Matthew Holmes v. Miranda Pomeroy, 959 N.W.2d 387

On June 8, 2015, Miranda Pomeroy (driver) struck Matthew Holmes (bicyclist) when Holmes turned left onto Cumming Avenue; Holmes sued for negligence.
Holmes sought to introduce evidence of Pomeroy’s cell phone use in vehicles from the period after the collision to prove she had a habit of driving while distracted.
The district court excluded post-accident instances as habit evidence (admitted some instances only for impeachment) and allowed a spoliation instruction because Pomeroy replaced her phone and did not produce texts from the accident date.
A jury returned a verdict for Pomeroy; Holmes appealed several rulings but the Iowa Supreme Court limited review to the habit-evidence issue.
The Supreme Court affirmed: it did not decide whether subsequent conduct can ever prove habit, but held the proffered post-accident instances were not numerous or similar enough to establish habit.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether post-accident instances of cell‑phone use are admissible as habit evidence under Iowa R. Evid. 5.406	Holmes: subsequent acts can show a preexisting habit and are therefore admissible	Pomeroy: subsequent acts are irrelevant to conduct at the time of the incident	Court avoided a broad rule; affirmed exclusion because offered evidence failed on other grounds
Whether the proffered instances (≈16–50 occurrences) were sufficient in number and similarity to prove habit	Holmes: the instances (photos/texts) show repeated cellphone use while in a vehicle, establishing systematic conduct	Pomeroy: occurrences were few, often ambiguous (passenger, parked, duplicates), and thus mere casual recurrences	Held: instances were not numerous or sufficiently similar to infer habit; evidence inadmissible as habit evidence

State v. Don, 318 N.W.2d 801 (Iowa 1982) (defines habit as regular practice of meeting a situation with specific conduct)
Barrick v. Smith, 80 N.W.2d 326 (Iowa 1957) (habit requires numerous, systematically similar instances, not casual recurrences)
Gamerdinger v. Schaefer, 603 N.W.2d 590 (Iowa 1999) (example of habit evidence admitted where testimony showed frequent, long‑standing practice)
DeVoss v. State, 648 N.W.2d 56 (Iowa 2002) (appellate court may affirm ruling if evidence is inadmissible on any correct legal theory)
United States v. Luttrell, 612 F.2d 396 (8th Cir. 1980) (permits post‑incident conduct as habit evidence in some contexts)
DeMatteo v. Simon, 812 P.2d 361 (N.M. Ct. App. 1991) (post‑accident conduct held irrelevant to prove habit for earlier event)