Opinion ID: 1270737
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendant infers the exceptions to the instructions above set out were inadequate to preserve the error presented here for review.

Text: At the time provided for taking exceptions to proposed instructions plaintiff's counsel dictated into the record the following: Mr. Fuerste: Comes now the Plaintiff, and being furnished with the instructions in their final form, excepts and objects to instruction No. 11 thereof, and in such regard also to that portion of instruction No. 9, subparagraph 2, which deals with the so-called `alternate safe route', for the reason that the record in this case is devoid of any evidence from which a jury could find the existence of one route anywhere being safer than another, nor that a route should have been followed by any person, including the Plaintiff, in preference to another route as a matter of safety; that to submit the issue of the specification of contributory negligence of a fictitious alternate, safe route, under this record, is to invite the jury to speculate and conjecture on a matter which has no legal significance and/or basis in fact or law, and the submission of such issue is erroneously prejudicial to the rights of the Plaintiff in such regard. That completes the exceptions of the Plaintiff. Defendant contends plaintiff in her motion for new trial urged other and additional grounds based upon the giving of the instructions above set out, and that she is precluded from so doing by the application of rule 196, Rules of Civil Procedure. A fair reading of the exceptions to the instructions and of the motion for new trial leads us to conclude that the exceptions taken by plaintiff to the instructions were adequate to preserve the error urged here for reversal. II. The parties to this appeal do not seem to be in disagreement concerning the general proposition that instructions must submit only those pleaded issues which have support in the record, as both plaintiff and defendant cite Bradt v. Grell Const., Inc., 161 N.W.2d 336 (Iowa 1968). In Bradt, at p. 340 of 161 N.W.2d, we said: It is the duty of the trial court to submit to the jury all issues presented by the pleadings upon which there is evidence tending to support them. Of course, it is reversible error to submit an issue having no support in the record. (citations). See also Collegiate Mfg. Co. v. McDowell's Agency, Inc., 200 N.W.2d 854 (Iowa 1972), and citations therein at p. 858. We have also said the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant submission of a pleaded issue to the jury is decided by giving the evidence the most favorable construction it will reasonably bear in favor of the party urging submission. Collegiate Mfg. Co. v. McDowell's Agency, Inc., supra, 858 of 200 N.W.2d; and Wroblewski v. Linn-Jones FS Services, Inc., 195 N.W. 2d 709, 711 (Iowa 1972).