183 N.W.2d 657
In 1957 defendant Bertha L. Briney inherited her parents' farm land in Mahaska and Monroe Counties, Iowa, including an 80-acre tract containing a house that had remained unoccupied since that time.1 Her husband Edward attempted to maintain the land while the outbuildings deteriorated.2 Between 1957 and 1967 a series of trespasses and housebreakings caused loss of household items, broken windows, and general damage to the property.3 The defendants boarded up windows and doors and posted no-trespass signs.4
On June 11, 1967, the defendants placed a 20-gauge shotgun inside the north bedroom of the vacant house.5 They secured the gun to an iron bed with its barrel aimed at the door and connected wire from the doorknob to the trigger so the weapon would discharge upon opening.6 At Mrs. Briney's suggestion the barrel was angled downward to strike the legs rather than the midsection.7 Tin covered the bedroom window, concealing the device, and no warning sign was posted.8
Plaintiff Katko, a gasoline station attendant living seven miles away, had viewed the house while hunting and regarded it as abandoned.9 On the evening of July 16, 1967, Katko and Marvin McDonough removed a board from a porch window and entered to collect old bottles and fruit jars.10 When Katko opened the north bedroom door the shotgun fired, striking his right leg above the ankle, shattering bone and tissue.11 McDonough helped him exit; Katko spent forty days in the hospital and later required a cast and brace for over a year, resulting in permanent shortening and deformity of the leg.12
Katko incurred documented medical and hospital expenses exceeding $2,500 plus lost earnings.13 He later pleaded guilty to larceny in the nighttime of property valued under twenty dollars.14 The case was tried to a local jury that returned a verdict awarding Katko $20,000 in actual damages and $10,000 in punitive damages.15 The trial court overruled the defendants' post-verdict motions and entered judgment, from which the defendants appealed to the Supreme Court of Iowa.16
Whether an owner may protect personal property in an unoccupied boarded-up farm house against trespassers and thieves by a spring gun capable of inflicting death or serious injury?17
The law has always placed a higher value upon human safety than upon mere rights in property. It is the accepted rule that there is no privilege to use any force calculated to cause death or serious bodily injury to repel the threat to land or chattels. Such force is permitted only when there is also such a threat to the defendant's personal safety as to justify a self-defense. Spring guns and other mankilling devices are not justifiable against a mere trespasser, or even a petty thief.18
No. The defendants' farm house was unoccupied for several years and located several miles from their home. The plaintiff entered the house to steal old bottles and fruit jars, constituting a trespass and larceny but not a felony of violence or threat to human life. The spring gun was set to fire upon opening the door, capable of inflicting serious injury, and no warning was given. These facts show no threat to the defendants' personal safety, so the use of the spring gun was not privileged under the rule.19
An owner may not protect personal property in an unoccupied boarded-up farm house against trespassers and thieves by a spring gun capable of inflicting death or serious injury.20
Related opinions on this issue
Justice Larson dissents, first because the majority wrongfully assumes that by installing a spring gun the defendants intended to shoot any intruder.21 He maintains that intent is a fact question for the jury under the record presented.22 There should be no absolute liability for injury to a criminal intruder without proof of intent to kill or seriously injure.23
Larson would also hold that the trial court had no jurisdiction to allow punitive damages when the intruder was engaged in a serious criminal offense such as breaking and entering with intent to steal.24