Boyer v. Iowa High School Athletic Ass'n

• Decision Date: 11 July 1967
• Docket Number: No. 52416,52416
• Parties: Marian BOYER, Appellee, v. IOWA HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 293

152 N.W.2d 293

260 Iowa 1061

Marian BOYER, Appellee, v. IOWA HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, Appellant.

No. 52416.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

July 11, 1967.

Westfall, Laird, Burington, Bovard & Heiny, Mason City, for appellant.

William Pappas, Mason City, for appellee.

GARFIELD, Chief Justice.

This is a law action by plaintiff, a paid spectator at a tournament basketball game under the management, supervision and direction of defendant Iowa High School Athletic Association, to recover for personal injuries from collapse of bleachers. Defendant appeals from judgment on jury verdict for plaintiff.

The tournament was held at Roosevelt Junior High School fieldhouse in Mason City under a written contract between the school and defendant. Plaintiff, her husband and a Mr. and Mrs. Garland sat together at the game on the top row of seats. The bleachers were of wood and steel in sections 16 feet long and seven rows high. Below each row of seats above the bottom one was a wood footrest. The top row of seats was eight or nine feet above the gymnasium floor.

When the bleachers are not in use they are pushed back toward the wall with the seats and footrests in a near-vertical, rather than horizontal, position. Normally it takes three men to pull the bleachers out from their folded or collapsed position ready for occupancy and to push them back toward the wall to make added floor space. There are handholes in the vertical board between the bottom seat and the floor for use in pulling the bleachers out. 'They push in kind of hard.' During the school year the bleachers are pulled out and pushed back two to four times a week.

The tournament game, between teams from Mason City and a nearby town, was close and exciting. Near the end of the game the spectators seated in front of those on the top row stood up on the seats or footrests 'like they do at all exciting games,' and plaintiff, her husband and the Garlands were forced to do likewise in other to see the finish of the game.

As the game ended and the spectators were leaving their position in the section occupied by plaintiff and those with her, the seats and footrests collapsed or folded back toward the wall, with the boards in more of a vertical position. Plaintiff and Mr. Garland were thrown onto the floor, plaintiff's husband was left hanging by one foot on the bleachers, head down. Mrs. Gerland had stepped back from the top footrest to the seat on which she had been sitting and which was left intact. She did not fall. Plaintiff's injuries are not an issue on this appeal.

Only the one section of bleachers collapsed. Everyone in it was standing toward the end of the game. The Boyers and Garlands had been directed to the seats they occupied. There were no aisles or spaces unoccupied by spectators in the bleachers. The spectators ordinarily left the bleachers, as they attempted to do this time, by stepping from their seats or footrests to those below.

I. Plaintiff pleaded her case in two counts or divisions, one charging specific acts of negligence, the other in reliance on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur. We have frequently held this is permissible provided, of course, the doctrine is properly applicable. Eaves v. City of Ottumwa, 240 Iowa 956, 968, 38 N.W.2d 761, 768, 11 A.L.R.2d 1164, and citations; Ruud v. Grimm, 252 Iowa 1266, 1274, 110 N.W.2d 321, 325.

The trial court ruled there was no evidence to support the charges of specific negligence and withdrew them from jury consideration. The case was submitted to the jury on the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur.

II. Defendant first assigns error in the court's refusal to withdraw from the jury the division based on res ipsa loquitur.

'Under the doctrine referred to, where injury occurs by an instrumentality under the exclusive control and management of defendant and the occurrence is such as in the ordinary course of things would not happen if reasonable care had been used, the happening of the injury permits but does not compel an inference that defendant was negligent.' Shinofield v. Curtis, 245 Iowa 1352, 1360, 66 N.W.2d 465, 470, 50 A.L.R.2d 964, and citations.

"* * * In considering the applicability of res ipsa loquitur, the question whether the particular occurrence is such as would not happen if reasonable care had been used rests on common experience and not at all on evidence in the particular case that tends in itself to show such occurrence was in facts the result of negligence.' Shinofield v. Curtis, supra.' Smith v. Ullerich, Iowa, 145 N.W.2d 1, 5.

Thus the two foundation facts for application of the res ipsa doctrine, which permits an inference of defendant's negligence from happening of the injury, are: (1) exclusive control and management by defendant of the instrumentality which causes the injury, and (2) the occurrence is such as in the ordinary course of things would not happen if reasonable care had been used.

We think the jury could properly find these foundation facts existed and infer therefrom plaintiff's injury was caused by defendant's negligence. Bleachers designed for use by spectators at athletic events do not ordinarily collapse, when used as they normally are, without negligence of those having control and management thereof.

Defendant asserts the res ipsa doctrine does not apply, first, because it is said the evidence of the cause of the collapse was accessible to plaintiff and not peculiarly accessible to defendant. As plaintiff admits in argument, under our decisions the underlying reason for the res ipsa rule is that the chief evidence of the true cause of the injury is practically accessible to defendant but inaccessible to the injured person. See Smith v. Ullerich, supra, 145 N.W.2d 1, 6; Shinofield v. Curtis, supra, 245 Iowa 1352, 1360, 66 N.W.2d 465, 470, 50 A.L.R.2d 964 and citations; Eaves v. City of Ottumwa, supra, 240 Iowa 956, 972, 38 N.W.2d 761, 770, 11 A.L.R.2d 1164 and citations. See also Sample v. Schwenck, 243 Iowa 1189, 1198, 54 N.W.2d 527, 532.

In these precedents one or both of the foundation facts above referred to were lacking and the absence of what we have said is the underlying reason for the rule was given as an added reason why it was not applicable to the particular case. We have never held presence of this 'underlying reason' is an indispensable requirement for application of the doctrine.

Nor are we persuaded evidence of the true cause of the collapse or partial collapse of the bleachers was not peculiarly accessible to defendant rather than to plaintiff. The athletic director of the Mason City schools was acting manager of the tournament. He and the head custodian at Roosevelt Junior High School must be deemed, under the contract between the school and defendant, to have been acting under the management, supervision and direction of defendant. They had the exclusive control and management of the bleachers at least until game time and had the best opportunity to then discover any defect in them which may have caused the collapse.

We are told plaintiff had as much access to the bleachers immediately after the accident as defendant did and could discover any defect in them. A seriously injured person could hardly be expected to then examine the bleachers for defects rather than to be concerned with proper treatment of her injuries.

Argument that so far as shown no part of the bleachers was broken or out of place merely indicates absence of specific acts of negligence and does not negative applicability of the res ipsa doctrine. Indeed where the precise cause of the injury clearly appears or is beyond dispute there is no room for inference and the res ipsa rule has no application. Eaves v. City of Ottumwa, supra, 240 Iowa 956, 968, 38 N.W.2d 761, 768, 11 A.L.R.2d 1164 and citations; Schneider v. Swaney Motor Car Co., 257 Iowa 1177, 1185, 136 N.W.2d 338, 343.

The argument the only permissible conclusion to be drawn from the evidence is that the movement of the spectators at the end of the game caused the bleachers to collapse cannot be accepted. Such a conclusion would rest wholly on speculation or conjecture. There is no evidence to support it. Assuming, but not deciding, this would be a defense to the res ipsa doctrine, it was defendant's burden to rebut the inference of negligence. Thompson v. Burke Engin. Sales Co., 252 Iowa 146, 152, 106 N.W.2d 351, 355 and citations; Hall v. Town of Keota, 248 Iowa 131, 143, 79 N.W.2d 784, 791 and citations; Larrabee v. Des Moines Tent & A. Co., 189 Iowa 319, 325, 178 N.W. 373.

Such limited control of the bleachers as plaintiff and other spectators may have had during and immediately following the game did not, as a matter of law, render the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur inapplicable. The jury could find defendant and its agents were in control of the bleachers at the time of the negligent act, as failure to inspect, which subsequently resulted in injury to plaintiff and that she and the other spectators did nothing improper or unusual during their occupancy of them. See precedents last above, also Benedict v. Eppley Hotel Co., 159 Neb. 23, 65 N.W.2d 224, 229--230; Van Stavaren v. F. W. Woolworth Co., 29 N.J.Super. 197, 102 A.2d 59.

Defendant seeks to distinguish most of the decisions cited by plaintiff as to applicability of res ipsa on the ground evidence was there received of some defect which may have caused collapse of the seat on which the injured person was sitting. In our view this does not detract from their weight as precedents. Introduction of evidence of specific negligence does not deprive a plaintiff of the right to have the res ipsa doctrine submitted to the jury in support of a general allegation of negligence in another count. Eaves v. City of Ottumwa, supra, 240 Iowa 956, 967--968, 38 N.W.2d 761, 768, 11 A.L.R.2d 1164, and citations; Schneider v. Swaney Motor Car Co., supra, 257 Iowa 1177, 1185, 136 N.W.2d 338, 343.

III. Defendant assigns error in the overruling of...