Opinion ID: 1752743
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Standard of causation.

Text: Next, defendant contends trial court erred in applying the civil standard of proximate cause in a criminal prosecution, rather than adopting the more stringent standard of direct causal connection used by the Pennsylvania court in Commonwealth v. Root, 403 Pa. 571, 580, 170 A.2d 310, 314 (1961). In Root, the court held that the tort liability concept of proximate cause has no proper place in prosecutions for criminal homicide and more direct causal connection is required for conviction. Id. The court cited the facts of another Pennsylvania case as an example of such direct causation: In [ Commonwealth v. Levin, 184 Pa.Super. 436, 135 A.2d 764 (1957)] two cars were racing on the streets of Philadelphia at speeds estimated at from 85 to 95 miles per hour. The defendant's car, in the left hand lane, was racing alongside of the car in which the deceased was a passenger when the defendant turned his automobile sharply to the right in front of the other car thereby causing the driver of the latter car to lose control and smash into a tree, the passenger being thrown to the road and killed as a result of the impact.... Levin's act of cutting his automobile sharply in front of the car in which the deceased was riding directly forced that car off of the road and into the tree. The defendant's reckless and unlawful maneuver was the direct cause of the crucial fatality. Id. at 576, 170 A.2d at 312. We had occasion to consider a similar standard-of-causation issue in State v. Marti, 290 N.W.2d 570, 584-85 (Iowa 1980), which upheld the involuntary manslaughter conviction of a man who provided an obviously intoxicated, suicidal woman with the means to shoot herself by loading a gun for her and placing it within her reach. As here, the defendant in Marti argued that the trial court inappropriately adopted the standards of proximate cause applied in civil cases. Id. at 584. Unlike the Pennsylvania court in Root, however, we said in Marti that we were unwilling to hold as a blanket rule of law that instructions used in civil trials regarding proximate cause are inappropriate for criminal trials. Id. We explained: One reason for this is the similar functions that the requirement of proximate cause plays in both sorts of trials. The element of proximate cause in criminal prosecutions serves as a requirement that there be a sufficient causal relationship between the defendant's conduct and a proscribed harm to hold him criminally responsible. [Citations omitted.] Similarly, in the law of torts it is the element that requires there to be a sufficient causal relationship between the defendant's conduct and the plaintiff's damage to hold the defendant civilly liable. [Citation omitted.] Id. We did note in Marti, however, that legal causation (as opposed to factual causation) is essentially a question of whether the policy of the law will extend the responsibility for the conduct to the consequences which have in fact occurred. Id. at 585 (quoting W. Prosser, Handbook of the Law of Torts § 42, at 244 (4th ed. (1971)). Further, we recognized that different policy considerations may come into play in criminal prosecutions than in civil trials, and that an argument could be made that these differences should be reflected in the proximate cause instructions used in the different kinds of trials. Id. Nevertheless, we had no occasion to consider whether such differences existed in that case because the defendant there failed to indicate any differences in policy considerations relevant to his case, much less how such differences might have prejudicially affected any particular instruction given here. For a party to preserve for appeal his objections to a trial court's instructions on this amorphous and multifaceted matter of legal causation, he or she must specify the deficiency in narrower terms than a mere assertion that they copy civil instructions. Id. We find no error preservation problem in this bench-tried case, and thus proceed to address the standard-of-causation question on its merits. First, although defendant does not cite or appear to rely on State v. Rullestad, 259 Iowa 209, 212-13, 143 N.W.2d 278, 280 (1966), we are aware of Rullestad's holding that to sustain an involuntary manslaughter conviction based on the public offense of drunk driving, it is necessary to show a direct causal connection between the drunk driving and the death. Rullestad cites Root among a list of cases having some bearing on the point. While Rullestad does use the phrase direct causal connection, the case contains no discussion of the distinction between the ordinary concept of proximate cause and the more stringent standard adopted in Root. Elsewhere in Rullestad, the term proximate cause is used repeatedly in referring to the appropriate legal standard. 259 Iowa at 212-14, 143 N.W.2d at 280-81. Thus, we believe Rullestad's use of the phrase direct causal connection was intended to convey nothing more than the ordinary notion of proximate cause. This view is reinforced by the fact that Youngblut, 257 Iowa 343, 132 N.W.2d 486, implicitly rejects the causation standard adopted in Root. The facts outlined in the minutes of testimony attached to the indictment in Youngblut did not include any specific act by defendant which directly caused his fellow racer to collide with the hapless third vehicle. Thus, those facts would not have met the direct causation test of Root. Yet this court held that those facts were legally sufficient to satisfy the elements of involuntary manslaughter. Moreover, we observe that although Root had been decided four years earlier and was the subject of an American Law Reports annotation, see 82 A.L.R.2d 452 (1962), Youngblut did not cite the Root case or follow its lead. Rather, Youngblut relied primarily on the drag-racing cases of People v. Kemp, 150 Cal.App.2d 654, 659, 310 P.2d 680, 683 (1957), and State v. Fennewald, 339 S.W.2d 769, 773 (Mo.1960). The facts of neither of those cases would have met the direct causation standard of Root. In addition, we note that in Kemp, at least, the theory of liability was based on the concept of proximate causation. See 150 Cal. App.2d at 658-59, 310 P.2d at 682-83. Furthermore, of all the involuntary manslaughter cases we have studied which involve drag racing, we have found only one that applies a standard of causation as stringent as that in Root: Thacker v. State, 103 Ga.App. 36, 37-39, 117 S.E.2d 913, 914-15 (1961). Other cases, when not based on a theory of vicarious liability, appear to apply a proximate cause standard similar to that in tort cases. E.g., State v. Melcher, 15 Ariz.App. 157, 161-62, 487 P.2d 3, 7-8 (1971); Campbell v. State, 285 So.2d 891, 893-95 (Miss.1973). Finally, defendant has suggested no specific policy differences, nor can we think of any, that would justify a different standard of proximate causation under our involuntary manslaughter statute than under our tort law. The Root court opined that [l]egal theory which makes guilt or innocence of criminal homicide depend upon such accidental and fortuitous circumstances as are now embraced by modern tort law's encompassing concept of proximate cause is too harsh to be just. 403 Pa. at 576, 170 A.2d at 312. We do not agree. Proximate cause is based on the concept of foreseeability. We believe the foreseeability requirement, coupled with the requirement of recklessness, see State v. Conner, 292 N.W.2d 682, 686 (Iowa 1980), will prevent the possibility of harsh or unjust results in involuntary manslaughter cases. We disagree with the Root court's apparent opinion that drag racing on a public street is not generally considered to present the likelihood of a resultant death. 403 Pa. at 575, 170 A.2d at 311. Accordingly, we hold that trial court did not err in applying ordinary proximate cause principles to determine whether the causation element of section 707.5(1) had been met, and in declining to adopt the more stringent direct causal connection standard of Root.