Opinion ID: 2601704
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Abolition of Joint and Several Liability Requires a New Approach

Text: ¶ 31 Although both the Fox-Mitchell approach and the Huddell[-Caiazzo] approach are logically defensible, Farnsworth, 965 P.2d at 1220, we decline to adopt either because they do not adequately address the difficulties faced by states that have abolished joint and several liability, as Utah has. See Utah Code Ann. § 78B-5-818(3) (2008). ¶ 32 The Restatement itself is silent on the problem. Despite recognizing a growing trend away from joint and several liability, the Restatement offers no guidance. It merely states, In many jurisdictions, the common-law rules of joint and several liability have undergone significant legislative modification limiting liability to the percentage of fault allocated to each party. Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability § 16 cmt. e (1998). The Restatement thus offers no guidance in determining how to deal with indivisible injuries where joint and several liability is unavailable. Most of the states that have adopted the Fox-Mitchell approach have retained joint and several liability in at least some form. [10] Only five states that have adopted the Fox-Mitchell approach have abolished joint and several liability in this context, [11] and none of them have yet addressed or explained the viability of the approach in its absence. [12] ¶ 33 Nissan argues that the Huddell-Caiazzo approach resolves our problem. We disagree. The Huddell-Caiazzo approach actually was first articulated prior to the emergence of the Fox-Mitchell line of cases and therefore did not arise in the context of the more contemporary trend away from joint and several liability. One-half of the states adopting the Huddell-Caiazzo approach are states that have retained joint and several liability in some form. [13] Only Florida, Kentucky, and Michigan have abolished joint and several liability in this context. [14] Yet in adopting the Huddell-Caiazzo approach, neither the Kentucky Supreme Court nor the Michigan Court of Appeals mentioned the problem. See Toyota Motor Corp. v. Gregory, 136 S.W.3d 35, 41-42 (Ky. 2004); Sumner v. Gen. Motors Corp., 212 Mich.App. 694, 538 N.W.2d 112, 114-15 (1995) rev'd on other grounds by Lopez v. Gen. Motors Corp., 224 Mich.App. 618, 569 N.W.2d 861 (1997). Likewise, the Florida Supreme Court did not mention the problem. Although the court referenced the statute which abolished joint and several liability, it chose to ignore the statute by holding that it did not ordinarily apply in crashworthiness or enhanced injury cases. D'Amario, 806 So.2d at 426, 435. [15] Furthermore, we can find no court that has adopted the minority approach with an explicit acknowledgment or any discussion of its state's abolition of joint and several liability. ¶ 34 We are concerned that the Huddell-Caiazzo approach could result in complete non-recovery for plaintiffs, even where defective products have certainly contributed to their injuries. The approach claims that even if plaintiffs fail to meet their burden to apportion damages between an original tortfeasor and a product seller, they may still recover from the original tortfeasor, who remains liable for all damages. See Huddell, 537 F.2d at 739 (Should plaintiff fail to meet her burden on this claim, the brute fact is that the negligent driver would not escape liability on the same ground.) (emphasis in original). This result is not permitted under Utah's liability regime, where the liability of any given defendant is limited to only that proportion of fault attributed to that defendant. If there can be no apportionment for an indivisible injury, then the original tortfeasor can be no more liable than the product seller. Thus, under the Huddell-Caiazzo approach, if apportionment is impossible, both defendants walk, leaving the injured plaintiff to suffer the loss alone. ¶ 35 We therefore reject both the Fox-Mitchell and the Huddell-Caiazzo approaches and look instead to a rule based on party apportionment, the predicate for Utah's liability scheme. In doing so, we look to the statute that abolished joint and several liability. Section 78B-5-818(3) of the Utah Code provides, No defendant is liable to any person seeking recovery for any amount in excess of the proportion of fault attributed to that defendant.... Section 78B-5-817 defines fault broadly. It states, Fault means any actionable breach of legal duty, act, or omission proximately causing or contributing to injury or damages sustained by a person seeking recovery, including negligence in all its degrees, comparative negligence, assumption of risk, strict liability, breach of express or implied warranty of a product, products liability, and misuse, modification, or abuse of a product. Id. § 78B-5-817(2). ¶ 36 Unlike both approaches advocated by the parties, which reason that some enhanced injuries cannot be apportioned, Utah's statute contains an explicit legislative intent and declaration that fault, in all its broadly defined forms, is always apportionable. Thus, even when a plaintiff suffers what is generally thought to be an indivisible injury, our statute calls for apportionment. ¶ 37 This statutory demand for apportionment does not necessarily lead to pure speculation by fact-finders. This court has ruled that for a jury to apportion relative fault between two parties, the jury, of necessity, must have sufficient evidence of the culpability of each party to make that apportionment. S.H. ex rel. Robinson v. Bistryski, 923 P.2d 1376, 1382 (Utah 1996) (emphasis added). Sufficient evidence is not pure speculation, but neither does it require the precise, specific evidence the Huddell-Caiazzo approach demands. Rather, sufficient evidence in an enhanced-injury case exists where a plaintiff establishes that the product `defect is a substantial factor in increasing the plaintiff's harm beyond that which would have resulted from other causes.' Egbert I, 2007 UT 64, ¶ 19, 167 P.3d 1058 (quoting Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability § 16(a) (1998)). ¶ 38 We recognize that this apportionment may not be precise. But the law in Utah not only favors apportionment, it demands it. This apportionment may of course, in some cases, be a rough apportionment. See, e.g., Boryszewski v. Burke, 380 N.J.Super. 361, 882 A.2d 410, 423 (Ct.App. Div.2005) (Indeed, an arbitrary apportionmentequally among the various causative elementsmay be appropriate where ... the jury would be incapable of making an apportionment.). Also, the dilemma of the apportionment of indivisible injuries [may be] nonexistent when viewed from a practical perspective. Experts regularly provide such opinions and juries regularly perform similar apportionments in other contexts. Heather Fox Vickles & Michael E. Oldham, Enhanced Injury Should Not Equal Enhanced Liability, 36 S. Tex. L.Rev. 417, 450 (1995). Further, because all injuries, as a matter of Utah law, can and must be apportioned, there is no shifting of burdeninformal or formalto a defendant product seller to prove apportionment. The plaintiff bears the burden of proof in an enhanced-injury case. ¶ 39 Finally, because of the nature of an enhanced-injury claim and the abolition of joint and several liability, a defendant product seller cannot become liable for the entire injury merely by virtue of being a codefendant. The defendant product seller is liable only for the enhanced injury as determined by a fact-finder's apportionment under Utah Code section 78B-5-818(3). ¶ 40 Under this rule of apportionment, in any enhanced-injury case, when a plaintiff provides evidence of a defect and evidence that the defect is a factor in enhancing the injury, the trial court shall instruct the jury that it must apportion fault between the defendant original tortfeasor and the defendant product seller. [16] Given this articulation of the rule in Utah, we answer the second certified question in the negative: Utah does not follow section 16(b)-(d) of the Restatement (Third) of Torts: Products Liability.