Opinion ID: 2046018
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Applicable law concerning admission into evidence of substantially similar incidents.

Text: The rule is well established that evidence of prior accidents or incidents may be admissible to show the existence of a dangerous condition. Lovick v. Wil-Rich, 588 N.W.2d 688, 697 (Iowa 1999). A preliminary requirement to the admission of evidence of prior incidents, however, is a foundational showing that the prior accidents or incidents occurred under substantially the same circumstances as the incident in the present case. McClure, 613 N.W.2d at 234 (holding that evidence of thirty-four incident reports, involving claimed error in filling of prescriptions at defendant's pharmacy within a three-year period preceding the prescription error in plaintiff's case, were substantially similar to misfilling incident giving rise to plaintiff's claim and were properly admissible under similar incidents rule); see also Lovick, 588 N.W.2d at 697, and cases cited therein. In cases where the evidence of prior accidents or incidents is offered to show a dangerous condition, the probative value of previous accidents rests in the likelihood that the same dangerous conditions caused the accident that is the source of the present litigation. Cook v. State, 431 N.W.2d 800, 803 (Iowa 1988). We said in Cook that when the prior accidents evidence is offered to show that the alleged tortfeasor had notice of the allegedly defective condition, the proof of similarity may be more relaxed. Id. at 803 (citing E. Cleary, McCormick on Evidence § 200, at 589-90 (3d ed.1984)). Although accident reports or other documents consisting of complaint statements made by consumers to a manufacturer constitute hearsay, and thus would be inadmissible for any purpose that assumes the truth of the allegations made in the complaints, see Iowa R. Evid. 801(c), such evidence would be admissible as tending to show the manufacturer's notice or awareness of danger, provided the incidents alleged in the complaints are substantially similar to the one at issue. See Shields v. Sturm, Ruger & Co., 864 F.2d 379, 381 (5th Cir.1989) (holding that although accident reports from consumers to gun manufacturer were hearsay and inadmissible for any purpose that assumed the truth of the allegations made in the reports, district court properly admitted 70 of the 570 consumer reports for purposes of proving notice and awareness of danger caused by misfiring of gun; reports of customers made after the date of plaintiff's accident were not relevant and not admissible).