Court Opinion

ID: 9697318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:13:22.197621+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:31.547128
License: Public Domain

CADY, Judge
(specially concurring).
I concur with the majority opinion in its entirety and write separately only to express my belief that instruction fourteen also imposed an extraneous duty of care which the defendant did not have toward plaintiff. This extraneous duty of care resulted in prejudice to defendant.
Actionable negligence must be based upon a duty to prevent injury to the person injured or the class of persons of which the injured person was a member. Sankey v. Richenberger, 456 N.W.2d 206, 208-09 (Iowa 1990). Thus, the failure to perform a duty does not constitute actionable negligence unless it results in injury to one for whose protection the duty was imposed. 57A Am. Jur.2d Negligence § 101 (1989).
In this case, I find nothing to suggest defendant’s duty to provide hard hats for its employees was imposed to protect motorists or any other persons like plaintiff. I believe the duty was imposed to protect the worker. Moreover, I can find no justification for extending the duty to protect motorists. Certainly, our appellate courts have never established such a duty. Moreover, it would be extremely unlikely that the safety of motorists would be meaningfully affected by the imposition of such a duty. I would hold plaintiff was not within the orbit of duty imposed on the defendant to provide hard hats, and the trial court erred in including such a duty in its charging instruction.
SACKETT, C.J., joins this special concurrence.