Wenndt v. Latare

200 N.W.2d 862
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedSeptember 19, 1972
Docket54736
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 200 N.W.2d 862 (Wenndt v. Latare) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wenndt v. Latare, 200 N.W.2d 862 (iowa 1972).

Opinions

MASON, Justice.

Ezra Wenndt and his two sons Duane and Larry, owners of a purebred, registered Angus bull “H & K Bardoliermere 6,” instituted a law action for damages resulting from injury to their bull allegedly caused by the unlawful trespass of a bull belonging to defendant, Merlin Latare, a neighbor.

The trial court submitted plaintiffs’ case to the jury solely on the theory that they must establish defendant was negligent in failing to restrain his bull from running at large. Of course, the issues of proximate cause and damages were also submitted. The jury returned a defendant’s verdict.

Plaintiffs in their motion for new trial asserted that under the pleadings and evidence they were entitled to have their cause of action submitted to the jury both on a theory of negligence and on a theory of strict liability. The motion was overruled.

Plaintiffs appeal from judgment entered on the jury verdict, from the order' overruling their motion for new trial and from adverse rulings on objections to evidence.

On September 10, 1968, and all times material hereto, plaintiffs and defendant each kept stock cows and an Angus herd sire in adjoining west and east pastures, respectively, separated by a fence line running north and south. That day, however, plaintiffs discovered their bull panting and lathered up in a mud hole near their farm buildings. Simultaneously, plaintiffs also found defendant’s bull in their pasture and a hole in defendant’s half of the dividing fence. Defendant was summoned by telephone and together plaintiffs and defendant managed to return defendant’s bull to defendant’s pasture through the newly discovered opening in the fence.

Subsequent examination and treatment by plaintiffs’ veterinarian revealed plaintiffs’ bull suffered from a severely herniated scrotum. The testicles were badly damaged; all breeding services of the bull were lost. Plaintiffs’ bull was otherwise restored to health and sold for scrap to Wilson and Company.

Plaintiffs had alleged in paragraph 4 of their petition filed July 25, 1969 “that the defendant was negligent in failing to restrain his bull from running at large in violation of section 188.2 of the 1966 Code of Iowa.”

May 26, 1970, they amended their petition by adding to paragraph 4 the following: “That the defendant’s breeding bull came into and trespassed upon lands where plaintiffs’ bull and cows were maintained, which lands were lawfully fenced insofar as plaintiffs’ portion of the partition line [865]*865fence was concerned, in violation of section 188.3 of the Iowa Code.”

In paragraph 6 of their petition as amended they allege “that the aforesaid negligence of the defendant in failing to restrain his bull from running at large in violation of section 188.2 of the 1966 Code of Iowa and in the trespass of said bull upon the adjoining lands occupied by plaintiffs’ cows and bull in violation of section 188.3 of the 1966 Code of Iowa, was the proximate cause of plaintiffs’ damage in the sum of $9,873.86.”

The statutes referred to in plaintiffs’ petition as amended provide:

“188.2 Restraint of animals. All animals shall be restrained by the owners thereof from running at large.”
“188.3 Trespass on lawfully fenced land. Any animal trespassing upon land, fenced as provided by law, may be distrained by the owner of such land, and held for all damages done thereon by it, unless it escaped from adjoining land in consequence of the neglect of such landowner to maintain his part of a lawful partition fence.”

Evidence introduced at trial would warrant a jury in finding the following facts; The injury to the bull’s testicles was caused by severe trauma, not disease; the responsibility for maintenance of the fence was divided — plaintiff assumed the south forty rods and defendant, the north forty rods; the hole was in the northern half of the fence line, the defendant’s area of responsibility; the barbed wire in defendant’s fence was electrified and working at the time of the incident; the ground was torn up along both sides of the fence around the hole; and no one saw the bulls fight.

In seeking reversal plaintiffs assert the trial court erred: (1) in refusing to instruct the jury plaintiffs could recover on the theory of strict liability for the trespass of livestock; (2) in giving an instruction setting forth the law of statutory partition fences without direction for its application to the facts of the case; (3) in admitting over objection a photograph depicting defendant’s fence; (4) in admitting three photographs showing defendant’s fence in a repaired condition; and (5) in overruling plaintiffs’ motion for new trial based on accumulated errors.

Plaintiffs argue the assignments of error in three divisions. In the first division they argue those errors relating to the court’s refusal and omission to give their requested instructions concerning the theory of strict liability in livestock trespass or incorporate such theory in those instructions given.

I. Plaintiffs made no complaint or objection in any error assigned that the court had not correctly summarized the issue of negligence raised by their allegation defendant failed to restrain his bull from running at large in violation of section 188.2, The Code.

This statute first appeared in its present form as section 2980, The Code, 1924. It was derived from section 2312, The Code, 1897, which provided with reference to the restraint of male animals:

“The owner of any stallion, jack, bull, boar or buck shall restrain the same, and any person may take possession of any such animal running at large in the county in which such person resides, or in which he occupies or uses real estate, * *

The statute was thus changed to include all animals.

Section 188.3, The Code, 1966, the other statute referred to in plaintiffs’ amended petition, retained the substance of section 2313, The Code, 1897.

[866]*866This court has held in certain factual situations violation of section 188.2 is prima facie evidence of negligence and not negligence as a matter of law.

Hansen v. Kemmish, 201 Iowa 1008, 1015, 208 N.W. 277, 280, 45 A.L.R. 498, dealt with the claim of a motorist for injuries resulting from a collision with defendant’s boar running at large on the highway in violation of sections 2312 and 2313, The Code, 1897. Plaintiff contended defendant was required to restrain the boar at his peril. This court concluded that with respect to highway accidents the fact the animal was running at large on the highway constituted mere prima facie negligence, defendant having the right to show, if he could, that he exercised reasonable care in restraining the animal.

Ritchie v. Schaefer, 254 Iowa 1107, 120 N.W.2d 444, was an action for damages arising from a collision between plaintiffs’ car and some Angus cattle which had escaped from defendant’s cattle yard and strayed upon the public highway. Plaintiffs’ appeal following a defendant’s verdict raised one issue. The trial court instructed the jury presence of the cattle upon the highway in front of defendant’s farmhouse was prima facie evidence of negligence. Plaintiffs assert this was error and the court should have instructed the jury the straying of the cattle was negligence per se. The solution rested upon an interpretation of section 188.2, The Code.

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Wenndt v. Latare
200 N.W.2d 862 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1972)

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Bluebook (online)
200 N.W.2d 862, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wenndt-v-latare-iowa-1972.