Opinion ID: 2072798
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Over plaintiff's protest the trial court submitted the following jury instruction:

Text: Instruction No. 21. You are instructed that the law recognizes what is termed an unavoidable or inevitable accident. These terms do not mean that it was impossible to avoid an accident, but simply denote that the accident occurred without having been proximately caused by negligence. In this case there is testimony that the deceased, David Koll, tripped, stumbled or lurched into the path of the truck Michael Manatt was backing at a point in time when there was no time for the truck to stop. If you find that David Koll did so trip, stumble or lurch into the path of the truck Michael Manatt was backing and that said trip, stumble or lurch took David Koll from a position on the shoulder where he would not have been struck by the truck and caused him to enter and be upon the roadway in the path of the backing truck, then you may find that David Koll's death was an unavoidable accident not proximately caused by negligence, and if you so find your verdict would be for defendants on both counts of the petition of plaintiffs. The unavoidable accident instruction has never found outright approval in our cases, but until now has managed to escape outright disapproval. In Cavanaugh v. Jepson, 167 N.W.2d 616, 622 (Iowa 1969) we said: We have never gone so far as to condemn the doctrine of unavoidable accident, but it is virtually impossible to discover in our decisions any clear-cut approval of it. In Cavanaugh we reversed a judgment of the trial court for giving the instruction under circumstances similar to the instant case. We said the doctrine could have no application where the issue is which of two litigants was negligent. Although our holding in Cavanaugh would in any event require reversal for giving the instruction in the instant case, in which negligence and contributory negligence were issues, we elect to base the reversal on an outright condemnation of the doctrine. In Cavanaugh, 167 N.W.2d at 622 we quoted from Butigan v. Yellow Cab Co., 49 Cal.2d 652, 658, 320 P.2d 500, 504, 65 A.L.R.2d 1, 6-7 (1958):    `In reality, the so-called defense of unavoidable accident has no legitimate place in our pleading. It appears to be an obsolete remnant from a time when damages for injuries to person or property directly caused by a voluntary act of the defendant could be recovered in an action of trespass and when strict liability would be imposed unless the defendant proved that the injury was caused through inevitable accident '    The instruction is not only unnecessary, but it is also confusing. We again concur in these sentiments. We think the time has come to eliminate the confusion caused by attempting to apply a doctrine which actually means nothing beyond a denial by a defendant that any negligence of his was a proximate cause of the injury. The instruction    merely restates a feature of the law of negligence which in substance is necessarily covered by proper instructions on negligence, burden of proof, and proximate cause   . [When given, it]    operates to overemphasize the defendant's case, and is apt to confuse and mislead. Annot., 65 A.L.R.2d 12, 21. The instruction has elsewhere been disapproved. See Alaska Brick Co. v. McCoy, 400 P.2d 454 (Alaska); O'Donnell v. Maves, 103 Ariz. 28, 436 P.2d 577; Schoen v. Boulder Stage Lines, Inc., 159 Colo. 531, 412 P.2d 905; Schaub v. Linehan, 92 Idaho 332, 442 P.2d 742; Miller v. Alvey, 246 Ind. 560, 207 N.E.2d 633; Graham v. Rolandson, 150 Mont. 270, 435 P.2d 263; Fenton v. Aleshire, 238 Or. 24, 393 P.2d 217; Camaras v. Moran, 100 R.I. 717, 219 A.2d 487. We join these states and hold it is error to give the unavoidable accident instruction. Such error was reversible in the instant case. Similar circumstances yielded a reversal in Cavanaugh, supra, where we merely questioned the worth of the instruction. These circumstances (the issue is which of two litigants was negligent) demand reversal here upon our disapproval of the instruction.