Court Opinion

ID: 9858550
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:27:47.579892+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:45.360481
License: Public Domain

STUART, Justice
(dissenting).
I agree this case is controlled by Chris-chilles v. Griswold, Iowa, ISO N.W.2d 94, 101, but take issue with the majority here for the reasons expressed in the dissent.
The majority’s position is based on the premise that defendant’s consent to jurisdiction must be implied from some negligent act on his part and that jurisdiction cannot be obtained under a statute enacted after the negligent acts had occurred. This would have been true when the Supreme Court of the United States held the fiction of consent necessary to confer jurisdiction. In McGee v. International Life Ins. Co., 335 U.S. 220, 224, 78 S.Ct. 199, 201-202, 2 L.Ed.2d 223, the U. S. Supreme Court abandoned the contract theory. Consent may be raised by statutory enactment and need not be implied in fact to make it constitutionally acceptable.
In section 617.3 the legislature provided consent was implied from the commission of a tort in whole or in part in Iowa. The resulting injury is part of the tort. Andersen v. National Presto Industries, Inc., 257 Iowa 911, 916, 135 N.W.2d 639, 642. As that part of the tort took place after the effective date of the statute there is no question of retrospective application. Nothing in the statute makes the consent dependent upon the negligent act as distinguished from the resulting injury.
Support for this position is found in Aftanase v. Economy Baler Company, 343 F.2d 187, in which the Court of Appeals of the Eighth Circuit considered a Minnesota statute similar to ours. The court said:
“ * * * the baler was sold by Economy to Eastern in 1953. The statute was born in 1957. The plaintiff’s injury was in 1962. * * * Economy’s negligence, if there was any, existed at the time of manufacture and sale in 1953. But any effect of that negligence upon the plaintiff took place in 1962. Certainly it was then, not before, that his cause of action accrued. And at that time the statute was in existence. This is not retroactive application. It is prospective application, is within the language of the statute, and invokes no problem of retroactivity.”
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Iowa reached the same result under Iowa law in Pingel v. Coleman Company, 250 F.Supp. 521, 523. There a trailer was purchased in 1959. Section 617.3 became effective in 1961 and an explosion, fire and resulting deaths occurred in 1963. Judge Hanson quoted *114from Aftanase v. Economy Baler Company and concluded: “The statute applies if it is in effect at the time of the accident. * * *
“The court concludes that Section 617.3 is applicable to the present case and this construction does not require any invalid retroactive application of the statute. Clearly, the tort, if any, was committed in part in Iowa.”
The majority opinion unnecessarily imposes upon plaintiff the heavy burden of proving some affirmative act by defendant after the effective date of the act. In my opinion such burden was neither contemplated by the legislature nor required by the statute.