Opinion
No. 1-715 / 01-596.
Filed July 19, 2002.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Warren County, DARRELL GOODHUE, Judge.
Ron Virden appeals from a district court ruling granting the defendants' motion for summary judgment on Virden's negligence action against them. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Channing L. Dutton of Lawyer, Lawyer, Dutton Drake, L.L.P., West Des Moines, for appellant.
Gregory A. Witke and Matthew J. Haindfield of Bradshaw, Fowler, Proctor Fairgrave, P.C., Des Moines, for appellee-Betts and Beer Construction.
Richard K. Updegraff and Brian P. Rickert of Brown, Winick, Graves, Gross, Baskerville and Schoenebaum, Des Moines, for appellee-Stroh Corporation.
Considered by VOGEL, P.J., and MILLER and EISENHAUER, JJ.
Ron Virden appeals a district court ruling granting the defendants' summary judgment motions. Virden's negligence action seeks damages for injuries sustained as a result of faulty construction. Virden argues the district court erred in granting summary judgment because there was sufficient evidence to engender a jury question regarding whether the defendants' negligent acts were the proximate cause of his injuries. We reverse and remand.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings . Betts and Beer Construction Company, Inc., and the Stroh Corporation (defendants) were contracted by the Indianola school district in 1997 to construct a new wrestling practice room at the high school. Angle irons were used as part of the construction of the room's ceiling. On August 25, 1997, several months after the construction was completed, Virden, an employee of the school district, was directed by his supervisor to pick up and reinstall a piece of angle iron that had fallen from the ceiling. While Virden was attempting to reinstall the angle iron, the ladder he was using slipped or collapsed, causing him to fall and sustain permanent injuries to his ankle.
On August 25, 1999, Virden filed an action against the defendants, alleging their negligent construction of the ceiling was the proximate cause of his injuries. The defendants filed motions for summary judgment, alleging they owed Virden no duty and his actions were too remote and unforeseeable to link them with his injuries. The district court concluded the defendants were negligent in the installation of the angle iron and that the reason Virden was on the ladder was to fix their negligent construction. However, the court ruled Virden's injuries were caused by a collapsing or slipping ladder and not the result of the defendants' negligence. The court opined that the connection between the defendants' negligence and Virden's injuries was "unnatural, improbable, and remote" and the fall was "not a foreseeable event emanating from the defective weld." The court therefore sustained the defendants' summary judgment motions. Virden has appealed.
II. Scope of Review . We review a summary judgment ruling for corrections of errors at law. Benavides v. J.C. Penney Life Ins. Co., 539 N.W.2d 352, 354 (Iowa 1995). Summary judgment is appropriately entered if the record shows "no genuine issue as to any material fact and . . . the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.981(3). We examine the record before the district court to decide whether a genuine issue of material facts exists and whether the court correctly applied the law. Benavides, 539 N.W.2d at 354. We view the facts in a light most favorable to the party opposing the summary judgment motion. Gerst v. Marshall, 549 N.W.2d 810, 812 (Iowa 1996).
III. Summary Judgment . Virden argues the defendants' negligence was a proximate cause of his injury because he would not have been on a ladder fixing the ceiling if their construction had not been faulty. He contends it was not unreasonable to assume that when the angle iron fell from the ceiling, the school district would order him to try and reinstall it. He further claims that the act of getting on the ladder was not so unreasonable that it broke the causal link to the defendant's negligence.
The defendants, however, argue they owed no duty to Virden, and that the only duty that may have possibly arisen was between themselves and the school district. They contend the methods employed by Virden to fix the angle irons were beyond the scope of foreseeability and too remote to forge a link between their negligence and Virden's injuries. The defendants urge that because the material facts fail to show that their actions or omissions are the proximate cause of Virden's injuries, the district court correctly granted summary judgment.
Generally, questions of negligence and proximate cause are for the jury. City of Cedar Falls v. Cedar Falls Community School Dist., 617 N.W.2d 11, 17 (Iowa 2000). They may be decided as a matter of law only in exceptional cases. Iowa R. App. P. 6.14(6)(j).
An exceptional case is one which after construing the evidence in its most favorable light and resolving all doubts in favor of the party seeking to establish proximate cause, the relationship between cause and effect nonetheless is so apparent and so unrelated to defendant's conduct that no reasonable jury could conclude defendant's fault was a proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries.Johnson v. Junkman, 395 N.W.2d 862, 865 (Iowa 1986). The parties disagree as to whether this is one of those exceptional cases. We conclude it is not.
"The law does not impose liability for negligence unless the breach of duty of care is also the proximate cause of the injury." Gerst, 549 N.W.2d at 815. Proximate cause has two components, (1) the defendant's conduct must have in fact caused the damages, and (2) the policy of the law must require the defendant to be legally responsible for them. Cedar Falls, 617 N.W.2d at 17. With respect to the first component, the plaintiff must at a minimum prove that the damages would not have occurred but for the defendant's negligence. Id. In order to satisfy the cause-in-fact component, the plaintiff must also show the defendant's conduct was a "substantial factor" in bringing about the harm. Hayward v. P.D.A., Inc., 573 N.W.2d 29, 31 (Iowa 1997). We look to the proximity and foreseeability of the harm flowing from the actor's conduct. Scoggins v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 560 N.W.2d 564, 567 (Iowa 1997).
Our courts have also ruled that if, upon looking back at the injury, the connection between the negligence and the injury appears unnatural, unreasonable, and improbable in the light of common experience, such negligence would be a remote rather than a proximate cause. Hollingsworth v. Schminkey, 553 N.W.2d 591, 597 (Iowa 1996). "If, however, by a fair consideration of the facts based upon common human experience and logic, there is nothing particularly unnatural or unreasonable in connecting the injury with the negligence, a jury question would be created." Id.
In the present case, the district court ruled that the actions of both defendants were negligent. Neither defendant appeals that portion of the district court's ruling. Therefore, the only dispute is whether their negligence is the proximate cause of Virden's injuries.
We conclude the district court erred in ruling there was no question of material fact regarding causation. The district court concluded both defendants were negligent in the ceiling's construction. The district court also noted that the failure of the angle iron was the catalyst that caused Virden to get up on the ladder. The court, however, appears to treat the collapse of the ladder as a superseding event that broke the causal chain linking the defendants. We have previously ruled that "if the acts of the plaintiff are within the ambit of the hazards covered by the duty imposed upon the defendant, they are foreseeable and do not supersede the defendant's negligence." Sumpter v. City of Moulton, 519 N.W.2d 427, 432 (Iowa Ct.App. 1994). Moreover, "if the negligent act of the defendant establishes the stimulus for the plaintiff's act, there is ordinarily no break in the chain of events to relieve the defendant from liability, and the subsequent acts of the plaintiff cannot constitute the superseding cause of the injury." Id. The Sumpter court further held:
While we are not prepared to hold that the conduct of a plaintiff could never constitute a superseding cause, we believe caution must be taken in applying the concept to conduct of a plaintiff since the result is to bar recovery. The principles of comparative fault could be seriously diluted by utilizing the conduct of a plaintiff as an intervening cause. The preferred approach is to judge the conduct of the plaintiff under comparative fault. The doctrine of superseding cause should be strictly limited to cases involving acts that are independent of the alleged negligence of the defendant.Sumpter, 519 N.W.2d at 432. "The fact that some other cause operates with the defendant's negligence to produce the injury [does not] relieve the defendant if the injurious result is traceable in some material degree to his want of due care." Gerst, 549 N.W.2d at 815.
We conclude it is a question for the jury whether the defendants' actions were the proximate cause of Virden's injuries. Unlike the district court, we do not believe it was beyond common human experience or logic to expect that a high school maintenance employee would be directed by his supervisor to repair the damage. Given the nature of the repairs, we likewise do not believe it is unforeseeable or remote that the employee would use a ladder to reinstall the angle iron to the ceiling. The district court itself concluded that the defendants' negligent acts were the stimulus that caused Virden to get on the ladder to fix the ceiling. Whether Virden's methods of repairing the angle iron and in using the ladder sufficiently broke the causal link between the defendants and his injuries is for the jury to determine. We therefore reverse and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
MILLER, J., specially concurs; VOGEL, P.J., dissents.
The plaintiffs' lawsuit asserted not only a count based on negligence but also a count based on breach of contract and a count based on breach of warranty. We nevertheless properly focus on the negligence theory because, as pointed out by the defendant Stroh, the plaintiffs' appeal only asserts trial court error regarding the negligence count.
I do not agree with the plaintiffs' assertion that the trial court's ruling "treat[ed] the actions of the Plaintiff as a superseding event for purposes of testing proximate cause," or with our statement that the trial court "appears to treat the collapse of the ladder as a superseding event. . . ." Rather, I read the trial court's ruling as holding that as a matter of law the defendants' negligence was a remote rather than proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury because the injury was an unnatural and improbable result of the negligence. More specifically, the trial court repeatedly focused on foreseeability and stated the injury was not a "reasonably foreseeable" result of the negligence.
In discussing various rules that relate to duty and proximate cause the trial court merely discussed superseding cause in one of fifteen paragraphs. In doing so it recognized in that very discussion that superseding cause "as a doctrine to limit liability is most accurately restricted to acts of a third party and not the plaintiff." In the nine following paragraphs it did not thereafter further discuss or mention superseding cause. Nothing in the one paragraph that discusses superseding cause, the five preceding paragraphs, or the nine following paragraphs, suggests that the trial court treated or relied on Virden's actions as a superseding cause to the defendant's negligence.
I nevertheless agree that reversal is required by our existing law concerning proximate cause. Our cases dealing with issues of proximate cause point out and hold that the specific harm or consequence that resulted from an act of negligence need not be foreseeable in order for the negligence to be a proximate cause of the harm or consequence. See Rieger v. Jacque, 584 N.W.2d 247, 251 (Iowa 1998); Scoggins v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 560 N.W.2d 564, 567 (Iowa 1997); Hollingsworth v. Schminkey, 553 N.W.2d 591, 597 (Iowa 1996); Sumpter v. City of Moulton, 519 N.W.2d 427, 435 (Iowa Ct. App. 1994). Rather, it is only necessary that it be reasonably foreseeable some harm will result from an act of negligence. A jury could reasonably make such a finding under the facts in this case. Further, although the summary judgment record may be viewed as containing substantial evidence of both comparative fault and superseding negligence, the undisputed facts do not establish either as a matter of law.
I reach this conclusion despite the fact that the state of our law concerning proximate cause is perhaps not totally clear. See, e.g., Gerst v. Marshall, 549 N.W.2d 810, 815-18 (Iowa 1996) (discussing and describing the somewhat inconsistent, conflicted, and unclear state of our law regarding proximate cause).
I would affirm the trial court's granting of summary judgment to the defendant based on its finding Virden's injury was an "unnatural, improbable, and remote" result of the defendants' negligence, and "not a foreseeable event emanating from the defective weld."
The question of proximate cause, generally reserved for the jury, may be decided as a matter of law in exceptional cases. Rieger v. Jacque, 584 N.W.2d 247, 251 (Iowa 1998). "An exceptional case is one in which after construing the evidence in its most favorable light and resolving all doubts in favor of the party seeking to establish proximate cause, the relationship between cause and effect nevertheless is so apparent and so unrelated to defendant's conduct that no reasonable jury could conclude defendant's fault was a proximate cause of plaintiff's injuries." Johnson v. Junkmann, 395 N.W.2d 862, 865 (Iowa 1986).
The law does not impose liability for negligence unless the breach of a duty of care is also the proximate cause of the injury. Proximate cause has two components: (1) the defendant's conduct must have in fact caused the damages; and (2) the policy of the law must require the defendant to be legally responsible for them. With respect to the first component, a plaintiff must at a minimum prove that the damages would not have occurred but for the defendant's negligence. . . .
Further, in order to satisfy the cause-in-fact component, the plaintiff must also show the defendant's conduct was a "substantial factor" in bringing about the harm. On this issue we look to the proximity and foreseeability of the harm flowing from the actor's conduct.City of Cedar Falls v. Cedar Falls Sch. Dist., 617 N.W.2d 11, 17 (Iowa 2000) (citations omitted). Foreseeability is not only an important factor for consideration in determining whether a duty of care exists, it is also an important element in the establishment of causation. Lawrence v. Grinde, 534 N.W.2d 414, 422 (Iowa 1995).
[T]he line of demarcation between what is sufficiently proximate and what is too remote is often a thin one. If upon looking back from the injury, the connection between the negligence and the injury appears unnatural, unreasonable, and improbable in the light of common experience, such negligence would be a remote rather than a proximate cause. If, however, by a fair consideration of the facts based upon common human experience and logic, there is nothing particularly unnatural or unreasonable in connecting the injury with the negligence, a jury question would be created.Hollingsworth v. Schminkey, 553 N.W.2d 591, 597 (Iowa 1996) (quoting Chenoweth v. Flynn, 251 Iowa 11, 17-18, 99 N.W.2d 310, 314 (1959). Our supreme court has quoted with approval the following:
An injury that is the natural and probable consequence of an act of negligence is actionable, and such an act is the proximate cause of the injury. But an injury which could not have been foreseen or reasonably anticipated as the probable result of an act of negligence is not actionable and such an act is either the remote cause, or no cause whatever, of the injury.Scoggins v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 560 N.W.2d 564, 568-69 (Iowa 1997) (emphasis added) (quoting Fly v. Cannon, 836 S.W.2d 570, 574 (Tenn.App. 1992)). In discussing and determining the meaning of the words "natural" and "proximate" our supreme court has said that "natural" refers to
consequences which are normal, not extraordinary, not surprising in the light of ordinary experience. . . . The phrase therefore appears to come out as the equivalent of the test of foreseeability, of consequences within the scope of the original risk, so that the likelihood of their occurrence was a factor in making the defendant negligence in the first instance.City of Cedar Rapids v. Mun. Fire Police Ret. Sys., 526 N.W.2d 284, 288 (Iowa 1995).
With respect to the second component [of proximate cause], i.e., the policy of the law, responsibility will be extended to those consequences which have in fact been produced by an actor's conduct. The general rule is that an actor's conduct is the proximate or legal cause of harm to another if (1) his conduct is a "substantial factor" in bringing about the harm and (2) there is no other rule relieving the actor of liability because of the manner in which his negligence resulted in the harm.Cedar Falls, 617 N.W.2d at 18.
Our supreme court has also approved the following statement appearing in Restatement (Second) of Torts, section 431, comment (a) at 429:
In order to be a legal cause of another's harm, it is not enough that the harm would not have occurred had the actor not been negligent. . . . (T)his is necessary but it is not of itself sufficient. The negligence must also be a substantial factor in bringing about the plaintiff's harm. The word `substantial' is used to denote the fact that the defendant's conduct has such an effect in producing the harm as to lead reasonable men to regard it as a cause, using that word in the popular sense, in which there always lurks the idea of responsibility, rather than in the so-called "philosophic sense," which includes every one of the great number of events without which any happening would not have occurred. Each of these events is a cause in the so-called "philosophic sense," yet the effect of many of them is so insignificant that no ordinary mind would think of them as causes.Pedersen v. Kuhr, 201 N.W.2d 711, 713 (Iowa 1972).
In this case, had the angle iron been properly installed, Virden would not have climbed the ladder to reinstall the fallen piece. Therefore, a jury could reasonably find Virden's injury would not have occurred "but for" the defendants' negligence, and the cause-in-fact component of probable cause has arguably been met. However, in determining whether a defendant's negligence is a required "substantial factor," the second part of the cause-in-fact component, we look to the proximity and foreseeability of the harm flowing from the defendant's conduct. City of Cedar Falls, 617 N.W.2d at 17. Further, for negligence to be a substantial factor in causing harm the injury must be a natural, reasonable, and probable result of the negligence rather than an unnatural, unreasonable, and improbable result. Hollingsworth 553 N.W.2d at 597 .
I would conclude a jury could very reasonably find the negligent installation was a substantial factor in causing the resulting harm if in the process of falling the angle iron had caused personal injury or if a person were injured by tripping over the fallen angle iron. However, as the trial court concluded, Virden's ankle injury is not the same harm as the defendants risked by negligently installing the angle iron. A tipping or collapsing stepladder leading to an ankle injury is not a consequence within the scope of the original risk created by the defendants' negligence, it is therefore not a reasonably foreseeable and normal or "natural" consequence of that negligence. See City of Cedar Rapids, 526 N.W.2d at 288.
I agree with the trial court that Virden's injury was not a natural and probable result of the defendants' negligence. See Scoggins, 560 N.W.2d at 568-69 (stating a negligent act is the proximate cause of an injury if the injury is the natural and probable consequence of the act). The negligence is therefore a remote rather than a proximate cause of the injury. See Hollingsworth, 553 N.W.2d at 597 ("If upon looking back from the injury, the connection between the negligence and the injury appears unnatural, unreasonable, and improbable in the light of common experience, such negligence would be a remote rather than a proximate cause.").
I would conclude the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment on the ground the defendants' negligence was not a proximate cause of Virden's injury.