Iowa Court Of Appeals Rules That Murder Victim's Family Can't Sue Landowner And Landowner's Employee

On February 16, 2022 the Iowa Court of Appeals determined that a murder victim’s family members couldn’t sue the owner of the farm where the murder happened or an employee of the farm. We discuss why the farm owner and his employee couldn’t be sued for negligence.

Lee Christensen shot and killed Thomas Bortvit. Bortvit was dating Christensen’s former girlfriend. The shooting happened at a farm owned by Christensen’s relatives. Christensen was convicted of second degree murder.

Bortvit’s parents and sister sued Christensen’s uncle, Roger Christensen, and grandfather, Donald Christensen, alleging that they owned or occupied the farm where the shooting occurred and that they “failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the use of [the] property for the purpose of firing loaded pistols by persons under the age of 21, unsupervised.” The family claimed that Roger and Donald were negligent and a cause of Bortvit’s death. Roger and Donald responded that they had no obligation to protect Bortvit from Christensen.

The trial court agreed with Roger and Donald and dismissed the family’s negligence case. The family appealed. The question before the Iowa Court of Appeals was whether Roger or Donald had any obligation to protect Bortvit from Christensen.

For there to be negligence liability, something the defendant did or did not do must have increased the risk to the plaintiff. That was the fighting issue before the Court of Appeals. The court concluded that neither Roger nor Donald did or failed to do anything that increased the risk to Bortvits that Christensen would shoot and kill him.

Neither Roger nor Donald gave Christensen the gun that he used to kill Bortvits. The plaintiffs’ claim was based entirely on the farm’s use for target shooting. They argued that the subject of the illegal activity that Roger and Donald permitted to take place on the farm (unsupervised pistol shooting by underaged persons) should have imposed a greater foreseeability of the risk that harm would occur, such as Christensen shooting Bortvits.

The Court of Appeals struggled with that argument. Christensen didn’t shoot Bortvits while target shooting. The cause of Bortvits’s death wasn’t target shooting — It was Christensen’s intentional use of a gun on Bortvits. The court summarized its position by noting that “[e[ven if we were to assume Roger and Donald turned a blind eye to unsupervised underage target shooting on the farm, a reasonable juror would not assign the risk of a purposeful shooting of a stranger to the farm among the risks arising from the recreational activity.” The family thus couldn’t sue Roger or Donald for negligence.