Opinion ID: 2537389
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Reduction under 537.060

Text: Defendants finally allege the trial court erred in denying Defendants' motion for reduction. Section 537.060 permits a defendant's liability to be reduced by the amounts of settlements with joint tortfeasors. Teeter v. Mo. Highway & Transp. Comm'n, 891 S.W.2d 817, 820 (Mo. banc 1995). Section 537.060 provides in part: When an agreement by release, covenant not to sue or not to enforce a judgment is given in good faith to one of two or more persons liable in tort for the same injury or wrongful death, such agreement shall not discharge any of the other tort-feasors for the damage unless the terms of the agreement so provide; however, such agreement shall reduce the claim by the stipulated amount of the agreement, or in the amount of consideration paid, whichever is greater. A reduction under section 537.060 is a satisfaction of an amount owed. . . and must be pleaded and proved as an affirmative defense. Norman v. Wright, 100 S.W.3d 783, 785 (Mo. banc 2003). The defendant bears the burden of pleading and proving the elements of the defense. It is uncontested that reduction requires a defendant to plead and prove 1) the existence of a settlement and 2) the stipulated amount of the agreement or the amount in fact paid. The parties disagree as to who bears the burden of proving that a settling party was jointly liable for the same injury or wrongful death. Joint and several liability occurs where the concurrent or successive negligent acts or omissions of two or more persons, although acting independently of each other, are, in combination, the direct and proximate cause of a single injury to a third person, and it is impossible to determine in what proportion each contributed to the injury. Glick, 396 S.W.2d at 613 (Mo.1965), overruled on other grounds by Bennett, 896 S.W.2d 464. This situation can be distinguished from one in which an injury occurs and the negligence of a third party aggravates the initial injury. In such a situation, the third party would be liable only for the damage attributable to the aggravation and not for the initial injury. See State ex rel. Baldwin v. Gaertner, 613 S.W.2d 638, 640 (Mo. banc 1981). Sanders argues that for Defendants to receive reduction, they must plead and prove a medical malpractice action against each settling defendant for whose payment they claim a reduction. The cases Sanders cites for this proposition do not support his reading of the statute. In Stevenson v. Aquila Foreign Qualifications Corp., 326 S.W.3d 920, 928 (Mo. App.2010), the court stated that a non-settling tortfeasor who claims a settlement affords a right to reduction under section 537.060 bears the burden of proving it had joint liability with the settling tortfeasor, a burden which is not met by the fact that a plaintiff has merely claimed joint liability. (emphasis omitted). In Stevenson, the plaintiff was injured in an automobile collision by one set of defendants who later settled. Id. at 923. Three years later, the plaintiff's injuries were aggravated in a second automobile collision with the trial defendants. Id. Under the facts as pleaded, a jury could not find both sets of defendants jointly liable, as the injuries for which the trial defendants were sued were divisible from those governed by the settlement. Id. at 928. Because the plaintiff's pleadings could not establish joint liability, the burden of proving that element remained on the non-settling defendant. Id. In Walihan v. St. Louis-Clayton Orthopedic Group, Inc., 849 S.W.2d 177, 180 (Mo.App.1993), the court held that the defendants had failed to plead facts sufficient for summary judgment on section 537.060 reduction. In that case, the decedent was injured working for his Illinois employer and later received negligent medical treatment by a Missouri doctor and hospital, resulting in death. Id. at 179. The executrix sued the Illinois defendants in Illinois and sued the Missouri defendants in Missouri. Id. The Illinois defendants settled two causes of actionone for the underlying workplace injury and one for the ensuing death. [12] Id. at 180-81. The Missouri suit included only damages related to wrongful death. Id. at 181. The Missouri defendants sought reduction and provided evidence of the total amount of the Illinois settlement. Id. at 181. The settlement applied to multiple claims, of which the Missouri defendants were only liable for damages related to wrongful death. Id. Thus, a court could not determine without further inquiry the consideration paid to settle the wrongful death claim. Id. The court of appeals, therefore, overturned the trial court's application of reduction by the entirety of the settlement and remanded for a determination of the settlement amount attributable to wrongful death. Id. The burden of proof is on the party seeking reduction. For the purposes of statutory reduction, a rebuttable presumption of joint liability for the same injury or wrongful death can arise from the plaintiff's pleadings and ensuing settlement. Once that presumption arises, it falls to the plaintiff to show that the injuries are divisible. This interpretation fits with the purpose of section 537.060 to implement the common law rule that a plaintiff is entitled to only one satisfaction for the same wrong. See State ex rel. Normandy Orthopedics, Inc., v. Crandall, 581 S.W.2d 829, 832 n. 1 (Mo. banc 1979). Here, Sanders sued settling defendants Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, Carol E. Kirila and Midwest Division M.C.I., LLC. Sanders also sued non-settling defendants Dr. Ahmed and Dr. Iftekhar Ahmed P.A., among others. In his third amended pleading, Sanders alleged: As a direct and proximate consequence of the acts, omissions and conduct of the defendants set out herein, Paulette Sanders developed an elevation in her serum ammonia level, . . . which in turn caused her to become bedridden, physically disabled and mentally incapacitated, the complications of which ultimately directly caused or directly contributed to cause her death on August 24, 2005. In this pleading, Sanders alleges joint and several liability. When combined with the later settlement between some of these defendants and Sanders, such a pleading suffices to raise a rebuttable presumption that the settlement and suit pertained to the same injury or wrongful death for the purposes of section 537.060. Given the existence of that presumption, the burden still falls to Defendants to plead and prove the existence and applicability of the settlement and the amount paid thereunder. The trial court held Defendants' motion for discovery of the settlement terms in abeyance until the close of the trial. Although Defendants pleaded that Sanders had settled, the trial court's denial of discovery frustrated their ability to do anything further. Trial courts have broad discretion in administering rules of discovery, which this Court will not disturb absent an abuse of discretion. State ex rel. Delmar Gardens N. Operating, LLC v. Gaertner, 239 S.W.3d 608, 610 (Mo.2007) (citing State ex rel. Plank v. Koehr, 831 S.W.2d 926, 927 (Mo. banc 1992)). However, a trial court has no discretion to deny discovery of matters that are relevant to a lawsuit and are reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence when the matters are neither work product nor privileged. State ex rel. BNSF Ry. Co. v. Neill, 356 S.W.3d 169, 172 (Mo. banc 2011) (internal quotation marks and punctuation omitted). Here, the discovery of the settlement terms was crucial to Defendants' affirmative defense of reduction, and the discovery denial prejudiced their ability to plead and prove that defense. Within this context, it would be an injustice to hold that Defendants are precluded from a reduction because of their failure to plead and prove what the trial court withheld from them. [13] Sanders's pleading of joint and several liability along with the existence of a settlement with named defendants raises the presumption that the settlement was for the same injury as recovered under the jury's verdict. The statutory cap reduced the recoverable non-economic damages from $9.2 million to $1,265,207.64. The total settlement compensation is less than the difference between the verdict and the cap. However, Sanders's pleadings sought both non-economic and economic damages. Insofar as the settlements included economic damages, the cap will not obviate statutory reduction. Accordingly, a question also exists as to whether Sanders receives a double recovery of economic damages.