Opinion ID: 1976802
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Objections to Specifications of Contributory Negligence Submitted to the Jury.

Text: We next consider the arguments made by Rinkleff that certain of the specifications of contributory negligence contained in the trial court's instructions should not have been submitted. We discuss only those claims in which we find some merit. The trial court instructed the jury that the claims of contributory negligence against Rinkleff included the following: (1) In not knowing or applying safe scaffolding use practices as required under the laws of the State of Iowa (2) In not knowing or applying safe scaffolding use practices as recommended by the American National Standards Institute. Rinkleff made timely objection to the inclusion of these particular specifications of negligence in the court's instructions on the ground that they were not supported by the evidence, were not sufficiently specific, and that they served to impose upon him duties to which he was not subject and which were not adequately explained in the instructions. Our review of the record convinces us that some of these claims have merit. The purpose of requiring the jury to consider specifications of negligence is to limit the determination of the factual questions arising in negligence claims to only those acts or omissions upon which a particular claim is in fact based and upon which the court has had an opportunity to make a preliminary determination of the sufficiency of the evidence to generate a jury question. Teeling v. Heles, 195 N.W.2d 704, 708 (Iowa 1972). Each specification should identify either (a) a certain thing the allegedly negligent party did which that party should not have done, or (b) a certain thing that party omitted to do which should have been done, under the legal theory of negligence which is applicable. See Anthes v. Anthes, 258 Iowa 260, 265, 139 N.W.2d 201, 205 (1965). The trial court's instructions contain only one standard of care to be utilized by the jury in determining whether Rinkleff was negligent. This is the standard of ordinary care embraced in Uniform Jury Instruction 2.1 (July 1982). The instruction given was as follows: Ordinary Care is such care as an ordinary, responsible and prudent person would exercise under similar circumstances. By Negligence is meant the want of ordinary care, the failure to do something which a reasonably prudent person, guided by those considerations which ordinarily regulate the conduct of human affairs, under the circumstances, would do, or the doing of something which a person, under such circumstances, would not do. Because the only definition of negligence given the jury was want of ordinary care, the specifications of contributory negligence should have simply identified those specific acts or omissions finding support in the evidence which Best Rental claimed were want of ordinary care by Rinkleff. Specifications (1) and (2) above are the complete antithesis of this approach. They fail to specify any particular act or omission and, in addition, seem to incorporate some extraneous standard of care not applicable in evaluating Rinkleff's conduct. The IOSHA compliance officer who testified as an expert witness indicated that the practices of the American National Standards Institute were applied in the enforcement of Iowa Code chapter 88. But that testimony was only offered as evidence of an industry standard of ordinary care. Neither the American National Standards Institute nor the IOSHA standards had any direct application in establishing Rinkleff's obligation to avoid an unreasonable risk of harm to himself. Rinkleff may have been an employer at the time and place of his injuries. Nevertheless, for purposes of adjudicating his negligence, if any, in an action by or against a nonemployee, neither Rinkleff nor Best Rental is within the protective class benefited by chapter 88. See Wilson v. Nepstad, 282 N.W.2d 664, 667 (Iowa 1979); Restatement (Second) of Torts § 286 (1965). We conclude that specifications of negligence (1) and (2) above are each fatally defective in the dual respect of permitting the jury to consider an extraneous duty to which Rinkleff was not subject and in failing to sufficiently specify those acts or omissions which are claimed to constitute the negligence with which he is being charged. We further conclude it is sufficiently likely the inclusion of these additional specifications of negligence prejudiced Rinkleff in the allocation of negligence between the parties that a new trial is warranted. [1]