Opinion ID: 2234055
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Contractor's Duty as to Inherently Dangerous Activities.

Text: Van Fossen also contends the district court erred in concluding, as a matter of law, that MidAmerican and IPL owed no duty under Restatement (Second) section 427 under the circumstances presented in this case. Under section 427, one who employs an independent contractor to do work which the employer knows or has reason to know involves an abnormally dangerous activity owes a nondelegable duty to those exposed to the hazard. Restatement (Second) § 427, at 418. To be an inherently dangerous activity, the danger must inhere `in the activity itself at all times, whether or not carefully performed.' Clausen v. R.W. Gilbert Constr. Co., 309 N.W.2d 462, 467 (Iowa 1981) (quoting Rodrigues v. Elizabethtown Gas Co., 104 N.J.Super. 436, 250 A.2d 408, 413 (1969)). Thus a danger is not inherent in work unless it attends the normal and usual method of doing the work. Clausen, 309 N.W.2d at 466. Stated another way, a danger for which the employer of an independent contractor remains liable must be inherent in the work when properly done. Id. (emphasis added). We conclude the district court correctly determined MidAmerican and IPL owed no duty under section 427 as a matter of law. Van Fossen failed at the summary judgment stage to produce evidence tending to prove Van Fossen's exposure to asbestos constituted a special danger inherent in or normal to his construction and maintenance work had it been performed with routine safety precautions which any careful contractor could reasonably have been expected to take. Porter, 217 N.W.2d at 232. To be sure, exposure to asbestos presents a grave health risk for industrial workers. The mere presence of such a grave risk of physical injury in the workplace is not, standing alone, sufficient to render work inherently dangerous under section 427. See Hernandez, 523 N.W.2d at 304-05 (concluding grave risks associated with cutting and capping live gas line in an excavated trench arose from negligence in operative details of work and were therefore not inherent in the work). The grave risk associated with exposure to asbestos in the workplace at the Port Neal plant was not abnormally dangerous under section 427 because it was not inherent in Van Fossen's work. The risk arose not from the nature of the construction and maintenance work, but rather from the manner in which the work was performed by Ebasco and Klinger without reasonable safety precautions to manage the ordinary and customary dangers associated with exposure to asbestos. Accordingly, we affirm the district court's determination that MidAmerican and IPL have no liability under section 427 under the circumstances presented in the summary judgment record.