Walton v. Eckhart

• Decision Date: 28 December 1965
• Docket Number: No. 17924.,17924.
• Citation: 354 F.2d 35
• Parties: David J. WALTON and Janice Walton, Appellants, v. Glenn ECKHART, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

354 F.2d 35 (1965)

David J. WALTON and Janice Walton, Appellants, v. Glenn ECKHART, Appellee.

No. 17924.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

December 28, 1965.

Donald P. Lay, Omaha, Neb., Theo. Duffield, Des Moines, Iowa, for appellants.

William C. Hoffmann, Des Moines, Iowa, James D. Robertson, Marshalltown, Iowa, for appellee.

Before VAN OOSTERHOUT, BLACKMUN and MEHAFFY, Circuit Judges.

MEHAFFY, Circuit Judge.

This appeal is from a judgment entered upon a jury verdict absolving all defendants of liability in a personal injury action stemming from a collision of automobiles in a smoke enveloped area on Highway 64, Marshall County, Iowa.

Jurisdiction, grounded upon diversity of citizenship, is established. The substantive law of Iowa controls.

Other parties were involved in the litigation but this appeal is limited to the plaintiffs, Janice and David Walton, and the defendant, Glenn Eckhart.

On April 12, 1963, defendant Eckhart, a tenant farmer, was engaged in spring plowing when a quantity of grass accumulated on his plow. The accumulated grass was removed and set afire upon the plowed portion of the ground. Eckhart watched the grass burn for four or five minutes and, when it reached the smoldering stage, resumed his plowing.

The fire was a "short" quarter mile from Highway 64 which intersects Eckhart's farm. Although the wind was moderate, the fire crossed the twenty to twenty-five foot strip of plowed ground, jumped a creek twenty feet wide and continued toward the highway. Because the land on the near side of the creek was wet and boggy, Eckhart was unable to plow in front of the fire and thus impede its progress. He noticed smoke reaching the highway but not in an amount sufficient to interfere with traffic. However, as the wind direction changed, the smoke completely enveloped the highway.

Plaintiff Janice Walton was driving east on Highway 64 with her husband and two sons. As she approached the Eckhart farm, her attention was attracted to the smoke on the highway, which, at first appearance, was only a wispy veil. Her visibility being only slightly impaired, plaintiff continued to drive although there was ample distance in which to stop. As plaintiff entered the smoky area, the density of the smoke increased to such an extent that she was unable to see even the hood of her car. Plaintiff momentarily stopped but, at the suggestion of her husband, proceeded forward at a reduced speed until she collided with an automobile driven by Harold Anderson. According to expert testimony, plaintiffs' car, at the time of collision, was at least a foot over the center line and into Anderson's lane.

After this initial collision, three other vehicles entered the smoky area and rear-ended Anderson's car, but no additional injuries were inflicted on plaintiffs, who had moved from the immediate scene.

For reversal, plaintiffs first assert that the facts did not justify the trial court's submission of an instruction on intervening efficient causation. We do not agree. The resolution of the question of proximate cause necessarily involved various factual aspects and so was a proper function of the jury. From the facts, the jury could have concluded (1) that Eckhart was not, under all the existing circumstances, guilty of any negligence; (2) that Eckhart was guilty of negligence constituting the sole proximate cause of the collision; (3) that Eckhart was guilty of negligence which concurred with negligence of others to constitute the proximate cause; (4) that Eckhart was negligent but that contributory negligence of plaintiffs precluded their recovery; (5) that the act of the plaintiffs or another, or the combination of their negligence, constituted an independent, intervening efficient cause insulating Eckhart's negligence.

Because the jury returned a general verdict, we have no way of knowing upon what theory the result was based. The record evidence, however, would have justified finding plaintiff guilty of negligence in restarting her car under conditions admittedly blinding her and violative of the Iowa rules of the road. Also, Anderson could have been found negligent as he admittedly entered the smoke area at a speed of sixty miles per hour, although the condition became obvious to him when he reached a distance of four hundred fifty feet outside the area.

In Iowa the jury determines both the existence of an intervening efficient cause and whether it has insulated the negligence of the defendant and replaced it as the proximate and actionable cause of the injury. See Johnson v. Baker, 254 Iowa 1077, 120 N.W.2d 502, 506 (1963) and cases there cited; Blessing v. Welding, 226 Iowa 1178, 286 N.W. 436 (1939); McClure v. Richard, 225 Iowa 949, 282 N.W. 312 (1938).

This proposition was aptly expressed by Judge Graven in Chicago & North Western Ry. Co. v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. R. Co., 179 F.Supp. 33, 55 (N.D.Ia. 1959):

"The whole trend of the recent decisions of the Iowa Supreme Court is to the effect that, save in exceptional cases, the question of causal connection between the negligence of a person and the injury of which it is claimed to be a proximate cause is one to be determined by the jury and not one to be dealt with as a question of law by the Court. That Court has in its recent decisions tended to emphasize that questions as to proximate cause, independent intervening negligence, and concurrent negligence are peculiarly questions for the trier of facts."

We conclude that the evidence in the instant case justified submission to the jury of the question of intervening efficient cause.

A correlative question is presented by plaintiffs' challenge to the following sentence in Instruction No. 15:

"It is the contention of the defendant Eckhart that if the negligence, if any, of each and all of the drivers of the vehicles involved was not the sole proximate cause of the injury to the plaintiff, then it was a new and intervening cause which broke the chain of causation between the original negligence, if any, of the defendant Eckhart in creating a condition of smoke and the injuries to each of the plaintiffs. * * *"

This sentence merely states Eckhart's contention that if plaintiffs' injuries were not caused solely by the negligence of the other drivers, the negligence of such drivers was an independent intervening cause which broke the causal connection between any negligence on the part of the defendant and the collision. Plaintiffs argue that the sentence is fatal because it did not instruct the jury that to insulate Eckhart's negligence, the intervening act or acts must constitute the sole proximate cause of plaintiffs' injuries. We agree that this sentence is not a complete definition as an...