Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, Klever Miranda and Nancy Campoverde, entered the U.S. without documentation. Klever received a notice of removal order and was represented by attorney Michael Said. Said advised Klever and Nancy to leave the country and then file a document called a Form I-601 waiver, which permits an applicant who is otherwise ineligible to be admitted into the U.S. based on extreme hardship to a qualifying relative. Said told Plaintiffs that once their son Cesar obtained citizenship, he would be a qualifying relative. However, once Plaintiffs left the country and filed the Form I-601, the applications were denied. Plaintiffs later learned that Cesar was not a qualifying relative. Plaintiffs and Cesar brought a legal malpractice action against Said, including a claim for emotional distress damages and punitive damages. The district court allowed only the claim for economic damages to be considered by the jury and found Said negligent. The court of appeals reversed, finding the claims for emotional distress and punitive damages should have been submitted to the jury. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court erred in concluding that emotional distress and punitive damages were not available to Plaintiffs. Remanded for a new trial. View "Miranda v. Said" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was the mother of a fourteen-year-old special education student, D.E. D.E. was raped by M.F., a nineteen-year-old special education student after the two students left school early. The sexual assault took place after school hours and off campus. Plaintiff sued D.E.'s school district (Kennedy) for damages, alleging Kennedy breached a duty of reasonable care. After a trial, the jury found Kennedy was negligent in failing adequately to supervise D.E. and awarded $500,000 in damages. The district court denied Kennedy's posttrial motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, concluding that Kennedy waived error on its claim that any failure to call the police was not a factual cause of D.E.'s injuries. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Kennedy failed to preserve error in the district court on the duty and factual causation issues raised on appeal; and (2) whether D.E.'s injuries were within Kennedy's scope of liability was an issue for the jury. View "Mitchell v. Cedar Rapids Cmty. Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

Douglas Moad was driving his truck within the course of his employment with Employer when his truck was struck by an oncoming vehicle. Douglas died from his injuries. Employer maintained workers' compensation services with Dakota Truck Underwriters (DTU), a South Dakota corporation with its principal place of business in South Dakota. Employer also maintained motorist liability coverage with Northland Insurance Company (Northland). Douglas and his wife Sharon maintained insurance coverage with Property and Casualty Insurance Company of Hartford (Hartford). Sharon filed a petition seeking damages from Northland and Hartford for uninsured motorist benefits. DTU filed a notice of subrogation lien, asserting that it was entitled to reimbursement from any proceeds obtained by Sharon as a result of the damages action. Sharon reached a settlement agreement with Northland and Hartford. The district court approved the settlement and granted Sharon's motion to extinguish DTU's lien, concluding that in the event DTU's untimely filing of notice of its lien did not bar its interest, Iowa law applied and barred DTU's recovery. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the district court utilized the wrong standard in resolving the conflict of laws question. View "Moad v. Dakota Truck Underwriters, Risk Admin. Servs., Inc." on Justia Law

A husband and wife applied for life insurance policies from Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company and later sued Farm Bureau for its alleged negligence in failing to notify them of their HIV-positive status. Farm Bureau settled the negligence claims, sued its insurers for indemnity, and sued its insurance broker for breach of contract and negligence in failing to provide timely notice to the insurers. The district court granted summary judgment (1) in favor of the insurers on the ground that Farm Bureau had failed to give them timely notice of the applicants' liability claims, and (2) in favor of the broker after concluding that even if the insurers had been given timely notice of the applicants' tort claims against Farm Bureau, coverage for those claims would have been precluded under two separate exclusions. In this appeal, Farm Bureau challenged the judgment in favor of the broker. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the underwriting exclusion would have precluded coverage for the applicants' claims even if the insurers had been timely notified under the policy's notice requirement. View "Farm Bureau Life Ins. Co. v. Holmes Murphy & Assocs., Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a wrongful discharge suit against the State. The State moved to dismiss the action for failure to exhaust administrative remedies as required by the Iowa Tort Claims Act (Act). The district court granted the motion, holding that the claim was a tort subject to the Act. After an unsuccessful appeal, Plaintiff filed her lawsuit in district court a second time. The district court held that Plaintiff failed to comply with the statute of limitations and dismissed the second lawsuit. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Plaintiff properly complied with the savings clause of the statute of limitations under the Act once the district court determined the Act provided the exclusive remedy for her claim. Remanded. View "Rivera v. Woodword Res. Ctr." on Justia Law

Plaintiff and Defendant were brother and sister. Defendant was a longtime resident of Maryland. Plaintiff allegedly lived in Iowa in 2003. After Plaintiff obtained employment in Iraq in 2003, he opened a checking account in Des Moines and provided Defendant with checks that could be used to draw on the account to provide for the needs of his children and to pay the bills. Instead of using the checks as agreed, Plaintiff claimed Defendant used the checks to withdraw funds for her personal use. Plaintiff filed a lawsuit against Defendant in Iowa district court for breach of contract, conversion, bad faith, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty. The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction over Defendant, finding that sufficient minimum contacts were lacking. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that Defendant was subject to personal jurisdiction in Iowa under the Calder v. Jones foreseeable effects test based on the claim of an intentional tort in Iowa. Remanded. View "Shams v. Hassan" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued Defendant, a bar, for injuries sustained when he was assaulted in the bar's parking lot. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the bar, finding as a matter of law that the assault in the parking lot and Plaintiff's resulting injury were not foreseeable to the bar. The court of appeals reversed, holding that Defendant owed Plaintiff a duty and that Plaintiff had raised questions of fact as to foreseeability related to the issues of breach of duty and scope of liability. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the district court erred in concluding that Defendant, as a matter of law, could not have breached its duty of reasonable care; (2) a reasonable fact finder could conclude that Plaintiff's harm was within the appropriate scope of liability for Defendant; and (3) genuine issues of material fact remained regarding each element of Plaintiff's negligence claim, and summary judgment was therefore inappropriate. Remanded. View "Hoyt v. Gutterz Bowl & Lounge LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was involved in an automobile accident with Defendants. After seeking a settlement with Defendants' insurance company, Plaintiff commenced an action against Defendants. Plaintiff, however, failed to negotiate an enforceable agreement with Defendants' insurance representative to delay service and took no action to institute service of process of a lawsuit on Defendant within the required time period. The district court held good cause existed to excuse the untimely service of process and denied Defendants' motion to dismiss. The court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the district court did not commit legal error by concluding good cause existed for the failure to accomplish timely service of process. View "Rucker v. Taylor" on Justia Law

Plaintiff brought suit against Defendants, residential landlords, after Plaintiff slipped and fell on the premises while visiting her son, who leased an apartment from Defendants. After a jury trial, the trial court ruled in favor of Defendants. The court of appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial, concluding that the district court erred in excluding Plaintiff's proposed instructions informing the jury of a landlord's obligations under the lease agreement and under Iowa Code 562A.15(1)(a)-(d). The Supreme Court vacated the decision of the court of appeals and affirmed the district court's ruling, holding that the legal concepts contained in Plaintiff's requested instructions were adequately embodied in other instructions given by the district court. View "Crawford v. Yotty" on Justia Law

While accompanying students on a field trip to a dairy farm, a chaperone (Plaintiff) was injured when she fell through a hole in the floor of a hayloft. Plaintiff filed a negligence suit against the dairy farm's owners (Defendants). The district court granted summary judgment for Defendants, concluding that Iowa's recreational use statute barred Plaintiff's claims. The court of appeals agreed that Defendants' property was covered by the recreational use statute, that Plaintiff was engaged in a recreational purpose, and that Defendants had not willfully or maliciously failed to guard or warn against a dangerous condition, but the court found that Plaintiff could still maintain a suit against Defendants as tour guides. The Supreme Court vacated the decision of the court of appeals, reversed the judgment of the district court, and remanded, holding (1) recreational use immunity did not extend to Defendants because Plaintiff was not engaged in a recreational purpose within the scope of the statute; but (2) Plaintiff had not raised a material issue of triable fact as to whether Defendants willfully or maliciously failed to guard or warn against the presence of the hole. View "Sallee v. Stewart" on Justia Law