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SCOGGINS v. WAL-MART STORES3/26/1997
act or force constitutes a superseding cause. Id. Three of these factors have application to the case at bar. They are:
a. The fact that its intervention brings about harm different in kind from that which would otherwise have resulted from the actor's negligence;
b. The fact that its operation or the consequences thereof appear after the event to be extraordinary rather than normal in view of the circumstances existing at the time of its operation;
c. The fact that the intervening force is operating independently of any situation created by actor's negligence, or, on the other hand, is or is not a normal result of such a situation.
Id. (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 442).
In the case at bar, Chad was both the victim and the instigator of the intervening act that caused his death. Neither result was factually indicated to the defendant, Wal-Mart, when it negligently sold the ammunition to Chad. Chad's suicide was not a normal consequence of Wal-Mart's conduct and was not reasonably foreseeable by Wal-Mart. The Restatement factors cited from section 442 support this determination. The intervening act of suicide by Chad was a superseding cause, as a matter of law, that relieves Wal-Mart from liability for the negligent sale of ammunition to him.
C. Policy Considerations
Appellant correctly notes that proximate cause does not require the actual consequences of the decedent's act to be foreseeable, but only that some injury be foreseeable. See Kelly, 476 N.W.2d at 349; Sumpter v. City of Moulton, 519 N.W.2d 427, 435 (Iowa App. 1994). She contends that the enactment of 18 U.S.C. § 922, which prohibits the sale of ammunition to persons under the age of twenty-one, evinces a legislative recognition that there is a foreseeable risk of harm if ammunition is sold to minors. Thus, according to the appellant's analysis, the violation of the federal [560 NW2d Page 571]
statute would present sufficient evidence to generate a jury question.
Although we agree that the enactment of the federal statute reflects Congressional concern with the inherent danger of such conduct, we nevertheless do not agree that this fact alone requires that Wal-Mart be found liable or that there is even sufficient evidence to send the question to the jury. As we noted in Poland, "It cannot be said that defendant might reasonably have anticipated that an accident would occur from the handling of a weapon from the fact alone that the person to whom he sold it was a minor." Poland, 70 Iowa at 287, 30 N.W. at 638.
It is significant that neither the federal nor the state legislatures have decided to impose strict liability for violation of statutes prohibiting sale of ammunition or firearms to minors. In other contexts, the legislature has clearly provided that a violation of the applicable statute results in strict liability, regardless of questions of causation. See, e.g., Iowa Code § 123.92 (dramshop law imposing strict liability for sale of alcohol to intoxicated persons). To hold, in this case, that a defendant would be liable for any injury that is somehow related to the sale of ammunition to a minor would be an impermissible imposition of strict liability via judicial fiat.
The decision of the court of appeals is affirmed; judgment of the district court is affirmed.
DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS AND JUDGMENT OF DISTRICT COURT AFFIRMED.
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