Court Opinion

ID: 9722759
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:49:12.079882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:39.745189
License: Public Domain

STUART, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent. I do not believe the evidence here is sufficient to raise a jury question as to defendant’s negligence which was a proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury. In any event, defendant was entitled to an instruction on assumption of risk.
I. Instruction No. 6 is a detailed instruction defining defendant’s duties to plaintiff. Included therein is a statement of the law based on our holding in Hanson v. Town & Country Shopping Center, Inc., 259 Iowa 542, 546-552, 144 N.W.2d 870, 873-876, to the effect that: “The defendant was also required to protect the invitees against dangers which, although being open and obvious, were of such nature that the defendant should have known that the invitee would have no reason to anticipate it, appreciate the hazard created by the condition or guard against it.”
In Hanson the majority felt the facts were sufficient to raise a jury question in this regard. There, the ice and snow was a strip four or five feet wide and about 150 feet long next to the curb. Plaintiff had her hands full of packages. There were no marked crosswalks and she had to thread her way between parked automobiles. She fell on the ice while doing so. It was almost dark and plaintiff attributed “her failure to see and recognize the dangerous condition to inadequate light”.
There are no such facts here. Defendant had piled snow about three feet high in the vicinity of pole 19. The melting snow had created an icy spot about 12 to 14 feet in diameter. Plaintiff did not remember seeing other ice or snow in the parking lot that day. At the time of the accident it was cloudy but daylight. No cars were parked in the area.
As plaintiff and his wife were returning to their car from the shopping center, he noticed three women “in trouble” about 25 to 30 feet away. One woman had fallen. He handed the packages he was carrying to his wife and went out of his way to render assistance. As he was approaching, a second woman fell trying to help the first one up. The third lady was trying to help the other two. His testi*288mony is not consistent as to when he first realized they had fallen on ice, but viewing the evidence most favorably to plaintiff, he knew it was ice before he stepped on it.
In Chevraux v. Nahas, Iowa, 150 N.W.2d 78, 81, we said: “ * * *, if an existing condition on the property of an inviter is obvious, that is if both the condition and attendant risk are open, visible and apparent and would be recognized by a reasonable person in the position of an invitee, then the former would not be liable to the latter for physical harm caused him by the condition of the visited premises.”
There is no claim the icy patch was not obvious. Common experience has taught us all that icy surfaces are dangerous. In my opinion the jury could not properly find defendant should have known invitee “would have no reason to anticipate danger or appreciate the hazard created” by the icy patch. Plaintiff knew it was ice before he was on it and, having seen two women fall, he must have anticipated the danger and appreciated the hazard from these known facts. Therefore, such claimed negligence could not have been the proximate cause of plaintiff’s injury. I do not believe these facts are comparable to those in Hanson and find insufficient evidence to submit the case to the jury on the theory of liability based on the care of an ordinary reasonable prudent person under these circumstances.
As a matter of social philosophy, I am not opposed to placing a higher degree of care on those who construct private parking lots as an inducement for the public to trade in adjoining stores. It might well be a proper cost of doing business in this manner. However, I do not care to reach this result by stretching our concept of the care of the ordinary reasonable prudent man. It borders on hypocrisy to allow a jury to find fault under the usual instructions. We expect the jury to invoke a social philosophy which we have failed to announce. It is not fair to plaintiffs or juries. Parties are entitled to have their case decided on the facts under the law set out in the instructions. One plaintiff should not be denied recovery because a jury reads and conscientiously applies the law to the facts and another plaintiff with the same facts awarded damages because the jury believes the loss should be spread by insurance. This disparity in result occurs frequently when cases like the instant one are submitted to a jury.
II. The trial court refused to submit the defense of assumption of risk to the jury. Under the authorities cited in the majority opinion, I believe it should have been submitted. A person assumes the risk of his conduct when he voluntarily assumes a danger with full knowledge thereof. There was such evidence here.
The following sentences are taken from the next to last paragraph of division VI of the majority opinion: “In the case now before us the undisputed evidence discloses plaintiff was not aware of the existing risk or hazard until that moment when it was encountered.” This position is not supported by the record. On direct examination plaintiff testified: “As we were walking, I noticed some women on the ice and I proceeded over to help them out.” The jury could have found plaintiff knew the ladies were on ice when he was 25-30 feet away and could not find he did not know of the ice until he was on it. There was no claim he was unable to stop. The jury could have found he knew of the danger and voluntarily went to the aid of the women.
“Neither can it be said he had an available alternate safer means by which to effectively carry out his rescue mission, time to deliberate upon the problem presented and effect a calculated choice, or that the danger posed was out of proportion to its intended purpose.” I do not believe it proper to reach this conclusion as a matter of law. The jury might well have found the danger was not so great that plaintiff was called upon jto act in great haste and that he could have taken other effective measures which were safer than his chosen action.
*289I believe the defendant was entitled to have the jury advised of the law on the assumption of risk, particularly in view of the fact that plaintiff was given the benefit of an instruction on rescue.
III. I also seriously question the propriety of the rescue instruction under these facts. I do not believe they presented the “imminent danger” to persons and property contemplated by the rescue doctrine. The cited cases are not factually similar and involve much more urgent situations than thjat presented here. However, defendant dijh not take exception to the rescue instruction and it is the law of case. I believe we should ’make it clear we are not deciding whether these facts called for the rescue instruction.
LARSON and SNELL, JJ., join in this dissent.