Court Opinion

ID: 9734885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:49:35.055014+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:51.117442
License: Public Domain

STREIT, Justice
(specially concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur to the extent that I believe this rescuer deserves his day in court. The mere fact Clinkscales approached an open and obvious danger is not an absolute bar to recovery; rescue clearly presupposes danger or the appearance thereof. Cf. Johannsen, 232 Iowa at 811-12, 5 N.W.2d at 24. I respectfully dissent, however, because I believe the majority wrongly permits Clinkscales to pursue a res-ipsa-loqui-tur theory. In doing so, the majority stretches that venerable doctrine far beyond its proper boundaries.
As the majority correctly points out, in Iowa res ipsa loquitur applies if
(1) the injury is caused by an instrumentality under the exclusive control of the defendant, and (2) the occurrence is such that in the ordinary course of things would not happen if reasonable care had been used.
Novak, 622 N.W.2d at 498. Because Clinkscales has not presented any evidence of either element, I would affirm the district court and court of appeals on this issue.

No Exclusive Control

It is conceded The Gallery had exclusive control of the grill at the time of the accident. On the facts of this case, however, this is insufficient in itself to warrant a res ipsa-loquitur instruction. Exclusive control must be shown at the time of the alleged negligence, which is not necessarily the time of injury. See Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Thermogas Co., 620 N.W.2d 819, 832 (Iowa 2000); Oak Leaf Country Club, Inc. v. Wilson, 257 N.W.2d 739, 744 (Iowa 1977); Palleson, 219 N.W.2d at 13; Breeding v. Reed, 253 Iowa 129, 137, 110 N.W.2d 552, 557 (1961); see also Mobil Chem. Co. v. Bell, 517 S.W.2d 245, 251 (Tex.1974); McGuire v. Stein’s Gift & Garden Ctr., Inc., 178 Wis.2d 379, 504 N.W.2d 385, 391 (Ct.App.1993). As we recently stated,
The plaintiff need only show that the defendant controlled the instrumentality at the time of the alleged negligent act.... The “exclusive control” requirement is simply another way of saying that the injury must be traced to a specific instrumentality or cause for which the defendant was responsi*849ble.... Where causes for the injury other than a defendant’s negligence are equally probable, there must be evidence which will permit the jury to eliminate them. This means, for example, that a plaintiff injured by the explosion of a beer bottle purchased from a retailer will be required to make some sufficient showing that the bottle was not cracked by mishandling after it left the defendant’s plant.
Weyerhaeuser, 620 N.W.2d at 832 (citations, internal quotations, and emphasis omitted).
The record before us shows, in undisputed fashion, that several parties other than the defendants played a role that gave rise to the state of the grill as it malfunctioned on the date of Clinkscales’s injuries. The defendants special ordered the grill from two local men, who built it from standard parts. After the defendants purchased the grill, they regularly had the propane tanks switched out at a local filing station. This filling station also periodically replaced the devices that connected the tanks to the hoses that led to the grill, because the connections on the tanks themselves would change from time to time. Any of these parties, as well as any of the manufacturers of any of the parts they built, used, or serviced, could have performed a negligent act leading to Clinkseales’s injuries. The same could be said for the patron extinguishing the fire. Without proving the cause of the fire, Clinkscales has presented no evidence that would permit a jury to eliminate any of these equally potentially negligent parties. Therefore res ipsa lo-quitur is inapplicable, and the district court and court of appeals were correct to strike this theory from Clinkscales’s pleadings.1

Grease Fires Happen

Nor has Clinkscales shown the grease fire was such that in the ordinary course of things it would not have happened if reasonable care had been used. As the district court and court of appeals both pointed out, grease fires commonly occur in the absence of negligence.
The classic English case of Byrne v. Boodle, 159 Eng. Rep. 299 (Ex. 1863), perhaps best illustrates the sorts of cases in which res ipsa loquitur properly applies, and how it works. In Byrne, a barrel of flour fell on the plaintiff, who was walking next to the defendant’s shop. 159 Eng. Rep. at 299. Although one could readily infer the barrel came from the defendant’s shop, the plaintiff could not show precisely how the defendant was negligent. Id. Nonetheless, the court thought the accident “spoke for itself’ and therefore held *850the defendant was negligent, albeit in some unspecified way. Id. at 301.
The case at bar is manifestly unlike Byrne. Grease fires — unlike barrels of flour falling from the sky — occur in the absence of negligence. Put simply, res ipsa loquitur should not apply here because this is not the sort of case for which the doctrine was designed. In holding to the contrary, the majority stretches res ipsa loquitur beyond its proper scope.
TERNUS and CADY, JJ., join this special concurrence in part and dissent part.

. As a related matter, it should be remembered that res ipsa loquitur is not applicable simply because Clinkscales may not be able to show which specific acts of negligence caused his injuries. As one noted commentator has pointed out,
res ipsa loquitur is sometimes invoked needlessly and inappropriately. If the trier can infer that the defendant was probably guilty of one of several specific acts of negligence but cannot be sure which act it was, res ipsa [loquitur] is not properly involved. ... Although the jury might not be sure which of these negligent [acts] occurred, if it can conclude that one of them did, then the case is merely one of ordinary circumstantial evidence.... When courts speak of res ipsa loquitur in cases like this perhaps no harm is done, but they risk confusing the process of inferring specific negligent acts with the process of estimating the probability of unknown acts of negligence.
1 Dan B. Dobbs, The Law of Torts § 154, at 372-73 (2001) (footnote omitted). While Clinkscales has presented a number of independent theories as to how the defendants were negligent and should be permitted to make his case to the jury on each, res ipsa loquitur is not available simply because there is uncertainty at this stage in the proceedings about which particular theory may win the day. The majority's decision falls into precisely this trap.