Court Opinion

ID: 9852268
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:27:32.223979+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:24.857088
License: Public Domain

HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent because I think a jury case was presented on the issue of gross negligence. The question is not whether we privately think the multiple acts of negligence shown amount to gross negligence. The question is whether there was sufficient evidence to form a legal basis to support the jury’s conclusion that there was.
A sometimes blurred line separates cases of combined acts of ordinary negligence and gross negligence, which the statute defines as “such lack of care as to amount to wanton neglect of the safety of another.” Iowa Code § 85.20 (1989). See Swanson v. McGraw, 447 N.W.2d 541 (Iowa 1989). I think the jury could find that line was crossed here. Most of the defendants served on the plant safety committee. Yet they allowed this worker, in her third day on an exceedingly dangerous job, to face an impossible dilemma. According to the machine’s manufacturer, it was dangerous for her to wear gloves. According to the temperature in the work place, it was dangerous for her not to. The company therefore provided the gloves which, according to the jury verdict, we can assume caused her hand to be snatched into the machine.
Defendants also knew the machine became repeatedly dull, in fact was to be resharpened shortly after the accident. When dull it invited more danger because it was less effective and the worker had to press harder on the meat pieces. Yet the defendants allowed the machine to be operated by the plaintiff after a foot operated shut-off switch was removed. The jury could believe the shut-off switch could have avoided or greatly minimized plaintiff’s injuries.
This was an accident which was almost bound to happen. Chances of injury to someone approached mathematical certainty. I do not share the majority’s belief that the relative infrequency of certain injury rendered the negligence ordinary rather than gross.
I would affirm.
LAVORATO and SNELL, JJ., join this dissent.