Opinion ID: 1934735
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Imputed Negligence Issue.

Text: According to MPA, Pugh's negligence was imputed to Hudson, as his employer and, in turn, from Hudson to Prairie under the agreements quoted above. This court has never decided whether an employee's fault in causing his own injury is negligence that may be imputed to an employer for indemnity purposes. According to some authorities, negligence connotes a breach of duty to another. For example, the Restatement defines an act as negligent if the actor intends it to affect, or realizes or should realize that it is likely to affect, the conduct of another, a third person, or an animal in such a manner as to create an unreasonable risk of harm to the other.  Restatement (Second) of Torts § 303, at 94 (1965) (emphasis added). We have said the real basis of negligence in the primary sense is not carelessness but behavior which should be recognized as involving an unreasonable danger to others.  Rinkleff v. Knox, 375 N.W.2d 262, 265 (Iowa 1985) (emphasis added). We have also defined it as conduct that `falls below the standard established by law for the protection of others against unreasonable risk of harm.' Marcus v. Young, 538 N.W.2d 285, 288 (Iowa 1995) (emphasis added) (citation omitted). In Drewery v. Daspit Brothers Marine Divers, Inc., 317 F.2d 425 (5th Cir.1963), a potential indemnitor argued that the doctrine of imputed negligence is inapplicable since the negligence was that of the employee toward himself. The argument goes that a person may not commit a tort on himself; and absent tort, negligence is not imputable. Drewery, 317 F.2d at 427. The court agreed: [It is clear that] imputed negligence, based as it is on a fiction, works to hold the master for injuries to third persons occasioned by the fault of his servant, and to bar the master where his servant contributes or concurs in the harm done the master. We are asked to take the doctrine one step further; to embrace the master through the imputation to the master of the negligence of the servant resulting in injury to himself, to the end of creating liability on the part of the master to an indemnitee under the terms of a contract. But this additional step does not follow for here no tort against either a third person or the master is present, and the legal fiction of imputed negligence rests on such a tort. Negligence causing injury to one's self will not suffice, for a tort rests on the breach of a legal duty owed another. To take this step would be adding a legal fiction to another legal fiction. Furthermore, we are construing a contract and it would be drastic indeed to extend the doctrine in the suggested manner to impose liability not clearly spelled out in the contract, as it is not. Id. at 428. In Troxler v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 717 F.2d 530 (11th Cir.1983), the indemnity agreement was very similar to the one in this case. It provided indemnification for losses caused in whole or in part by any negligent act or omission of the Contractor, any Subcontractor, anyone directly or indirectly employed by any of them or anyone for whose acts any of them may be liable.... Applying Georgia law, the court held: [W]here the only negligence shown on the part of the contractor was the contributory negligence of the contractor's injured employee, strict construction [of the indemnity agreement] precluded construing the contract to require the contractor to indemnify the owner for the owner's acts of negligence. Troxler, 717 F.2d at 536-37 (citing Binswanger Glass Co. v. Beers Constr. Co., 141 Ga.App. 715, 234 S.E.2d 363, 366 (1977)). In Wicklund v. Gus J. Bouten Construction Co., 36 Wash.App. 71, 674 P.2d 184 (1983), a general contractor filed a third-party indemnity claim against a subcontractor whose employee was twenty-five percent at fault. The court noted: Washington follows the theory of imputed contributory negligence.... [However,] [w]here, as here, the employee has violated no duty to a third party, there is no negligence to impute. With no imputed negligence, [the subcontractor] is not a joint or concurrent tortfeasor and cannot be held to contribution. Wicklund, 674 P.2d at 186-87. The reasoning of Drewery and its progeny was rejected in Eastern Airlines, Inc. v. Insurance Co. of North America, 758 F.2d 132, 136 (3d Cir.1985). The reasons given were (1) it is `negligence' which is the issue, not whether the conduct is labeled a `tort'; and (2) the basis of the indemnitor's liability is not the result of an employee's negligence imputed to it through respondeat superior but instead a [result of a] specific contractual obligation. Id. In Eastern Airlines the court held the employer was bound to indemnify the claimant for the consequences of the employee's acts in injuring himself because the contract required it. Id. (That is MPA's alternative argument: irrespective of imputed negligence Hudson and Prairie are bound by the contract documents to indemnify MPA. We discuss that argument in the following division.) In considering the opposing views of the cases under Drewery 's and Eastern Airlines' analyses, we are persuaded that Drewery 's reasoning is the sounder. We should not superimpose on the legal fiction of respondeat superior a second level of legal fiction by imputing negligence to an employer for indemnity purposes. In any event, the contracts in this case do not require with sufficient specificity that Hudson or Prairie indemnify MPA under the circumstances of this case. That presents the next issue.