Court Opinion

ID: 9472605
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:05:27.686015+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:02.284941
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I am in agreement with the court’s opinion today that the district court did not err in excluding Officer Baudler’s opinion testimony. I respectfully dissent, however, with respect to its holding that Crestwell was negligent as a matter of law in parking his truck on the shoulder of the road.
The court’s opinion makes plain that we have a novel question that has not been decided by Iowa courts or for that matter by courts in any other jurisdiction. On doubtful questions of state law I would give great weight to the experienced district judge’s interpretation of the statute. Orlando v. Alamo, 646 F.2d 1288, 1290 (8th Cir.1981). The instruction fully in*607forms the jury on the meaning of emergency or dire necessity, and the definition includes exigency and pressing necessity. I cannot conclude that Crestwell’s culpability in passing an exit on the freeway and shortly thereafter determining that he was so sleepy that he should pull over to the side of the road is such a clear issue that it should be determined as a matter of law. Iowa courts have held that the nature and extent of an emergency is usually a question of fact to be passed on by the jury. Pinckney v. Watkinson, 254 Iowa 144, 116 N.W.2d 258, 262 (1962), quoted in McCoy v. Miller, 257 Iowa 1151, 136 N.W.2d 332, 337 (1965). Accordingly, I believe that the issue was properly submitted to the jury and that the court today errs in setting aside the verdict on a ground properly left for jury consideration.
There is another even more compelling reason for affirming the judgment. Instruction 12, while specifically submitting parking on a shoulder in violation of Iowa law as an issue for jury determination, contains two additional grounds of Crest-well’s negligence, failure to display a fusee or other warning device when parked on the shoulder and failure to immediately display flashing warning lights or other devices when parked on the shoulder. The instruction clearly stated that these latter issues had been conceded by defendants and told the jury to decide the contested issue and then proceed to the question of proximate cause.
In such circumstances, where the defendant concedes negligence in two respects, a verdict for this party can mean only that the jury determined that there was no proximate cause. The fact that one other issue could have been found to establish a third ground of negligence (and may actually have been so found, though the disposition is not apparent because a general verdict was returned) does not defeat the fact that the other two instances of negligence were conceded. The proximate cause instruction is based essentially on a submission of the sole cause of the accident and injuries, regardless of the ground of negligence, being that of the driver of the moving vehicle in which Gary Zimmer was riding. I can only conclude that the jury followed the instructions and determined that there was no proximate cause between any negligence, contested or admitted, of the defendants and the death of the passenger in the moving truck. If the district court erred in its instructions on parking on the shoulder of the highway in violation of Iowa law, such error, in view of the clear statement of admitted issues in Instruction 12, is harmless, and the judgment should be affirmed.