Court Opinion

ID: 9717660
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:07:59.262206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:54.557588
License: Public Domain

UHLENHOPP, Justice
(dissenting).
This case has two unusual features which distinguish it from the ordinary one. First, Iowa law changed from contributory *513negligence to comparative negligence during the pendency of the case in district court, and second, the case does not simply involve a single plaintiff and a single defendant trying a single issue but has several parties and contains intertwined issues.
The jury found the parties were negligent as follows: Roger D. Tigges, seven percent; the owner, eight percent; and the contractor, eighty-five percent. The contractor’s percentage derives from its own negligence of twenty-eight percent plus Wayne W. Nathem’s negligence of fifty-seven percent which, so far as the owner is concerned, would be attributable to the contractor whether Wayne W. Nathem was an employee or partner of the contractor. The trial court held that the Tigges could not recover from the contractor because of the worker’s compensation law, and entered judgment in favor of the Tigges and against the owner for ninety-three percent of the damages (one-hundred percent less seven percent for the negligence of Roger D. Tigges).
Involved is the following indemnity clause between the contractor and the owner:
The Contractor shall indemnify and hold harmless the Owner, the Owner’s employees, the Engineer, and the Engineer’s employees from any and all liability, loss, cost, damage, and expense (including reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs) resulting from, arising out of, or incurred by reason of any claims, actions, or suits based upon or alleging bodily injury, including death, or property damage rising out of or resulting from the Contractor’s operations under this Contract, whether such operations be by himself or by any Subcontractor or by anyone directly or indirectly employed by either of them. The Contractor shall obtain insurance for this purpose, which shall insure the interests of the Owner and Engineer as the same may appear, and shall file with the Owner and Engineer certificates of such insurance.
Although the worker’s compensation law constitutes exclusive liability as between an employee and an employer, nearly all jurisdictions uphold an indemnity contract as between a third person and the employer. The decisions are collected in Annotation, 100 A.L.R.3d 350, 379-84 (1980) (25 jurisdictions uphold indemnity contracts, 1 jurisdiction, Alabama, does not uphold them). Iowa is with the majority. See Iowa Power & Light Co. v. Abild, 259 Iowa 314, 322, 144 N.W.2d 303, 308 (1966); Northern Natural Gas Co. v. Roth Packing Co., 323 F.2d 922 (8th Cir.1963) (applying Iowa law); Mayhew v. Iowa-Illinois Telephone Co., 279 F.Supp. 401 (S.D.Iowa 1967) (same).
Throughout the case the owner demanded indemnity of the contractor. It did so initially by its first cross petition on contract. The district court sustained a motion to dismiss that cross petition. The owner then filed a second cross petition for indemnity in tort.
The trial court refused indemnity. The owner thereupon made a timely post-judgment motion. The motion included the citation of Goetzman v. Wichern, 327 N.W.2d 742 (Iowa 1982); a request that the sustention of the motion to dismiss the first cross petition be vacated; and a demand for partial indemnity of eighty-five percent of the damages, that is, “indemnity for that portion of the damages directly attributable to the contractor’s negligence....” The trial court overruled the motion.
The owner then appealed from the court’s overruling its post-trial motion, from the judgment, from all rulings inhering therein, and from “the Order dismissing Third-Party Petition entered on April 1, 1982 [the sustention of the motion to dismiss the first cross petition].” I think the trial court should have granted partial indemnity on the basis of the indemnity contract and Goetzman.
I. As to the merits of the indemnity issue, the indemnity clause covers all “claims” against the owner arising out of “the Contractor’s operations under this contract....” Those claims against the owner by a third person would be based on some liability principle under tort law in effect at the time of the cave-in of the *514ditch. As to the owner’s conduct, that law changed retrospectively during the penden-cy of this case in district court.
At the time of the cave-in and at the time the district court sustained the motion to dismiss the first cross petition on April 1, 1982, the doctrine of contributory negligence was in full force for this case. Traditional contributory negligence was, of course,-an “all or nothing” doctrine. The rule in indemnity cases was that if an in-demnitee (the owner) was contributorily negligent it could not recover on an indemnity contract unless the contract expressly permitted recovery notwithstanding the in-demnitee’s own negligence. Evans v. Howard R. Green Co., 231 N.W.2d 907, 916 (Iowa 1975). I will assume for the purposes of this dissent that the instant indemnity contract does not expressly permit recovery notwithstanding the indemnitee’s own negligence, as the result I reach is the same as if the contract expressly so permitted recovery in view of the owner’s present prayer for only partial indemnity.
On December 22, 1982, however, we abandoned the contributory negligence doctrine and adopted comparative negligence based on “proportionate responsibility for fault.” Goetzman v. Wichern, 327 N.W.2d 742, 754 (Iowa 1982). We expressly made comparative negligence applicable to “all cases tried ... after the date of filing this opinion.” Id. at 754. Trial of the present case began January 25, 1983. The result is that comparative negligence applied to the case, and therefore also to the prior cave-in which is the subject of this case. The trial court did apply comparative negligence to the negligence issues in the case.
Prior to Goetzman, the indemnitee’s contributory negligence prevented recovery on an indemnity contract in the absence of an express clause permitting recovery. But contributory negligence has been supplanted by comparative negligence. I think, therefore, that a negligent indemnitee should not be denied recovery altogether when the contract does not expressly allow recovery notwithstanding the indemnitee’s negligence, but the recovery should be reduced by the amount of the indemnitee’s negligence, here, eight percent.
Such result is not in conflict with Rozevink v. Faris, 342 N.W.2d 845 (Iowa 1983). Unlike Rozevink, the indemnity controversy (1) is between the defendants, not between the injured person and the defendants, and (2) is based on a contract. The present case is also unlike Thompson v. Stearns Chemical Corp., 345 N.W.2d 131 (Iowa 1984). Like Rozevink, Thompson did not involve a contract. As the United States Supreme Court stated in United States v. Seckinger, 397 U.S. 203, 215-16, 90 S.Ct. 880, 887, 25 L.Ed.2d 224, 235 (1970):
A synthesis of all of the foregoing considerations leads to the conclusion that the most reasonable construction of the clause is the alternative suggestion of the Government, that is, that liability be premised on the basis of comparative negligence. In the first place, this interpretation is consistent with the plain language of the clause, for Seckinger will be required to indemnify the United States to the full extent that its negligence, if any, contributed to the injuries to the employee.
Secondly, the principle that indemnification for the indemnitee’s own negligence must be clearly and unequivocably indicated as the intention of the parties is preserved intact. In no event will Seck-inger be required to indemnify the United States to the extent that the injuries were attributable to the negligence, if any, of the United States. In short, Seckinger will be responsible for the damages caused by its negligence; similarly, responsibility will fall upon the United States to the extent that it was negligent.
See also Barron v. United States, 654 F.2d 644, 648-49 (9th Cir.1981); City and Borough of Juneau v. Alaska Electric Light & Power Co., 622 P.2d 954, 955 (Alaska 1981).
II. The contractor contends that in this case procedural obstacles prevent granting the owner reduced indemnity. The contrac*515tor urges that when the owner did not plead over within seven days after sustention of the motion to dismiss the first cross petition, the owner had to appeal within thirty days. Rule 86 of the rules of civil procedure states that on failure of a losing party to plead over within seven days from sustention of a motion, the ruling becomes a “final adjudication.” But this does not mean that the ruling is necessarily appeala-ble at that point, as this court explained in Lerdall Construction Co. Inc. v. City of Ossian, 318 N.W.2d 172 (Iowa 1982).
The claim for damages in the Tigges’ petition and the claim for indemnity in the owner’s first cross petition were intertwined. If the Tigges did not obtain judgment for damages on their petition against the owner, the owner would have no basis for indemnity. Thus an appeal from sus-tention of the motion to dismiss was not ripe or required until after final judgment for damages against the owner. The case is the opposite of such decisions as McGuire v. City of Cedar Rapids, 189 N.W.2d 592, 598 (Iowa 1971) (“the claimed basis of liability asserted against Cedar Rapids is not dependent on or intertwined with the claimed basis of liability asserted against Dory Builders”).
Preservation of error is not a problem here for two reasons. As it had a right to do, in this appeal the owner expressly appealed from the sustention of the motion to dismiss the first cross petition. The district court’s sustention of that motion may have been correct when made, but since Goetzman, and on this appeal, the ruling is incorrect and should be overturned. That the first cross petition asked full indemnity is not fatal. A party is not to be deniéd relief because it asked too much. Dugger v. Kelly, 168 Iowa 129, 150 N.W. 27 (1914); 61A Am.Jur.2d Pleading § 123, at 124 (1981) (“The fact that all the relief asked for cannot be granted does not deprive the court of jurisdiction to grant less relief than demanded.”); 71 C.J.S. Pleading § 95, at 237 (1951) (“if plaintiff is entitled to some relief under the facts which he has set forth he will be granted such relief, although he has prayed for relief to which he is not entitled, or has prayed for more or less relief than that to which he is entitled”). The owner also expressly appealed, as it has a right to do, from the trial court’s overruling its post-judgment motion to apply Goetzman and to grant partial indemnity. This motion should have been sustained in view of the change in the law to comparative negligence. The motion, was timely under Baty v. Binns, 354 N.W.2d 777 (Iowa 1984). The indemnity issue here was not determined by the jury, but by the trial court in the judgment. We stated in Baty: “Unlike a jury trial where the parties are apprised of the law of the case by means of the court’s proposed instructions and required to object at a prespribed time in order to preserve error, a party in a non-jury trial may challenge an erroneous conclusion of law embodied in a final decision after the decision is made.” Id. at 779. Although this motion asked the trial court to rule differently from the prior ruling on the motion to dismiss the first cross petition, the Goetzman decision had intervened. Moreover, the district court may change its position during the progress of a case and prior to appeal, so as to apply ’ the law correctly. State v. Wrage, 279 N.W.2d 4, 6 (Iowa 1979) (“The action of one judge, sitting as the court, may have the affect of altering or setting aside a previous ruling by another judge sitting as the same court.”); Avoca State Bank v. Merchants Mutual Bonding Co., 251 N.W.2d 533, 539 (Iowa 1977) (“except in adjudications under rule 105, district court rulings in a case ordinarily do not prevent that court, either through the same or another judge, from ruling otherwise in the later progress of the case”); Cowman v. LaVine, 234 N.W.2d 114, 124 (Iowa 1975).
I would affirm the dismissal of the Tigg-es’ petition as against Wayne W. Nathem, affirm the Tigges’ judgment against the owner, but reverse as to indemnity and direct the district court to enter judgment for the owner and against the contractor for (a) $85,000 plus interest thereon at ten *516percent per annum from June 27, 1979, until paid, and (b) the costs of the action.
McCORMICK and LARSON, JJ., join this dissent.