Opinion ID: 1974473
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Severance

Text: The severance about which petitioners complain occurred in connection with a mini-trial scheduled to begin on 23 March 1993, dealing with individual issues of injury, medical causation, product exposure, and compensatory damages. Just prior to the scheduled commencement of that trial, two of the defendants settled with all of the plaintiffs, receiving releases that, it was represented to the court, will entitle any defendants found liable to these plaintiffs to a pro tanto reduction of the judgments if the settling defendant is adjudged to be a joint tortfeasor. Because the releases apparently do not contain an agreement that the settling defendants are joint tortfeasors, petitioners, who remain as defendants in the mini-trial and who have filed cross-claims against the settling defendants, wish to have the opportunity to prove, as part of the mini-trial, that the settling defendants are joint tortfeasors. See Swigert v. Welk, 213 Md. 613, 621-22, 133 A.2d 428 (1957). Petitioners contend that it will be much more difficult, time consuming, and expensive to attempt to prove the settling defendants are joint tortfeasors in a later consolidated trial of cross-claims and a required subsequent mini-trial. Judge Levin granted the settling defendants' request for severance of the cross-claims. The short answer to petitioners' claim with respect to this severance is that we will not address it by the issuance of a writ of mandamus or prohibition. This portion of the petition seeks micro-management by extraordinary writ of complex litigation in a circuit court, and does not meet the extraordinary circumstances which we have said will justify the issuance of such a writ. See Doering v. Fader, 316 Md. 351, 558 A.2d 733 (1989); In re Petition for Writ of Prohibition, 312 Md. 280, 539 A.2d 664 (1988).