Opinion ID: 4539291
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Underlying Lawsuit.

Text: 1. The parties. The plaintiffs alleged that Stephen Booher was a seasonal employee at Adventureland who had been recently employed as 3 a loading assistant on the Raging River ride. This is a water ride where the passengers are in rafts on conveyor belts that proceed along an ersatz river. Plaintiffs alleged that defendant Stuart Glen was an employee of Adventureland who served as ride operator of the Raging River on the date of the incident. 2. Nature of the incident. On June 7, 2016, Booher allegedly suffered fatal injuries when he and another coworker were jerked off their feet and fell onto the moving belt that created the ride action. Booher was drawn into the vortex between one of the rafts and a concrete sidewall. Booher’s head was repeatedly rammed into the sidewall until the ride operator, defendant Stuart Glen, finally stopped the ride. Booher ultimately died of his injuries four days later on June 11. 3. Alleged acts and omissions of Glen. Plaintiffs claimed that the gross negligence of Glen, the ride operator, was a proximate cause of the death of Booher and the damages to his estate and spouse. The plaintiffs alleged fifteen acts in support of its claim that Glen was grossly negligent. Some of the allegations include Glen’s acts and omissions that allegedly occurred before the ride started: failure to check the ride before starting it, failure to assure himself that the ride assistants were not standing on any boat prior to starting the ride, and starting the ride without first obtaining the thumbs up signal from the loading assistants as required by prominently displayed instructions on the ride control board located directly in front of the ride operator. The plaintiffs also claimed that Glen admitted that he caused the assistant to topple onto the ride’s exposed conveyor belts. Other allegations appear to focus on acts and omissions that occurred after the ride was started: failure to watch the ride for the entirety of its operation; failure to stop the ride once he became aware of the 4 incident due to his reckless, unexpected, wanton, and premature ride start; leaving the operator’s station within the clear visual range of the fallen loading assistants without shutting down the ride; failure to engage the oversized red “E-Stop Aux” knob located immediately in front of him after he became aware that the loading assistants were down and the ride was still running; failure to key the ride to the off position after becoming aware that the loading assistants had been jerked off their feet due to the premature start of the ride; failure to stop the ride and leaving his station, although he could easily observe that Booher had been knocked down and his head and body were brought into continuous contact with that sidewall; stopping the ride only after several ride patrons repeatedly yelled at him to “stop the ride”; and failure to consider Booher’s injury, once he was knocked down, as serious. Finally, several allegations do not have an explicit temporal component. For example, the petition claimed Glen’s gross negligence arose from his failure to be on guard and his failure to understand his role in responding to the incident. 4. Damages. Booher’s estate and his surviving spouse sought six categories of damages. Specifically, they sought to recover damages arising from loss of future earning capacity; physical and mental pain and suffering; loss of spousal consortium, both before and after Booher’s death; loss of parental consortium for Booher’s children; Booher’s reasonable burial expense; and punitive damages. 5. Removal of underlying tort action. The defendants in the underlying tort action removed the case to federal court on grounds of complete diversity. T.H.E. then filed a state court declaratory judgment action against the plaintiffs. The federal court stayed proceedings pending resolution of the state court declaratory action. 5 B. State Court Declaratory Action. In the state court declaratory action, T.H.E. alleged that Adventure Lands, Inc. was its named insured under a Comprehensive General Liability (CGL) policy and commercial excess liability policy. T.H.E. alleged that a gross negligence claim, like that alleged by the plaintiffs, was inconsistent with the definitions of “accident” and “expected” in the CGL policy and fall outside the scope of coverage. The Booher plaintiffs responded by denying the allegations of T.H.E. in the declaratory action, alleging affirmative defenses, and filing a declaratory action of their own, asserting that T.H.E. had a duty to defend and indemnify Adventureland against the Boohers’ claims under T.H.E.’s CGL policy and under its excess coverage policy. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The district court originally entered an order denying both motions. It reasoned that whether there is coverage under the applicable insurance policies presented genuine issues of material fact precluding summary judgment. T.H.E. filed a motion to reconsider. T.H.E. argued that determining whether there is a duty to defend under insurance policies does not require resolution of underlying facts but instead raises a question of law based on the pleadings. According to T.H.E., the issue to be resolved was whether a claim of gross negligence is inconsistent with the coverage provisions of the applicable policy. The Booher plaintiffs agreed, asserting that the motion and cross-motions in the state declaratory judgment actions raised a question of law. The district court reconsidered its prior order and granted T.H.E.’s motion for summary judgment. In the new summary judgment order, the district court vacated its prior order, granted T.H.E.’s motion for summary judgment, and denied summary judgment to the Booher plaintiffs. 6 The district court first examined the nature of the Booher plaintiffs’ claim. The district court noted that under Iowa Code section 85.20(2) (2015), the Booher plaintiffs do not have a claim against a coemployee for ordinary negligence but only for “gross negligence amounting to such lack of care as to amount to wanton neglect for the safety of another.” In this case, according to the district court, the Boohers’ claim of gross negligence arose from Glen’s conduct after Stephen Booher fell into the ride. At that point, according to the district court, Glen, knowing Stephen had fallen into the ride, left his station and failed to key the ride off until several ride patrons repeatedly yelled at him to stop the ride. According to the district court, the Boohers allege that Glen’s conduct ripened into gross negligence because his failure to stop the ride after Stephen had fallen into it “was the result of conscious indifference to the rights, welfare and safety of [Stephen].” The district court characterized the Boohers as claiming that once Stephen had fallen into the ride, Glen had a duty to prevent further injury to Stephen. The district court then proceeded to consider whether the Boohers’ gross negligence claim was arguably or potentially covered under the applicable policies. The district court reasoned that the Boohers’ claim of gross negligence was not covered under the CGL policy. The district court noted that under the CGL policy, “bodily injury” must arise from an “occurrence.” Under the CGL policy, an “occurrence” is “an accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same general harmful conditions.” Applying caselaw, the district court reasoned, an “accident” is an “unexpected and unintended ‘occurrence.’ ” But the injuries that occurred after Glen realized he had fallen in were not unexpected and unintended but were the natural and expected result of Glen’s conscious action in not stopping the ride. As a result, there was no 7 coverage under the CGL policy because the Boohers’ gross negligence claim was not an “accident” and therefore not an “occurrence” under the policy. Using similar reasoning, the district court also held that there was no coverage of the Boohers’ claim under an exclusion in the policy that provided that injury that is expected or intended from the standpoint of the insured is excluded from coverage. The district court considered whether the Boohers’ claim for consequential damages such as loss of consortium, lost earning capacity, medical expenses, and punitive damages were covered under the policy. The district court found no coverage. Although the CGL policy covered damages for “care, loss of services, or death,” the district court reasoned that such damages in this case were not covered because there was no “accident” or “occurrence” under the policy.