616.8. Like our general venue statute, section 616.8, known as our common carrier statute, has also remained virtually unchanged for over a century. Compare Iowa Code § 2582 (1873), with Iowa Code § 616.8 (2001). It provides: An action may be brought against any railway corporation, the owner of stages, or other line of coaches or cars, express, canal, steamboat and other river crafts, telegraph and telephone companies ... in any county through which such road or line passes or is operated. Iowa Code § 616.8. Although not expressly mentioned, we have held that semi-trucks carrying freight on a fixed schedule over a regular route with fixed termini constitute a “line of ... cars” for purposes of the statute. Bruce Transfer Co. v. Johnston, 227 Iowa 50, 52-55, 287 N.W. 278, 278-81 (1939) (<HOLDING>). The Richards contend section 616.8, like
holding that the court assumes the legislature acquiesced in our interpretation of the language because the legislature had not amended the language holding that when the legislature enacts a statute it is presumed that the legislature is aware of existing statutes holding the fact legislature could not have foreseen rise of semitrucks when it enacted common carrier statute in the nineteenth century did not foreclose an interpretation that would effectuate its intent holding an administrative interpretation cannot change the meaning of a statute or control the courts interpretation of it holding that shipper negligence does not absolve a carrier of liability if damage would not have occurred but for the concurrent fault of the carrier