Court Opinion

ID: 9678837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:33:47.667129+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:08.363534
License: Public Domain

UHLENHOPP, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I concur in all of the majority opinion except division II and the result. I would adopt the complicity rule as the majority does, but I would affirm the judgment.
To me, absent the element of driving while intoxicated this would be a negligence case, although a strong one. The added intoxicated driving permits an. award of punitive damages against Hyslop. Sebastian v. Wood, 246 Iowa 94, 106, 66 N.W.2d 841, 847 (1954). The intoxicated driving, however, does not permit an award of punitive damages against McLane without substantial evidence of complicity regarding the intoxicated driving in at least one of the respects stated in the Restatement, and such evidence does not appear. Substantial evidence of McLane’s complicity regarding Hyslop’s negligence does appear, but punitive damages are not awarded for negligence only. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 908 comment b (1977).
We see punitive damage awards in more and more cases; they are becoming commonplace rather than extraordinary. I view this trend with alarm. I think we should allow compensatory damages liberally to compensate prevailing claimants fully for their actual injuries, but we should restrict punitive damages to the truly extraordinary situations in which they are appropriate. Id. comment /. I agree with the District Judge that as to McLane, this is not a punitive damage case.
CARTER and WOLLE, JJ., concur in this partial concurrence and dissent.