Gayle Jeane Bartels, as Personal Representative of the Estate of John Mark Bartels, Deceased v. City of Williston

629 F.2d 509
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedAugust 11, 1980
Docket79-1941
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 629 F.2d 509 (Gayle Jeane Bartels, as Personal Representative of the Estate of John Mark Bartels, Deceased v. City of Williston) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gayle Jeane Bartels, as Personal Representative of the Estate of John Mark Bartels, Deceased v. City of Williston, 629 F.2d 509 (8th Cir. 1980).

Opinions

LARSON, Senior District Judge.

In this diversity action plaintiff Gayle Jeane Bartels1 appeals from an Order of the United States District Court, District of North Dakota,2 denying plaintiff’s motion for a new trial, which followed a jury verdict for the defendant City of Williston. At approximately 2:45 a. m. on the morning of March 11, 1977, John Mark Bartels (Bartels), plaintiff’s decedent, suffered serious and permanently crippling injuries when the four-wheel-drive jeep in which he was riding plummeted off a drop off in a gravel pit operated by the City of Williston and fell thirty-five feet to the floor of the pit. The City was found by a jury not to be liable for the injuries suffered by Bartels in the accident. Plaintiff-appellant claims that the district court erred in entering [511]*511judgment on what plaintiff claims to be an inconsistent jury verdict, in giving certain instructions to the jury, and in refusing to admit certain evidence at the trial. We affirm.

The gravel pit where the unfortunate accident occurred is located just outside of Williston, North Dakota. • The City has leased it from a private individual for several years and has been removing gravel from the pit since the Fall of 1975. During the period that the City has leased the gravel pit, and apparently before that time as well, the gravel pit had been used by private individuals for varying recreational purposes. Among those using the gravel pit were motorcyclists and drivers of other recreational vehicles such as the four-wheel-drive jeep involved in this action. Testimony at the trial indicated that the “trails” created by such recreational activities did change frequently and that abrupt ending of trails due to excavation of gravel by the City was not uncommon. The main entrance to the gravel pit was located on its western edge; two signs stating “Danger— Keep Out” were posted at this entrance by the City. Access to the gravel pit, however, was possible from virtually any spot on the southwest edge of the gravel pit, which lay along the northern boundary of the City.

Just before 2 a. m. on the morning of the accident Bartels and the owner of the jeep, Donald Hackney, were returning from the midnight shift at the oil rig at which they worked when they decided to go “four wheeling” at the gravel pit. The two had been drinking prior to arriving at the gravel pit and the evidence indicated that they were drinking while at the gravel pit as well. The accident occurred as Hackney attempted to drive to the floor of the gravel pit from the top of one of its many hills. According to Hackney’s testimony at the trial, as the jeep reached the top of this particular hill, it became hung up or “bottomed out” on a ledge. Rather than getting out of the jeep to check for the cause of the “bottoming out,” Hackney testified that he simply gave the jeep more gas. This action sent the jeep off of the precipice of the hill and down to the floor of the gravel pit. Although Hackney apparently did not suffer serious injuries, Bartels suffered crippling injuries that left him a quadriplegic.

At trial, the plaintiff claimed that the City was negligent in maintaining a dangerous artificial condition at the gravel pit that it knew or from the circumstances should have known would cause danger, death, or serious bodily harm to licensees or trespassers and maintained the premises under such circumstances that licensees or trespassers would not, by reasonable use of their own senses, discover the dangerous condition. Plaintiff also claimed that the City was negligent in failing to exercise reasonable care to warn licensees or trespassers of the condition of the property and of the risks involved in being upon the property and using the same. The jury found that the City had been negligent, but found that the negligence was not the proximate cause of Bartels’ injuries.

In this appeal, plaintiff suggests that the jury’s verdict was inconsistent, claiming the finding that the City was negligent is inconsistent with the finding that the negligence was not the proximate cause of the injury suffered by the complaining party. See, e. g., Born v. Osendorf, 329 F.2d 669 (8th Cir. 1964). The question of proximate cause is for the jury, see Brauer v. James J. Igoe & Sons Construction, Inc., 186 N.W.2d 459, 468 (N.D. 1971); in this case reasonably prudent people could reach different conclusions as to whether the City’s action either in maintaining the gravel pit or warning of any dangerous conditions in the gravel pit were the proximate cause of Bartels’ injuries. Under the circumstances of this case, we cannot say as a matter of law that the claimed negligence by the City was the proximate cause of the accident; viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant and to the verdict of the jury, the jury verdict must stand unless the district court committed an error of law.

In this regard, plaintiff claims that it was error for the district court to instruct the [512]*512jury on intervening-superseding cause. The instruction given was as follows:

If the negligence complained of created a condition which thereafter was acted upon by a subsequent, independent, and unforeseeable act which produces an injury, the original negligence is a remote and not a proximate cause of the injury, even if the injury would not have occurred without it.

If the district court’s instruction was improper under the circumstances of this case, then the plaintiff is entitled to a new trial.

In defining its law of negligence in 1972, the North Dakota Supreme Court stated:

To constitute actionable negligence, there must be a causal connection between the negligence and the injury sustained, and for the negligence to be the proximate cause of the injury, the defendant must owe to the plaintiff a duty, and the injury to the plaintiff must have resulted as a direct consequence of the negligent breach of that duty.

* %¡ * ♦ * *

Where the negligence complained of only creates a condition which thereafter is acted upon by a subsequent, independent, unforeseeable act, which produces an injury . . . the original negligence is remote and not the proximate cause, even if the injury never would have happened but for the original negligence.

Moum v. Maercklein, 201 N.W.2d 399, 402-OS (N.D. 1972).

While the issue of intervening-superseding cause is for the jury, see Brauer v. James J. Igoe & Sons Construction, Inc., 186 N.W.2d 459, 468 (N.D. 1971), the defendant must adduce sufficient evidence that the intervening cause is an extraordinary one rather than being one that might be normally expected by a reasonably prudent person in view of the situation existing at the time of its intervention before the defendant will be entitled to an intervening-superseding cause instruction. See State v. Columbus Hall Association, 75 N.D. 275, 284, 27 N.W.2d. 664, 668 (1947). We believe that such an instruction was justifiable in this case in light of the evidence submitted to the jury.

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629 F.2d 509, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gayle-jeane-bartels-as-personal-representative-of-the-estate-of-john-mark-ca8-1980.