Court Opinion

ID: 9723608
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:23:01.754848+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:50.382826
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
Based on the facts presented concerning the cause of plaintiffs physical condition following the accident, the district court correctly instructed on both the eggshell-plaintiff doctrine and the rules for apportioning disability based on an aggravation of a prior physical condition. In Waits v. United Fire & Casualty Co., 572 N.W.2d 565, 578 (Iowa 1997), we recognized that, when there is evidence from which the jury could either accept or reject a claim for apportionment of an injury or disability between a recent traumatic event and a physical condition preceding that event, both the eggshell-plaintiff instruction and an aggravation instruction should be given by the court. That is the situation here.
Plaintiffs accident occurred in April 1998. Plaintiff reported to Dr. David Hart, who performed surgery on her, that she was continuing to experience pain in her right knee in January 1999. Dr. Hart testified:
Q. And you’ve told the jury it’s your feeling that the symptoms Ms. Sleeth has reported in her right knee were caused by the car accident of April 1, specifically that she had — may have had some preexisting arthritis in her knee, and that that may have been aggravated by bumping the dashboard in the accident? A. That’s correct.
Q. Okay. Now, when you told the jury you thought when — Ms. Sleeth bumped her knees on the dashboard in this accident, am I to understand this aggravation injury is sort of like she had some loose arthritic fragments — fragments of her tendons and ligaments, and they were somehow bumped or maybe broken loose? A. Yes.
Q. And so the range — the range of time when the first symptoms could appear would be, at the earliest, immediately, and at the latest, within a month or so? A. I would think so.
Q. All right. It would be unusual to have symptoms cropping up four or six months after the accident? A. Well, if they did, it’s probably unrelated to the— traumatic incident.
Q. You have explained to the jury your feelings about Ms. Sleeth’s preexisting arthritic condition, and the fact that it may have been aggravated in this car accident. You’ve also assigned an impairment rating for her left knee. I want to ask you about the impairment rating. Do you feel as if any portion of the impairment rating ought to be attributable to her preexisting arthritic condition, and a portion of it to any aggravation that may have happened in this accident? A. Well, I’ll tell you, that’s is a very, very difficult thing, and it’s — it’s just pure speculation on my part to apportion, you know, that. I mean, she had a significant preexisting condition that essentially would get her this impairment rating based on just *217her condition, whether or not she was in a car accident.
(Emphasis added.)
The opinion of the court mischaracter-izes the issue in terms of whether plaintiffs arthritic condition prior to the accident was symptomatic. The critical question to be asked is whether some or all of the condition for which plaintiff sought recovery for disability and pain and suffering would have existed from the arthritis even if no accident had occurred. Dr. Hart’s testimony was sufficient to permit the jury to find that it would have. In light of his testimony, it would have been error for the district court not to have given an aggravation instruction along with the eggshell-plaintiff instruction.
The fact that the medical experts who testified found it difficult to apportion a particular percentage of disability to the prior arthritic condition does not mean that the prior condition did not cause a portion of the posttraumatic condition for which damages are sought. It was equally difficult for these witnesses to state that the arthritis is not a cause of a portion of plaintiffs disability and pain and suffering after the accident, irrespective of the automobile accident. Their inability to resolve this factual issue in no way establishes that the issue does not exist. Because it did exist, it was a matter for the jury to resolve. The district court’s instructions were a proper statement of the law for purposes of guiding the jury’s resolution of the matter. I would affirm the judgment of the district court.