Opinion ID: 1824365
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: nebraska law regarding res ipsa loquitur and domestic animals

Text: As noted above, this court has never answered the question of whether res ipsa loquitur applies to cases where a vehicle collides with escaped livestock on a public road. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, applying Nebraska law, did address that issue in Nuclear Corporation of America v. Lang, 480 F.2d 990 (8th Cir. 1973). In affirming the federal district court's decision to apply res ipsa loquitur to the facts therein, the Lang court stated: By invoking res ipsa loquitur ... the Court necessarily concluded that unattended animals do not usually escape their enclosures unless someone was negligent, a conclusion which is supported by an abundance of authority. [Citations omitted.] Embodied within that conclusion is an expression of judicial attitude with respect to the high standard of care owed highway travellers by abutting livestock owners. [Citation omitted.] The higher the standard of care, the more compelling is the inference that someone was negligent. (Emphasis supplied.) Id. at 993. The Eighth Circuit in Lang determined that under Nebraska law, livestock owners abutting public highways owed travelers using those highways a higher standard of care than normal, and rested its holding that res ipsa loquitur applied to these cases in part on that determination. However, in Dizco, Inc. v. Kenton, 210 Neb. 141, 313 N.W.2d 268 (1981), this court expressly held that such livestock owners owed merely a duty of ordinary care to travelers using abutting highways. Therefore, the holding in Lang was based, at least in part, on a misreading of Nebraska law. In the case at bar, the Court of Appeals noted the flaw in the reasoning in Lang and held, inter alia, that since our prior decisions established that reasonable minds could differ on whether negligence caused a domestic animal to escape its confines, res ipsa loquitur was inapplicable to such cases. See, McCall v. St. Joseph's Hospital, 184 Neb. 1, 165 N.W.2d 85 (1969); Countryman v. Ronspies, 180 Neb. 76, 141 N.W.2d 425 (1966); Traill v. Ostermeier, 140 Neb. 432, 300 N.W. 375 (1941). Accord, Wilson v. Rule, 169 Kan. 296, 219 P.2d 690 (1950). The Court of Appeals' reasoning in this respect was incorrect, because res ipsa loquitur can apply in escaped-livestock cases even where the owner of the animal is held to only an ordinary standard of care. See, e.g., Mitchell v. Ridgway, 77 N.M. 249, 421 P.2d 778 (1966). However, the Court of Appeals articulated an alternative reason for prohibiting the use of res ipsa loquitur in the instant case: The Court of Appeals found that cattle and other domestic animals may escape from adequately constructed confines without negligence and that cows' escaping from their pen and appearing on a public highway is not so unusual that such an occurrence would not ordinarily occur in the absence of negligence. Courts in a number of other jurisdictions have addressed the issue presented in the instant case, and those courts are nearly evenly split with regard to the result. See, generally, Annot., 29 A.L.R.4th 466-70 (1984). For courts applying res ipsa loquitur, see, O'Connor v. Black, 80 Idaho 96, 326 P.2d 376 (1958); Loeffler v. Rogers, 136 A.D.2d 824, 523 N.Y.S.2d 660 (1988); Watzig v. Tobin, 292 Or. 645, 642 P.2d 651 (1982); Scanlan v. Smith, 66 Wash.2d 601, 404 P.2d 776 (1965). See, also, Anderson v. McCarty, 519 So.2d 324 (La.App.1988), writ denied 521 So.2d 1155 (not expressly applying res ipsa loquitur, but holding that where a cow causes damages in a collision with an automobile, courts will presume negligence of the owner of the livestock). For courts refusing to apply res ipsa loquitur, see, Vanderwater v. Hatch, 835 F.2d 239 (10th Cir.1987) (applying Utah law); Barnes v. Frank, 28 Colo.App. 389, 472 P.2d 745 (1970); Taylor Bros., Inc. v. Sork, 169 Ind.App. 279, 348 N.E.2d 42 (1976); Wilson v. Rule, supra ; Walborn v. Stockman, 10 Kan.App.2d 597, 706 P.2d 465 (1985); Hughes v. W & S Construction Company, 196 So.2d 339 (Miss.1967); Reed v. Molnar, 67 Ohio St.2d 76, 21 O.O.3d 48, 423 N.E.2d 140 (1981); Brauner v. Peterson, 16 Wash.App. 531, 557 P.2d 359 (1976) (apparently contradicting Scanlan v. Smith, supra ).