FINCH V. SCHNEIDER SPECIALIZED CARRIERS, INC. and TRAVELERS PROPERTY CASUALTY: Gary Finch was denied workers’ compensation benefits by the industrial commissioner on the ground he was not an employee. The primary issue was whether Finch was an employee or an independent contractor. The industrial commissioner, after discussing the evidence presented to the deputy, concluded that Finch established a prima facie case that he was an employee. However, the commissioner found that Schneider proved that Finch was an independent contractor within the definition provided in section 85.61(13)(c). The commissioner based that finding largely on the basis of the agreement signed by Schneider and Finch entitled “Independent Contractor Operating Agreement” (ICOA). Both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court "liberally and broadly construe[d] the findings to uphold his decision." But the Supreme Court granted further review primarily to discuss the court of appeals’ order for remand based on Iowa Code section 17A.19(10)(h), which provides that a court "shall reverse, modify, or grant other appropriate relief from agency action . . . [if the action]: h. . . . is inconsistent with the agency’s prior practice or precedents, unless the agency has justified that inconsistency by stating credible reasons sufficient to indicate a fair and rational basis for the inconsistency." The Court held that paragraph (h) does not establish an independent requirement that the commissioner identify other agency rulings and explain possible inconsistencies between those rulings and the agency’s decision in a case not reviewable under an abuse-of-discretion standard, and it was therefore not necessary or appropriate to remand this case to the commissioner for an explanation of a possible inconsistency between the commissioner’s ruling in this case and prior cases decided by the commissioner.
ESTATE OF PEARSON V. INTERSTATE POWER AND LIGHT COMPANY: The Pearsons had died following a natural gas explosion caused by a faulty piece of brass tubing, known as a cobra connector, connecting the natural gas line to a stove in the basement of their home. The plaintiff's expert testified the synergistic effect of sulfur in the gas and sulfur in the ethyl mercaptan caused a chemical reaction to occur in the phosphorous brazing alloy of the cobra connector which led the brazed joint to corrode and deteriorate. The resulting corrosion and deterioration led to a catastrophic failure of the connector in the Pearson residence and allowed gas to accumulate in the basement. The water heater’s pilot light ignited the accumulation of gas causing the explosion and fire. The plaintiffs alleged that the gas company had a common-law duty to warn its customers of the dangers inherent with using its gas. The defendants argued there was no such duty, and if it existed, the filed-tariff doctrine shielded it from liability. Defendants also challenged the amount of damages awarded for loss of parental consortium and for physical and mental pain and suffering. Regarding the common-law duty, the Court found that based on the Restatement 2nd of Torts Section 388, which Iowa follows, IES owed a duty to exercise reasonable care to inform the Pearsons of the dangers involved when the natural gas it supplied came into contact with a cobra connector if IES knew or should have known of the dangers involved, and IES had no reason to believe the Pearsons would realize the dangers. The Court indicated that testimony had showed IES was aware of the failures attributable to the cobra connectors prior to the explosion at the Pearson home. (Apparently, there had been at least two other fatal explosions resulting from failures of cobra connectors in IES’s area prior to the Pearson house explosion, and IES had received notices from the Consumer Product Safety Commission since 1979, yet IES employees were not trained to recognize and remove the cobra connectors from the field when the employees were in the customers’ homes.) Based on these facts, the Court found a common-law duty to warn did exist in this case. As far as the tariff issue goes, the Court explained it like this: The filed-tariff doctrine precludes actions that attempt to alter the terms and conditions contained in a tariff. The legislature designed the tariff system to replace private contracting between a utility and its customers. Terms of service that the parties would ordinarily put into private contracts are included in a utility’s tariff, which amounts to a binding contract between the utility and its customers. The purpose of the tariff is to ensure uniformity of utility rates and prevent a utility from discriminating based on price or service, but a utility can limit its liability in its tariff - if the limitation is within the tariff’s ambit. The tariff at issue here provided, among other things, that piping and equipment on customer’s side would be installed and maintained at the customer’s expense, in a manner approved by the public authorities, and that IES had no duty to inspect the piping and equipment beyond the outlet of IES’s gas meter, and even if it conducted such inspections merely as a courtesy to its customers, it had no liability for any injury, loss, or damage resulting from the use of the customer’s piping or other equipment. The Court did a thorough job of strictly construing the tariff against IES as the drafter:
"Section 15.02 of the tariff requires the utility to exercise reasonable care to minimize any hazard inherent in the gas services it provides its customers. A recognized method of minimizing a hazard is to warn the ultimate user of the hazard. By its terms, section 15.02 incorporates the utility’s common-law duty to warn its customers of the dangers inherent with using its gas. A plain reading of sections 4.06, 4.07, and 5.04 of the tariff leads us to believe these sections only cover liability for inspections and/or defects in the pipes on the customer’s side of the point of delivery, not for a failure to warn its customers of any hazard inherent in its gas service. Even if we assume IES is correct, and sections 4.06, 4.07, and 5.04 of the tariff cover all situations involving the pipes on its customer’s side of the point of delivery, the tariff is silent as to the duty to warn and in conflict with section 15.02 requiring IES to minimize any hazard inherent in the gas services it provides its customers. Accordingly, IES’s choice of language causes us to conclude the tariff did not preclude the estates’ claims on IES’s common-law duty to warn the Pearsons of the dangers inherent with using its gas."
Regarding the damage amounts, the reasoning was a little convoluted because the case had been submitted as one cause of action in which the parties had stipulated that everyone's fault had to add up to 100%. Thus, IES and Robert’s estate were the tortfeasors in Mary’s estate’s cause of action, while IES and Mary’s estate were the tortfeasors in Robert’s estate’s cause of action. Iowa's joint and several liability rules applied:
In actions brought under this chapter, the rule of joint and several liability shall not apply to defendants who are found to bear less than fifty percent of the total fault assigned to all parties. However, a defendant found to bear fifty percent or more of fault shall only be jointly and severally liable for economic damages and not for any noneconomic damage awards.
The jury found Robert 15% at fault in Mary's case, and Mary 15% at fault in Robert's. Based on this allocation, the Court found that judgment was proper against IES for eighty-five percent of the economic damages, but only seventy percent of the noneconomic damages, which included the awards for predeath pain and suffering and the losses for parental consortium.
MASON ET AL V. VISION IOWA BOARD: meetings between proponents of the Marquette-McGregor project and the negotiating committee of the Vision Iowa Board meetings did not fall within the statutory definition of a “meeting” subject to the open-meetings requirement of section 21.3. The Court reasoned that under the Iowa Open Meetings law, a gathering of a governmental body must be open to the public only “where there is deliberation or action upon any matter within the scope of the governmental body’s policy-making duties.” Certain amendments to the law had specified that some advisory groups would be subject to the open-meetings requirement when they deliberate or act within the scope of their duty to develop and make recommendations on public policy issues, but as to all other governmental bodies, the legislature left unchanged the definition of “meeting,” including the requirement that the body act in its policy-making role. The Court found no support that the negotiating committee had responsibility for anything more than recommending or suggesting to the board what course of action to take on the Marquette-McGregor project - ultimate authority to accept or reject the development agreement was reserved to the board; the committee’s duty was advisory only. Therefore, the meeting was not a "meeting" and not subject to open meetings laws.
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