Court Opinion

ID: 9739158
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:09:49.195187+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:10.326878
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in all of the majority opinion except the conclusions expressed in Division X, from which I dissent.
We recognized in Hillrichs v. Avco Corp., 478 N.W.2d 70 (Iowa 1991):
[T]he enhanced injury doctrine [is] merely a correct application in a particular context of well-established elements of Iowa tort law that permit recovery of damages for injuries caused by the conduct of another that the law identifies as tortious. These principles mandate that *231an injured party’s right of recovery extend to all injury or degree of injury that would have been prevented through the tortfeasor’s exercise of the proper standard of care.
Id. at 75. Actions seeking recovery for injuries caused by another’s tort are triable in accordance with the comparative fault concepts embraced in Iowa Code chapter 668 if the theory of the tort involved constitutes fault as defined in Iowa Code section 668.1(1) (1991). The tort theories of strict liability and negligence involved in the present action fall within that definition. Iowa Code § 668.1(1).
In cases in which chapter 668 applies, the statutory requirement that fault is to be compared has reference to “fault resulting in death or in injury to person or property.” Iowa Code § 668.3(1). These statutes further provide that “[t]he legal requirements of cause in fact and proximate cause apply both to fault as the basis for liability and to contributory fault.” Iowa Code § 668.1(2). As a result of these statutes, the question of whether a claimant’s fault may be considered in enhanced injury litigation depends on whether that fault is a proximate cause of the injuries for which the claimant is seeking to recover.
The rules that determine the causal relationship between a claimant’s negligent conduct and the injury for which recovery is sought are the same as those that apply in determining the defendant’s liability. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 465(2) (1965). Conduct that, in natural and continuous sequence, unbroken by any efficient intervening cause, produces the result complained of and without which the result would not have occurred, is a proximate cause of the event. Nachazel v. Miraco Mfg., 432 N.W.2d 158, 160 (Iowa 1988); Cronk v. Iowa Power & Light Co., 258 Iowa 603, 613, 138 N.W.2d 843, 848 (1965).
Negligent conduct of an actor, which only increases the foreseeable risk of harm produced by another person’s negligence, is not an intervening cause unless it varies the risk in kind rather than degree. Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 442A, 442B (1965). The . situation presented in enhanced injury claims does not differ substantially from other situations in which the defendant’s fault is premised on a failure to protect other persons from the consequences of their own negligent acts. Consequently, there is no logical reason to use different rules for fault comparison in enhanced injury claims than would be used in claims involving negligent failure to warn or negligent failure to install safety devices.
Because under settled principles of proximate cause a claimant’s fault that produces an injury-producing occurrence will also be a proximate cause of the enhanced injuries sustained, the usual rules for fault comparison should apply to the enhanced injury portion of the claim. Our recognition of that proposition in Hillrichs, 478 N.W.2d at 76, should not be abandoned.
McGIVERIN, C.J., SCHULTZ and SNELL, JJ., join this concurrence in part and dissent in part.