Opinion ID: 1975666
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: third-party defendant

Text: Shipferling's remaining assignments of error, properly preserved, assigned, and argued in her appellate brief, specifically No. 1, making the City a third-party defendant; No. 2, submitting the case to the jury under the comparative negligence statute when the City was not a proper party defendant; No. 3, failing to grant the City's and Shipferling's motion for directed verdict; and No. 5, applying the contributory negligence statute with a defendant who is a real defendant, can be summarized into one issue. That issue is whether it was error to permit Cook to join the City as a third-party defendant for the purpose of allowing the jury to allocate negligence between the parties pursuant to the comparative negligence laws. Shipferling contends that the district court lost jurisdiction over the City after the original third-party petition was dismissed for failure to comply with the time requirements of the Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act. She also asserts that the City was not a proper party defendant because no monetary judgment could be entered against the City. Shipferling claims that it was error to submit the case to the jury with instructions to allocate damages between all the parties because the comparative negligence statute applies to proper party defendants. Shipferling also contends that the issue of contributory negligence confused the jury and deflected the jury's attention from the issue of Cook's negligence. For all these reasons, Shipferling claims that she was prejudiced. After trial, the jury returned verdict form No. 1. The jury found in favor of Cook because Shipferling had not met her burden of proof. As such, the jury did not consider the allegation of contributory negligence of Shipferling nor the allegation of negligence of the City for the purposes of allocating negligence between the parties pursuant to the comparative negligence statute. The jury did not consider the facts underlying the balance of Shipferling's assignments of error. Where a jury, using a special verdict form, finds no negligence on the part of the defendant and, accordingly, does not reach the question of the plaintiff's contributory negligence, any error in giving a contributory negligence instruction is harmless and does not require reversal of a verdict in favor of the defendant. Corcoran v. Lovercheck, 256 Neb. 936, 594 N.W.2d 615 (1999). Because neither the allegation of Shipferling's contributory negligence nor the allegation of comparative negligence against the City for the purpose of allocating negligence between the parties pursuant to the comparative negligence statute was considered by the jury, we conclude that it is not necessary to address Shipferling's assignments of error claiming it was error for the district court to allow Cook to join the City as a third-party defendant.