Opinion ID: 1060556
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Comparative Fault Under McIntyre

Text: The majority asserts that its holding follows the rule recently adopted in Carroll v. Whitney, 29 S.W.3d 14 (Tenn.2000). In Carroll, the majority held that a jury may allocate fault to individuals who had statutory immunity as state employees and were not parties to the lawsuit. The majority's decision was premised on, among other things, its view that the allocation of fault to an immune nonparty is consistent with the goal of linking a party's liability with his or her percentage of fault and, therefore, is more fair to defendants who are parties to the lawsuit. As I observed in dissent, however, the majority's premise was based on a one-sided perspective of the comparative fault system established in McIntyre : Contrary to the majority's depiction, McIntyre did not achieve the result of completely linking a party's liability with his or her degree of fault. We did not, for example, adopt a `pure' system of comparative fault under which a plaintiff does not have to be less at fault than a defendant in order to recover. McIntyre, 833 S.W.2d at 57 (We do not agree that a party should necessarily be able to recover in tort even though he may be 80, 90 or 95 percent at fault.). Thus, a plaintiff who is equally at fault or even slightly more at fault than a defendant may not recover. Carroll, 29 S.W.3d at 22 (Anderson, C.J., dissenting). Our decision in McIntyre , therefore, examined matters of policy and fairness to both plaintiffs and defendants. Although we did not adopt a pure system by which a party's liability is completely linked to his or her percentage of fault, we abolished the absolute defense of contributory negligence as well as the doctrine of joint and several liability. In contrast, the new course chosen by the majority has ignored the fairness foundation of McIntyre by focusing solely upon the impact of its decision as it affects fairness to defendants. Moreover, prior to Carroll and the present case, this Court had relied upon its decision in McIntyre to reject the very same arguments now embraced by the majority with regard to allocating fault. In Ridings , we said that the rationale of McIntyre postulates that fault may be attributed only to those persons against whom the plaintiff has a cause of action in tort. 914 S.W.2d at 81. Similarly, in Snyder v. LTG Lufttechnische GmbH, 955 S.W.2d 252, 256 (Tenn.1997), we said that [t]here is no question that the Court in Ridings considered the `fairness' arguments advanced here by the defendants and made a policy decision to leave immune [nonparties] out of the assessment of fault. I therefore disagree with the Court's overruling the application of both Ridings and Snyder in all cases except workers' compensation cases. Indeed, it bears noting that the majority's justification regarding the unique effect of subrogation in workers' compensation cases is not discussed in either Ridings or Snyder . Thus, as I wrote in my dissenting opinion in Carroll: [O]ur comparative fault decisions beginning with McIntyre have been guided by policy and fairness concerns. As can be seen, Ridings was expressly based upon McIntyre . Nothing in McIntyre or Ridings has changedthe `principle and procedure' remains the same. Only the Court has changed, a majority of which has decided to adopt a different policy based on its view that Ridings is now inconsistent with McIntyre and unfair to defendants because it does not fully link a defendant's liability with its degree of fault. I cannot agree with this 180 degree change in course. Carroll, 29 S.W.3d at 24 (Anderson, C.J.dissenting).