Is anyone at fault when their property ends up on the highway?

Who’s to blame when a stray cow comes in the path of a moving vehicle? I’m sure that’s just what the family of the driver of a semi trailer is asking today. At about 2:15 a.m. on Tuesday October 20^th 2009 a still unidentified man hit a cow in the middle of Iowa Highway 14 between Chariton and Millerton. After the truck hit the cow it went into a ditch and then into a creek. Apparently the truck driver died. In rural Iowa this isn’t such a rare occurrence.

With cases like this one, lawyer-talk would refer to it as animal at-large case. For layman it’s a black cow standing on the highway. I know it makes no sense to most people but the law isn’t interested in the pop culture or hip talk or any talk that takes away from its history. The law is passed on down from generation to generation of lawyers, judges and some farmer legislators. We have to talk the same language and so it’s not something that can change with generations. Maybe that’s one reason why law school is difficult; we talk what must seem like a foreign language to most people. But that’s the nature of the law.

So this cow in the motorway is standing there and it causes an accident. The Iowa Supreme Court on November 13, 2009 published its opinion in Thompson vs. Kaczcinski and Lockwood, No. 08-0647 involving slightly different facts but resting on the same legal principles applicable in the news case under consideration. In its decision the Court agreed with the Iowa District Court a duty could not rest upon Iowa Code Section 318.3 but could rest upon the common law. Kaczcinski had to do with a disassembled trampoline that wasn’t secured to the ground and blew into the roadway causing an obstruction that resulted in Thompson swerving to avoid it, then rolling his car and suffering injury.

I find the Court’s narrow reading of the legislature’s intent behind 318.3 unsettling. Recent thinking of how the courts are to act when interpreting the law relegates the duties of the third branch to that of a scrivener. The judicial branch shouldn’t be mindless robots doing the bidding of the uneducated legislature. The judicial branch is supposed to be the branch of government with a heart, soul and mind where justice is more than just your day in court.

Most laypeople reading t his will scratch their heads wondering what the Court is talking about. Suffice to say they sent it back to Judge Goodhue in Madison County for trial on the common law negligence count. That means the Reverend Thompson gets his day in court for the jury to decide whether the owners were negligent in not tethering it down to the ground and then not acting quick enough after the storm to secure the trampoline from the highway.

The part of the decision most people would find quirky but right on the money are the inferences by concurrer Justice Cady mentioning patio furniture and things we have in our yards that might act similar with wind gusts. While I appreciate the thought it’s not likely a picnic table has the same sail-like qualities as does a large sheet trampoline.

To read Thompson vs. Kaczcinski and Lockwood, No. 08-0647 follow the link.