Court Opinion

ID: 9673338
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:10:20.061489+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:21.651958
License: Public Domain

WOLLE, Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I agree with all of the majority opinion which precedes Division VI, concurring in that part of the disposition of this case which affirms plaintiff’s judgment against defendant Westfield and dismisses defendant Guiter from the case. I also agree that defendant Van Zetten is entitled to a new trial of plaintiff’s claim against it because of error in the instructions submitted to the jury on that claim. I cannot agree, however, with this court’s conclusion that certain issues integral to that claim should be deemed established by the outcome of the first trial. I would simply remand this case for a new jury trial between the two remaining parties — plaintiff and defendant Van Zetten — without deciding any issues between them on the basis of the jury’s special verdicts in the flawed first trial.
I base my dissent in part on the principles and authorities cited in my dissent last month in Rinkleff v. Knox, 375 N.W.2d 262, 269 (Iowa 1985). I still believe we ordinarily should not accept part of a jury’s verdict in a comparative negligence case when a new trial is necessary, because the issues of negligence, proximate cause, percentage of causative negligence, and damages are tightly interwoven. I am not as confident as the majority that the instructional error in the first trial on a negligence issue did not impact the jury’s deliberations on other issues.
*404The majority accepts from the first trial the jury’s determination of the amount of plaintiff’s damages and also its allocation to plaintiff of 60 percent of the total causative negligence. Granted we do not know how the first jury arrived at its damage assessment and allocation of percentages of causative negligence among the four parties involved in that trial. How the jury arrived at its special verdicts is a matter which inheres in the special verdicts. Perhaps the errors in instructions, and error in submission of the case against defendant Guiter, had no effect on the jury’s special verdicts on plaintiff’s claim against Van Zetten which must be retried. I believe, however, that those errors probably made a real difference in the way the jury decided all issues. The jury’s determination of damages, as well as its allocation to plaintiff of 60 percent of the causative negligence, may have been significantly affected by its determination that Guiter was responsible for 10 percent.of the causative negligence. Part of Van Zetten’s 15 percent of causative negligence may have resulted from the erroneous instruction on negligence. Had the trial court directed a verdict for Guiter and instructed the jury correctly on the claimed negligence of Van Zetten, the jury might well have allocated to plaintiff not 60 percent of the causative negligence but an entirely different percentage, including part or all of Guiter’s 10 percent and Van Zetten’s 15 percent.
We have said partial retrials should be granted only “with caution.” Schmatt v. Arenz, 176 N.W.2d 771, 775 (Iowa 1970); Larimer v. Platte, 243 Iowa 1167, 1176, 53 N.W.2d 262, 267-68 (1952). One reason that makes sense to me is that not only the instructions on the law but also the evidence presented to the jury in a second trial will likely be considerably different than that presented in the first trial. When the majority locks in the plaintiff’s share of comparative negligence at 60 percent, it precludes defendant Van Zetten from having the jury in the second trial shift to plaintiff any of the 25 percent erroneously assessed to defendants Guiter and Van Zetten in the first trial. Van Zetten successfully challenged the special verdict assessing to it 15 percent of the total causative negligence. We ought not assume that the first jury would have arrived at the same percentage allocation of causative negligence attributable to the plaintiff, or the same damage amount, if correctly instructed on the law. Van Zet-ten should be allowed a new trial of all issues between these two parties, so the jury in a new trial can properly allocate the plaintiff’s share of total causative negligence and also arrive at an independent determination of the plaintiff’s damages based on correct instructions and the evidence the parties present in the second trial.
I am also troubled by the fact that we are one step removed from the trial of this action, and the trial court would be in a better position than we to determine in the first instance what issues, if any, need not be retried.
I would remand this case for a new jury trial of all issues involved in plaintiff’s claim against defendant Van Zetten, without giving conclusive effect to any part of the verdict of the first jury. Alternatively I would remand the case for a new trial with directions that the trial court determine in the first instance what issues should be retried and what issues, if any, should be deemed established by the special verdicts entered in the first trial.