Source: http://indianacourts.us/blogs/caseclips/archives/?vol=39&iss=4
Timestamp: 2014-10-20 11:16:53
Document Index: 193095588

Matched Legal Cases: ['§841', '§ 33', '§ 33', '§ 34', '§ 34', '§ 34', '§ 34', '§ 323', '§ 10', '§ 34', '§ 34', '§ 35', '§ 34', '§ 50', '§ 885']

Volume 39 Issue 4 January 27, 2012 Jones v. United States, No. 10–1259, 565 U.S. __ (Jan. 23, 2012).
| Tagged: F. Sullivan, R. Rucker, S. David, Supreme Standard for assessing effective performance of Post-Conviction Rule 2 counsel is the Baum “due-course-of-law” standard, not the two-prong Sixth Amendment Strickland standard.
Bowling v. State, No. 35A04-1107-CR-407, __ N.E.2d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Jan. 24, 2012).
| Tagged: Appeals, T. Crone Guilty plea judge’s failure to advise defendant of right to appeal sentence did not make agreed waiver of the right to appeal open plea sentence unenforceable, when record showed defendant had read the waiver agreement, gone over it with defense counsel, and agreed to it.
Long v. State, No. 49A02-1105-CR-381, __ N.E.2d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Jan. 25, 2012).
Ind. Dept. of Ins. v. Everhart, No. 84S01-1105-CV-28, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind., Jan. 20, 2012).
| Tagged: A. Scalia, S. Alito, S. Sotomayor, SCOTUS SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and SOTOMAYOR, JJ., joined. We decide whether the attachment of a Global-Positioning-System (GPS) tracking device to an individual’s vehicle, and subsequent use of that device to monitor the vehicle’s movements on public streets, constitutes a search or seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. In 2004 respondent Antoine Jones, owner and operator of a nightclub in the District of Columbia, came under suspicion of trafficking in narcotics and was made the target of an investigation by a joint FBI and Metropolitan Police Department task force. Officers employed various investigative techniques, including visual surveillance of the nightclub, installation of a camera focused on the front door of the club, and a pen register and wiretap covering Jones’s cellular phone. Based in part on information gathered from these sources, in 2005 the Government applied to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for a warrant authorizing the use of an electronic tracking device on the Jeep Grand Cherokee registered to Jones’s wife. A warrant issued, authorizing installation of the device in the District of Columbia and within 10 days. On the 11th day, and not in the District of Columbia but in Maryland, [footnote omitted] agents installed a GPS tracking device on the undercarriage of the Jeep while it was parked in a public parking lot. Over the next 28 days, the Government used the device to track the vehicle’s movements, and once had to replace the device’s battery when the vehicle was parked in a different public lot in Maryland. By means of signals from multiple satellites, the device established the vehicle’s location within 50 to 100 feet, and communicated that location by cellular phone to a Government computer. It relayed more than 2,000 pages of data over the 4-week period. The Government ultimately obtained a multiple-count indictment charging Jones and several alleged coconspirators with, as relevant here, conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine and 50 grams or more of cocaine base, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §§841 and 846. Before trial, Jones filed a motion to suppress evidence obtained through the GPS device. The District Court granted the motion only in part, suppressing the data obtained while the vehicle was parked in the garage adjoining Jones’s residence. 451 F. Supp. 2d 71, 88 (2006). It held the remaining data admissible, because “‘[a] person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another.’ ” Ibid. (quoting United States v. Knotts, 460 U. S. 276, 281 (1983)). Jones’s trial in October 2006 produced a hung jury on the conspiracy count. In March 2007, a grand jury returned another indictment, charging Jones and others with the same conspiracy. The Government introduced at trial the same GPS-derived locational data admitted in the first trial, which connected Jones to the alleged conspirators’ stash house that contained $850,000 in cash, 97 kilograms of cocaine, and 1 kilogram of cocaine base. The jury returned a guilty verdict, and the District Court sentenced Jones to life imprisonment.
Read Full Opinion Hill v. State, No. 45S03-1105-PC-283, __ N.E.2d __ (Ind., Jan. 24, 2012).
| Tagged: F. Sullivan, R. Rucker, S. David, Supreme DAVID, J.
Read Full Opinion Bowling v. State, No. 35A04-1107-CR-407, __ N.E.2d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Jan. 24, 2012).
In 2006, Jessica Bowling agreed to plead guilty to class A felony neglect of a dependent, and the State agreed to a cap of forty years on the executed portion of her sentence. Along with the plea agreement, Bowling signed a written advisement and waiver of rights that contained the following provision: “By pleading guilty you have agreed to waive your right to appeal your sentence so long as the Judge sentences you within the terms of your plea agreement.” Appellant‟s App. at 22. The trial court sentenced Bowling to forty years, executed. In 2011, Bowling filed a petition for permission to file a belated notice of appeal pursuant to Indiana Post-Conviction Rule 2. The State argued that Bowling waived her right to appeal her sentence pursuant to the aforementioned provision. The trial court agreed with the State and denied Bowling’s petition. Bowling appeals, arguing that the waiver should not be enforced because it is a misstatement of law. We conclude that the waiver is valid and therefore affirm the trial court.
The language in paragraph 10 is similar to that in Creech [v. State, 887 N.E.2d 73 (Ind. 2008)]. [Footnote omitted.] There, the defendant’s written plea agreement contained the following provision: I understand that I have a right to appeal my sentence if there is an open plea. An open plea is an agreement which leaves my sentence to the Judge’s discretion. I hereby waive my right to appeal my sentence so long as the Judge sentences me within the terms of my plea agreement. 887 N.E.2d at 74. Our supreme court held that this “express language” was enforceable. Id. at 76. In so holding, the court rejected Creech’s argument that because the trial court erroneously advised Creech at the end of his sentencing hearing that he retained the right to appeal his sentence his waiver was not knowing and voluntary. The supreme court noted that “most waivers are effective when set out in writing and signed,” and “[t]he content and language of the plea agreement itself, as well as the colloquy where necessary, govern the determination as to the validity of the waiver.” Id. (citations and quotations omitted). Bowling attempts to distinguish Creech by arguing that in her case the trial court failed to advise her that she had a right to appeal her sentence. However, in Creech, the trial court’s erroneous statement to Creech at the sentencing hearing indicating that he had the right to appeal his sentence served as the basis for Creech’s argument on appeal that the waiver was not knowing and voluntary. [Footnote omitted.] Here, Bowling cannot claim that she was confused by any statement provided by the trial court because the trial court did not provide her with incorrect information. Thus, the difference between the cases that Bowling highlights actually reveals that her argument is weaker than Creech’s. In any event, “’a specific dialogue with the judge is not a necessary prerequisite to a valid waiver of appeal, if there is other evidence in the record demonstrating a knowing and voluntary waiver.’” Id. (quoting U.S. v. Agee, 83 F.3d 882, 886 (7th Cir. 1996)). Here, during the guilty plea hearing, Bowling agreed that she had received the Advisement, had read it, had gone over it with her attorney, understood it, and signed it. Appellant’s App. at 10 43-44. We conclude that the content and language of the Advisement and the trial court’s discussion of it with Bowling at the guilty plea hearing are sufficient to support enforcement of the waiver in paragraph 10. [Footnote omitted.]
Although we prefer the waiver language in Creech over that in paragraph 10, paragraph 10 sufficiently informs a defendant that although she has a right to appeal an open sentence, she is agreeing to waive that right as part of her plea agreement. That said, to avoid even the possibility of confusion, such a waiver provision would be improved by using the following language or language similar thereto: “As a condition of entering this plea agreement, I knowingly and voluntarily agree to waive my right to appeal my sentence on the basis that it is erroneous or for any other reason so long as the Judge sentences me within the terms of my plea agreement.” In addition, it would be helpful to include a waiver of the right to appeal an open sentence in the plea agreement itself, as well as any written advisement and waiver of rights that is executed along with the plea agreement.
Read Full Opinion Long v. State, No. 49A02-1105-CR-381, __ N.E.2d __ (Ind. Ct. App., Jan. 25, 2012).
| Tagged: Appeals, J. Sharpnack SHARPNACK, S.J.
On February 14, 2011, Long pleaded guilty before Master Commissioner Teresa Hall to Class A misdemeanor operating a vehicle while intoxicated and being a habitual substance offender in exchange for the State’s dismissal of the other two charges. The written plea agreement provided for an executed one-year sentence for the Class A misdemeanor and a three-year enhancement for being a habitual substance offender, for an aggregate sentence of four years. The agreement left to the court’s discretion the amount of the three-year enhancement that would be executed and Long’s placement for the executed sentence. Appellant’s App. p. 33; Tr. p. 9. Master Commissioner Hall accepted the plea agreement and set the matter for sentencing. At the sentencing hearing on February 28, 2011, Master Commissioner Hall imposed a sentence of one year executed in the Marion County Jail on the Class A misdemeanor enhanced by one year executed in the Marion County Jail and two years executed in the Marion County Community Corrections Work Release Program for being a habitual substance offender. On March 4, 2011, the presiding judge, Linda Brown, issued an order declining to approve Master Commissioner Hall’s sentencing recommendation and resetting the matter for sentencing. At the sentencing hearing on March 31, 2011, Judge Brown imposed a sentence of one year executed in the Marion County Jail on the Class A misdemeanor enhanced by two years executed in the Department of Correction and one year executed in the Marion County Community Corrections Work Release Program. Long now appeals. DISCUSSION AND DECISION
Long contends that Master Commissioner Hall was statutorily authorized to impose his sentence and that Judge Brown thus erred by rejecting that sentence. Indiana Code section 33-33-49-16(e) (2004) provides that a Marion County master commissioner “has the powers and duties prescribed for a magistrate under IC 33-23-5-5 through IC 33-23-5-9.” Indiana Code chapter 33-23-5 grants various powers to magistrates but generally precludes them from entering a final appealable order. Boyer v. State, 883 N.E.2d 158, 160 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008); see Ind. Code § 33-23-5-8(2) (2008) (“Except as provided under sections 5(14) and 9(b) of this chapter, a magistrate . . . may not enter a final appealable order unless sitting as a judge pro tempore or a special judge.”). The principal exception to this rule is Indiana Code section 33-23-5-9(b) (2004), which provides: If a magistrate presides at a criminal trial, the magistrate may do the following: (1) Enter a final order. (2) Conduct a sentencing hearing. (3) Impose a sentence on a person convicted of a criminal offense. See also Ind. Code § 33-23-5-5(14) (2008) (“A magistrate may . . . [e]nter a final order, conduct a sentencing hearing, and impose a sentence on a person convicted of a criminal offense as described in section 9 of this chapter.”). Master Commissioner Hall did not preside at a criminal trial. Instead, Long pleaded guilty, and Master Commissioner Hall presided at the guilty plea hearing. Long cites Boyer v. State, 883 N.E.2d 158 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008), to support his assertion that Master Commissioner Hall was statutorily authorized to sentence him and enter a final order. In Boyer, however, the magistrate presided at the defendant’s criminal trial, id. at 160, and this Court held that Section 33-23-5-9(b) gives “a magistrate presiding over a criminal trial the power to enter a final order and to enter a judgment of conviction,” id. at 161-62. The facts in Boyer are thus unlike the facts presented here, where Master Commissioner Hall presided at a guilty plea hearing and not a criminal trial. Long also cites Ivy v. State, 947 N.E.2d 496 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011), for support. In that case, the defendant pleaded guilty to Class B felony burglary and being a habitual offender, and the State agreed to dismiss the remaining charges. The plea agreement set a sixteen-year executed sentence and contained a provision in which the defendant agreed that the sentence was appropriate and waived any request to modify his sentence. The trial court sentenced the defendant to sixteen years in the Department of Correction but noted that it would consider alternative placement for the last two years. The defendant later filed a motion to modify his sentence in Marion Superior Court. A master commissioner denied the motion. On appeal, the defendant argued that the master commissioner did not have the authority to rule on his motion. The State responded that the terms of the plea agreement precluded the defendant from seeking a modification of his sentence. At the outset, this Court stated that it was affirming the denial of the defendant’s motion to modify his sentence because the terms of the plea agreement precluded him from seeking a modification. Id. at 497. In its analysis of the issues, this Court first addressed the defendant’s argument and concluded that the master commissioner had the power to enter a final judgment on the defendant’s motion to modify his sentence because “magistrates, and therefore master commissioners, are authorized to enter final orders in criminal trials, conduct sentencing hearings, and impose sentences on convicted persons.” Id. at 498-99. We then concluded that the trial court’s incorrect advisement at the sentencing hearing had no effect on the defendant’s knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to request a modification of his sentence. Id. at 500. We therefore affirmed the denial of the defendant’s motion to modify his sentence. Long argues that Ivy establishes that a master commissioner can enter a final order after a defendant has pleaded guilty. We disagree. This Court’s conclusions regarding the master commissioner’s authority were unnecessary to the decision, which was on the basis, announced at the outset, that the defendant could not challenge his sentence pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement. Moreover, there is no indication that this Court was asked to consider whether the legislature intended to treat guilty pleas in the same manner as criminal trials with regard to the authority of magistrates and master commissioners. [Footnote omitted.] Further, to the extent Ivy stands for the proposition argued by Long, we respectfully disagree. The master commissioner did not preside at a criminal trial. In fact, detrimental to Long’s own argument, there is no evidence that the master commissioner even presided at the defendant’s guilty plea hearing. We would have concluded that the master commissioner did not have the authority to enter a final order on the defendant’s motion to modify his sentence. Long also argues that “[i]f the legislature has deemed master commissioners competent to preside over criminal trials, pronounce the sentence, and enter final judgment, then they are quite competent to do so at a guilty plea hearing.” Appellant’s Reply Br. p. 4. This is not a judgment for us to make. Section 33-23-5-9(b) clearly states that a magistrate, and thus a master commissioner, may enter a final order, conduct a sentencing hearing, and impose a sentence if he or she has presided at a criminal trial. We are not at liberty to conclude that the clear language of the statute indicating “criminal trial” really means “criminal trial or guilty plea hearing.”
Read Full Opinion Ind. Dept. of Ins. v. Everhart, No. 84S01-1105-CV-28, ___ N.E.2d ___ (Ind., Jan. 20, 2012).
Robin Everhart filed suit against the Indiana Patient’s Compensation Fund (PCF) to recover excess damages after settling a wrongful death claim against an emergency room physician in whose care her husband died. The PCF asked the trial court to reduce its award of damages to account for the twenty percent chance that Robin’s husband would have died anyway, even in the absence of the physician’s negligence. The trial court declined to do so, awarding Robin the statutory maximum $1 million in excess damages. We affirm, but on slightly different grounds.
I. Cahoon Did Not Address the Better-Than-Even Cases.
The Indiana Medical Malpractice Act caps a recovery for a patient’s injury or death at $1,250,000. Ind. Code § 34-18-14-3(a)(3) (2008). The Act limits the liability of a qualified health care provider whose medical negligence proximately caused the injury or death to the first $250,000 of damages. Ind. Code § 34-18-14-3(b). If a judgment or settlement fixes damages in excess of a qualified health care provider’s liability, then a plaintiff may recover excess damages from the PCF. Ind. Code § 34-18-14-3(c).
In a suit to recover excess damages from the PCF, an earlier settlement with a qualified health care provider conclusively establishes his liability. Ind. Code § 34-18-15-3(5) (2008). Nevertheless, in Herbst, we held that evidence of a patient’s preexisting risk of harm was still admissible for the purpose of determining the amount of excess damages to which the plaintiff was entitled. Herbst, 902 N.E.2d at 222–23. The fact that evidence of a preexisting risk of harm would also be relevant to liability were liability at issue did not preclude admitting that evidence for some other purpose. See id.
Our holding in Herbst was a necessary consequence of Cahoon, in which we held that a successful Mayhue claim for causing an increased risk of harm entitled a plaintiff to damages in proportion to that increased risk. Cahoon, 734 N.E.2d at 541. In Cahoon, a wife filed suit for the wrongful death of her husband, who stood only a twenty-five to thirty percent chance of recovering even before a physician failed to diagnose his esophageal cancer. Id. at 538. We concluded that the appropriate measure of damages was equal to the total amount of damages ordinarily allowed in a wrongful death suit multiplied by the difference between the pre-negligence and post-negligence chances of survival. See id. at 540–41 (citing McKellips v. St. Francis Hosp., Inc., 741 P.2d 467, 476–77 (Okla. 1987)).
The PCF therefore argues that our decision in Herbst required the trial court to reduce its award of damages in proportion to Everhart’s preexisting risk of death. (Appellant’s Br. at 14.) But the PCF has not cited any Indiana cases in which a court held that a plaintiff who more likely than not would have avoided any injury but for the defendant’s negligence could only recover proportional damages. [Footnote omitted.] As both Robin and the trial court noted, however, all the decisions in our Mayhue line of cases involved patients who stood a fifty percent or worse chance of recovering before suffering some medical negligence. (Appellant’s App. at 21; Appellee’s Br. at 10–14.)
This distinction is not a coincidence, as Mayhue reflects a special concern for plaintiffs who stood a fifty percent or worse chance of recovering before suffering some form of medical negligence. In Mayhue, a husband filed suit for loss of consortium after a physician negligently failed to diagnose cancer in his wife, who later passed away. Mayhue, 653 N.E.2d at 1385–86. We affirmed the trial court’s decision to deny summary judgment to the defendant even though the wife would have stood less than a fifty percent chance of surviving even if the physician had rendered proper medical care, and even though the husband therefore could not establish that the physician’s negligence was the cause-in-fact of her death. Id. at 1385.
As we noted in Mayhue, this situation presents an obvious problem because this type of plaintiff could never establish proximate cause under the traditional analysis no matter how negligent the physician’s conduct. Id. at 1387. We therefore fashioned a solution to this particular problem based on Restatement (Second) of Torts § 323 (1965). [Footnote omitted.] Id. at 1388. Other courts that based their loss-of-chance doctrines on Section 323 likewise made clear that their purpose in adopting a loss-of-chance doctrine was to ensure that patients with a fifty-percent or worse chance of recovering would still receive the same care as healthier patients by preventing physicians from claiming a blanket release from liability under the label of cause-in-fact. See, e.g., Herskovits v. Group Health Coop., 664 P.2d 474, 476–77 (Wash. 1983) (thirty-nine percent chance of recovery pre-negligence); see also Thompson v. Sun City Cmty. Hosp., 688 P.2d 605, 615–16 (Ariz. 1984) (five to ten percent chance); McKellips, 741 P.2d at 470 (chance uncertain). See generally John D. Hodson, Medical Malpractice: “Loss of Chance” Causality, 54 A.L.R.4th 10 (1987 & Supp. 2011).
Mayhue’s scope is important because Cahoon established only the measure of damages in cases involving a Mayhue claim. In Cahoon, we stated that “upon a showing of causation under Mayhue, damages are proportional to the increased risk attributable to the defendant’s negligent act or omission.” Cahoon, 734 N.E.2d at 541. Because bringing a Mayhue claim is only necessary when a plaintiff cannot establish cause-in-fact under traditional negligence principles, Cahoon did not, at least by its terms, apply to cases in which a plaintiff stood a better-than-even chance of recovering before suffering some form of medical negligence.
Indeed, the general rule in a suit for negligence is that a plaintiff may recover damages for all injuries the defendant proximately caused. See Bader v. Johnson, 732 N.E.2d 1212, 1220 (Ind. 2000) (citing Erie Ins. Co. v. Hickman by Smith, 622 N.E.2d 515, 519 (Ind. 1993); Peak v. Campbell, 578 N.E.2d 360, 361 (Ind. 1991)). We therefore interpret the PCF’s argument as a request that we extend the Cahoon approach to cases involving patients who stood a better-than-even chance of recovering. We conclude that this case represents an inappropriate vehicle for deciding whether to do so.
Decisions like Mayhue and Cahoon arose from the scholarly criticism that the traditional rule undercompensated some plaintiffs for their injuries and undercharged some physicians for their negligence. See, e.g., Joseph H. King, Jr., Causation, Valuation, and Chance in Personal Injury Torts Involving Preexisting Conditions and Future Consequences, 90 Yale L.J. 1353, 1377, 1387 (1981). Under the traditional analysis, a plaintiff who could show only a forty-nine-percent chance that the patient would not have suffered some injury but for the physician’s negligence would not recover anything. See David A. Fischer, Tort Recovery for Loss of Chance, 36 Wake Forest L. Rev. 605, 627 (2001). Because over a large number of cases it seems statistically certain that some of these less-than-even patients would have lived, this all-or-nothing rule left some plaintiffs who had actually suffered an injury at the hands of a defendant out in the cold. See King, supra, at 1377.
But this coin had a flip-side: A plaintiff who showed a fifty-one percent chance that the patient would not have died but for the physician’s negligence would be entitled to recover damages in the amount of 100 percent of her injuries. See Fischer, supra, at 627. Because over a large number of cases it seems statistically certain that some of these better-than-even patients would have died anyway, the all-or-nothing rule punished some physicians who did not actually cause any injury at all. See King, supra, at 1387. Assuming the probabilities of patients avoiding harm in the absence of medical negligence fell in an even distribution around a mean of fifty percent, however, these errors may have simply canceled each other out, adequately compensating plaintiffs for injuries and deaths and adequately charging physicians for their negligence as classes, if not as individuals. See Fischer, supra, at 631.
Once courts addressed the problem of undercompensating plaintiffs by issuing decisions like Mayhue and Cahoon, however, some commentators argued that awarding proportional damages in less-than-even cases and full damages in better-than-even cases systematically imposed punitive damages on physicians. E.g., Fischer, supra, at 628. Thus, the argument goes, courts should extend decisions like Cahoon to better-than-even cases. See Fischer, supra, at 628; Jonathan P. Kieffer, The Case for Across-the-Board Application of the Loss-of-Chance Doctrine, 64 Def. Couns. J. 568, 568–69 (1997); King, supra, at 1387. But others have defended awarding proportional damages at or below the fifty percent threshold and full damages above it. E.g., Lori R. Ellis, Note, Loss of Chance as Technique: Toeing the Line at Fifty Percent, 72 Tex. L. Rev. 369, 383 (1993); see also Fischer, supra, at 628–29 (acknowledging one-time tortfeasors and difficulty financing lawsuits as possible reasons for not extending proportional damages to better-than-even cases).
For all the academic interest in this issue, however, very few courts in other jurisdictions have confronted it. The PCF has cited Chief Justice Marshall’s opinion in Renzi v. Paredes, 890 N.E.2d 806 (Mass. 2008), for the proposition that a Massachusetts court would apply proportional damages in a better-than-even case, but Renzi provides less support for this proposition than the PCF asserts. In Renzi, a husband sued a physician for failing to diagnose his wife’s cancer. Id. at 810. The plaintiff’s expert witness testified that the wife would have stood a fifty-eight percent chance of surviving had the physician timely diagnosed her cancer from her mammogram, but the defendant’s expert testified that she would have stood only a twenty percent chance. See id. at 811 & n.8. The jury found that the physician’s negligence was not a substantial contributing factor in causing the wife’s death, but that it was a substantial contributing factor in causing the loss of a substantial chance to survive. Id. at 812. Nevertheless, the jury awarded the plaintiff full damages,3 apparently because the judge refused to instruct the jury on proportional damages. Id. at 813–16.
On appeal, the Supreme Judicial Court held that the trial court should have instructed the jury on proportional damages. Id. at 813. It noted that loss of chance and wrongful death were distinct theories of injury, and that the physician’s negligence proximately caused only the wife’s loss of chance, not her actual death. Id. Indeed, the Massachusetts court remanded for a new trial solely on the issue of damages, thereby accepting the jury’s finding that the physician’s negligence was not the proximate cause of the patient’s death. Id. at 813. Renzi therefore seems not to demonstrate that a Massachusetts court would apply proportional damages in a case like Robin Everhart’s, in which the plaintiff could show that the physician’s negligence did proximately cause the patient’s actual death, not merely a loss of chance.
The case coming closest to bearing on point seems to be Scafidi v. Seiler, 574 A.2d 398 (N.J. 1990). In Scafidi, parents sued a physician for failing to prevent a premature birth by timely administering medication to halt the mother’s labor, seeking to recover for the wrongful death of their daughter. Id. at 400–01. The mother suffered from a preexisting condition that put the child at risk of premature birth and death. Id. The plaintiffs’ expert testified that if the physician had timely administered the medication, then the child would have stood a seventy-five to eighty percent chance of avoiding premature birth. Id. But the defendant’s expert testified that even if the physician had acted timely, then the child would still have stood only a twenty-five percent chance of avoiding premature birth. Id. The jury found that the physician was negligent but that his negligence did not proximately cause the child’s death. Id. at 401.
Remanding for a new trial, however, the New Jersey Supreme Court instructed the trial court that “any damages . . . assuming that defendant’s proofs include evidence that the infant’s premature birth and death might have occurred even if defendant’s treatment had been proper, should be apportioned to reflect the likelihood that the premature birth and death would have been avoided by proper treatment.” Id. at 400 (emphasis added). It is therefore possible to read Scafidi as indicating that the New Jersey Supreme Court would apportion damages to account for the mother’s preexisting condition even if the child had a better-than-even chance of survival.
Still, even this quick survey of a theoretically thorny area of law makes it clear that both courts and commentators have been focusing on cases in which a single tortfeasor’s negligent conduct interacted with a preexisting medical condition. That is not the case here. Robin’s case differs from our Mayhue line of cases not only in that Everhart stood a better-than-even chance of recovering in the absence of any medical negligence, but also in that joint tortfeasors negligently caused him an indivisible harm. That latter distinguishing fact triggers our rules on joint and several liability, which make it unnecessary for us to decide today whether to extend Cahoon to better-than-even cases.
II. The Rule for Calculating Set-Offs Can Decide This Case.
There is no critical need to decide the Cahoon valuation issue because of how the trial court’s peculiar findings of fact interact with the rules for calculating a set-off. The court found that Robin and Troy’s total injuries exceeded the sum of all distinct, legally allowable awards of damages. A double recovery would therefore have been impossible under a correct application of the set-off rules. Even if we embraced the PCF’s reading of Mayhue and the resulting application of Cahoon, the PCF would still have to pay the statutory maximum in excess damages.
The PCF argues that the trial court should have reduced its finding on injuries by twenty percent to account for harm Dr. Clarke probably did not cause and then further reduced the damages by the amount of Robin’s settlement with Dr. Clarke’s insurance company and by the full value of her settlement with Standard Forwarding. In other words, it says that after finding that Robin and Troy suffered injuries of at least $3,150,000, the trial court should have reduced that amount to $2,250,000 (twenty percent chance of death in any event), subtracted $250,000 (Dr. Clarke’s insurance company) and then subtracted another $1.9 million (Standard Forwarding) to arrive at its final award of damages.
Again, this contention ignores a critical distinction between the Mayhue cases and Robin’s case. In the Mayhue cases, the chance that a patient would have suffered some injury regardless of a physician’s medical negligence arose from a natural, preexisting medical condition. Here, the chance that Everhart would have died anyway arose as a result of the independent negligence of a joint tortfeasor.
Two or more co-defendants constitute joint tortfeasors if their independent negligent conduct proximately caused some indivisible harm. See Palmer v. Comprehensive Neurologic Servs., P.C., 864 N.E.2d 1093 (Ind. Ct. App. 2007). At common law, joint tortfeasors were jointly and severally liable for the indivisible harm they caused a plaintiff. Hoesel v. Cain, 222 Ind. 330, 53 N.E.2d 165 (1944); see also Restatement (Third) of Torts: Apportionment § A18 (2005). A plaintiff could sue any of the joint tortfeasors and recover damages in the amount of the entire harm even though another joint tortfeasor had a hand in the injury. Hoesel, 222 Ind. at 334, 53 N.E.2d at 170–71; Restatement (Third) of Torts: Apportionment § 10.
But the Legislature altered this landscape when it passed the Indiana Comparative Fault Act. A leading effect of the Act was to abolish the rule that contributory negligence constituted a complete bar to recovery in most suits for negligence. Ind. Code § 34-51-2-5 (2008). Instead, the Act requires a jury to allocate a percentage of responsibility for the plaintiff’s injuries to each defendant and any nonparty who contributed to those injuries, and each defendant need only pay his proportional share. Ind. Code § 34-51-2-7, -8 (2008). In exchange for giving negligent plaintiffs greater access to the courts, however, the Act abrogates the old rule of joint and several liability in suits to which the Act applies. Huber v. Henley, 656 F. Supp. 508, 511 (S.D. Ind. 1987) (“In return for the removal of the contributory negligence bar to recovery, plaintiffs lost the ability to recover the full measure of damages from any one joint tortfeasor.”). Because the Act expressly exempted medical malpractice claims from its ambit, however, the historical rule of joint and several liability would appear to still apply to medical malpractice suits. See Ind. Code § 35-51-2-1(b)(1) (2008); see also Palmer, 864 N.E.2d at 1099–1100. But see Ind. Code § 34-51-2-17 (2008) (imposing time limits on a qualified health care provider’s opportunity to plead a nonparty defense and allowing enlargements in limited circumstances). [Footnote omitted.]
A plaintiff who settled with one joint tortfeasor, however, might still wish to sue another joint tortfeasor to increase her recovery. Historically, Indiana prevented the plaintiff from doing so under the release rule. See, e.g., Cooper v. Robert Hall Clothes, Inc., 390 N.E.2d 155, 157–58 (Ind. 1979) (citing Bedwell v. DeBolt, 221 Ind. 600, 50 N.E.2d 875 (1943)) (plaintiff’s settlement with two defendant companies released remaining jointly and severally liable defendant).
We abrogated the release rule in Huffman v. Monroe County Cmty. Sch. Corp., 588 N.E.2d 1264 (Ind. 1992). We noted that many authorities heavily criticized the release rule and argued for the modern rule that a release of one joint tortfeasor would not discharge any other joint tortfeasor, but that any payments accompanying the release would diminish the recovery the plaintiff could seek from subsequent joint tortfeasors by the amount of the payment. Id. at 1266 (citing Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 50 (1982); Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 885, 886 (1979); 3 Harper, Gray & James, The Law of Torts 37 (2d ed., 1986)). Under our present rule, the plaintiff in Cooper would have been able to continue her suit against the third company, but subject to a rule requiring the trial court to reduce the amount of her allowable damages to protect the third jointly and severally liable defendant. See id. at 1267.
We noted in Huffman that a trial court has the power and duty to reduce a jury verdict by an amount already received in an earlier settlement to ensure that a plaintiff does not receive more than one recovery. Huffman, 588 N.E.2d at 1267 (citing Manns v. Indiana Dep’t of Highways, 541 N.E.2d 929 (Ind. 1989)). Indeed, we had already held that when a jury returned a verdict against a jointly and severally liable defendant after another jointly and severally liable defendant had already settled in exchange for a covenant not to sue, a court should adjust pro tanto the amount of any damages determined by the jury verdict by subtracting any consideration received from the amount of any damages determined by the jury verdict. Manns, 541 N.E.2d at 934.
The action in Manns arose before the effective date of the Comparative Fault Act, which would appear to abrogate Manns for cases that come within its provisions. See Mendenhall v. Skinner & Broadbent Co., 728 N.E.2d 140, 143 (Ind. 2000); see also Manns, 541 N.E.2d at 931. The Manns rule for set-offs, however, remains good law for cases that involve joint torfeasors but fall outside the Comparative Fault Act. [Footnote omitted.]
The Court of Appeals applied this same one-satisfaction doctrine in Palmer, the case the PCF cites for the proposition that a joint tortfeasor in a medical malpractice suit is entitled to a set-off for any amount the plaintiff received in exchange for settling with another joint tortfeasor. Palmer, 864 N.E.2d at 1100–01. In Palmer, the plaintiff filed suit against a physician, the physician’s professional corporation, and multiple non–qualified health care providers on a theory of joint and several liability for medical malpractice, seeking damages for the wrongful death of her husband. Id. at 1095. The non–qualified providers settled with the plaintiff in an aggregate amount that exceeded the jury’s subsequent $375,000 finding on total injuries. Id. at 1097 & n.4. The remaining joint tortfeasors filed a motion to correct error asking the trial court to reduce the award of damages by the amount of the earlier settlements. Id. at 1097. The court did so, entering judgment against the remaining joint tortfeasors in the amount of $0, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Id. at 1095, 1102.
Here, the PCF belatedly concedes that Perkins and Dr. Clarke constitute joint tortfeasors. [Footnote omitted.] (Appellant’s Br. at 23–24.) Perkins’s negligent driving and Dr. Clarke’s negligent medical care both caused a single indivisible harm: Everhart’s death. Under the pure common law rule of joint and several liability, Robin could have sued either Perkins or Dr. Clarke and recovered from the defendant of her choice damages in the entire amount of the injuries she and Troy suffered. The second defendant, however, would have been entitled to a set-off from the total judgment against him in the amount of any settlement Robin reached with the first. Because the PCF assumes Dr. Clarke’s liability over and above the statutory cap in the Medical Malpractice Act, the PCF is entitled to the same set-off and no more.
The trial court found that Robin and Troy suffered injuries of at least $3.15 million. Under the Manns rule for set-offs, the court should have reduced its finding on total injuries by $1.9 million on account of the settlement with Standard Forwarding. The court should have further reduced that amount by another $250,000 on account of the settlement with Dr. Clarke’s insurance company. The convenient result: $1 million in uncompensated damages, which is precisely equal to the statutory limit of the PCF’s liability for excess damages. [Footnote omitted.]
And this result would not change if the trial court had applied Cahoon in apportioning damages. Cahoon apportions damages between all the parties who should fairly bear some of the loss. The PCF concedes that Dr. Clarke caused eighty percent of the plaintiffs’ injuries. Because the only possible causes of Everhart’s death are two known joint tortfeasors, however, this concession is tantamount to conceding that Standard Forwarding caused the remaining twenty percent. Initially, the PCF would be responsible for $2,520,000 in damages, whereas Standard Forwarding would be responsible for $630,000. At most, the PCF would therefore only be entitled to a set-off on account of the settlement with Standard Forwarding to the extent that it exceeded Standard Forwarding’s liability. Giving the PCF the benefit of this set-off in the amount of $1,270,000 and a further $250,000 set-off on account of the settlement with Dr. Clarke’s insurance company would still leave a remaining $1 million in uncompensated damages for the PCF to cover in excess damages payable to Robin and Troy.
Reducing the finding on injuries by twenty percent and then subtracting the full $1.9 million from the remainder, and then another $250,000, as the PCF asks, effectively ignores that Standard Forwarding, not Robin and Troy, should bear the remaining loss. Indeed, doing so would magically wipe out $630,000 of Robin and Troy’s total recovery and leave the PCF with a windfall in the same amount. In essence, the PCF would succeed in turning the one-satisfaction doctrine from a shield into a sword. The purpose of the one-satisfaction doctrine is to prevent a plaintiff from realizing more than one recovery. It is plainly not to reduce a plaintiff to realizing less than one full recovery.
As a result, we do not see any grounds on which we could reduce the trial court’s award of $1 million in excess damages, so deciding whether to extend or halt Cahoon’s advance would seem unnecessary at best. Because we hold that the PCF was not entitled to a set-off, we also need not address Robin’s argument that the trial court should reduce any set-off based on fees and expenses.
Dickson, Sullivan, Rucker, and David, JJ., concur. Read Full Opinion The Case Clips search includes issues dating back to January 1, 2009.
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