As most practicing Iowa lawyers should know, the Iowa Supreme Court did away with the old doctrine of Proximate Cause last year (with some clarification in the Royal Indemnity case earlier this month) and replacing it with “Scope of Liability.”
The big headache for judges and trial lawyers is what the new jury instructions will look like.
Well, you’re in luck. I’m on the Iowa Jury Instructions Committee, and we approved two new jury instructions to replace the old proximate cause instruction – one on “factual cause” (ie did defendant’s conduct cause plaintiff’s damages) and another one on “scope of liability” (to be used only in rare cases – this is usually a question for the court)
Both instructions, after the jump.
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