions, from selling to or interpreting for an employer, employment agency, labor organization or licensing agency "a genetic test of an employee, labor organization member, or licensee, or of a prospective employee, member, or licensee." Subsection 4 governs third-party administrators and health insurers.

Tests in Subsection 2, Information in Subsection 3

The statute separates genetic tests from genetic information, and only the test rule is limited to employers and the other listed bodies. Subsection 2 lists two prohibited acts:

1. To "solicit, require, or administer a genetic test to a person as a condition of employment, preemployment application, labor organization membership, or licensure"
2. To "affect the terms, conditions, or privileges" of employment, an application, membership or licensure, or to terminate any of them, of "any person who obtains a genetic test"

Both turn on a genetic test. Since 2010, "genetic testing" means a genetic test as defined in 29 U.S.C. 1191b(d)(7): "an analysis of human DNA, RNA, chromosomes, proteins, or metabolites, that detects genotypes, mutations, or chromosomal changes." Iowa adds its own exclusions for routine physical measurements, routine chemical, blood or urine analysis, a biopsy, an autopsy, a clinical specimen taken solely to detect an existing disease, "or a test for drugs or for human immunodeficiency virus infections."

Subsection 3, added in 2010, is about information. A person "shall not obtain genetic information or samples for genetic testing from an individual without first obtaining informed and written consent," and shall not perform genetic testing or "collect, retain, transmit, or use genetic information" without that consent. Genetic information takes the definition in 29 U.S.C. 1191b(d)(6), which covers information about an individual's genetic tests, family members' genetic tests and "the manifestation of a disease or disorder in family members," and includes requests for or receipt of genetic services. Subsection 3 is a consent rule rather than a ban: by its terms, collection with informed and written consent is outside it.

The Exceptions

Subsection 9 sets the employment exceptions. The section "does not prohibit the genetic testing of an employee who requests a genetic test and who provides written and informed consent" for one of two purposes:

• Investigating a workers' compensation claim under chapter 10A, subchapter III, and chapters 85, 85A and 85B
• Determining the employee's susceptibility or level of exposure to potentially toxic chemicals or substances in the workplace, if the employer does not terminate the employee or take any other adverse action "as a result of the genetic test"

Both require that the employee be the one requesting the test. Subsection 3(c) sets a separate list for the consent rule: collection permitted without consent under federal or other state law, criminal investigations by law enforcement, identification of deceased individuals, establishing parental identity, newborn screening, and research, education, repositories and registries where the information contains no personally identifiable information. Subsection 6 voids, as "prohibited," any agreement offering employment, membership, licensure "or any pay or benefit in return for taking a genetic test."

Remedies

Subsection 8 states that "Subsections 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7 of this section may be enforced through a civil action." A person who violates or "aids in the violation of" those subsections is liable to an aggrieved employee, member or licensee, or a prospective one, "for affirmative relief including reinstatement or hiring, with or without back pay, membership, licensing, or any other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate including attorney fees and court costs." The text sets no statutory or liquidated damages figure.

Paragraph (b) allows an injunction in district court against a person who "commits, is committing, or proposes to commit" a violation. The aggrieved worker, "the county attorney, or the attorney general" may bring it. Paragraph (c) sets a burden-shifting rule: a plaintiff who sues in good faith must show "sufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable person could find that a violation has occurred," after which the employer, agency, organization or licensing body "has the burden of proving that the requirements of this section were met." Before 2010 that paragraph applied only to claims that a defendant "required or requested a genetic test"; chapter 1153 extended it to every subsection covered by the civil action.

Subsection 7 adds a retaliation rule with its own compensation clause. A worker who acted in good faith may not be discharged, disciplined or discriminated against for filing a complaint or testifying, and one who is "shall be compensated" in the amount of "any loss of wages and benefits arising out of the discrimination."

The health insurer provisions in subsection 4 are outside the civil action. Under subsection 4(d), a violation is "an unfair insurance trade practice under section 507B.4," and Iowa Code 507B.4 lists "Failure of a person to comply with section 729.6, subsection 4" among those practices. Genetic information does not appear in the list of unfair employment practices in Iowa's civil rights chapter, Iowa Code 216.6, so 729.6 carries its own remedy rather than running through that chapter.

No Iowa appellate opinion construing 729.6 was found in searches of a national court opinion database and of the web for this post, and no enforcement action by the attorney general or a county attorney under subsection 8 was located. That reflects what could be found, not a finding that none exists.

How It Sits Beside GINA Title II

Three textual differences separate Iowa's statute from the federal employment rule. The first is reach. GINA's employer definition in 42 U.S.C. 2000ff(2)(B) borrows Title VII's, and 42 U.S.C. 2000e(b) limits that to a person with "fifteen or more employees." Iowa's definition has no threshold.

The second is the object of the ban. 42 U.S.C. 2000ff-1(b) makes it unlawful for an employer "to request, require, or purchase genetic information," which reaches family medical history questions. Iowa's subsection 2 is written around a genetic test, and its information rule in subsection 3 operates through consent. The third is the remedy: GINA runs through Title VII charge procedures, as the site's post on GINA Title II and employer genetic information describes, while 729.6 goes straight to a civil action with equitable relief.

The overlap is partly by design. Iowa's 2010 amendments imported the GINA Title I definitions of genetic information, genetic test and genetic services from 29 U.S.C. 1191b. 42 U.S.C. 2000ff-8(a)(1) provides that GINA does not limit rights under "any other Federal or State statute that provides equal or greater protection."

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