Opinion ID: 1318434
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Settled Defendants' Designation for Trial Purposes

Text: Burton designates this argument as: Was it fundamental error for the trial judge to instruct the jury that plaintiff was still making a claim against defendants with whom plaintiffs had previously settled? This court would rather define this question as whether or not confusion significantly inhibited the contemplation decision of the jury or misstated what would be required of the jury in rendition of the verdict. The supposition of jury error or confusion calls into question far less knowledge and lesser sophistication for that jury than realistically can be justified as a matter of ordinary logic. Voir dire examination was not reported, so the constituency of the twelve-member jury is not present in the appeal record. However, in Sweetwater County, Wyoming, some knowledge of litigation and oil-field activities would hardly be surprising. Chavez v. State, Wyo., 604 P.2d 1341, 1349 (1979), cert. denied 446 U.S. 984, 100 S.Ct. 2967, 64 L.Ed.2d 841 (1980). The case was tried against the superintendent; the employee had job-site responsibilities, and the installer of the downstream pump had nothing to do with the unit which caused the injury. It would not have required a genius among the jurors to know exactly what the status of the litigation was, where neither the unit installer nor the manufacturer remained as claimed liable parties. We do not now find a question raised by either appellant or the majority of the court in the prior opinion but that in some fashion it was necessary for the jury to assess the relative share of negligence as including Pierce and Fisher in the computation. Although we do not recommend or necessarily approve of the use of the continued designation of defendant in future cases for settled-out participants, we simply find neither jury confusion nor error rationally resulting in this occurrence. The issue and confusion were well stated by counsel in further rebuttal final argument: I want to talk to you about a trap that I see in this case again and I think you'll be able to see if you examine the verdict form when you go to the jury room, that the only way you can assess money damages in this case for Donald [Burton] is if you find against Olman Heath, and find Olman Heath to be negligent more than Donald. If you don't find against Olman Heath the verdict tells you that you don't even get to the question of damages. So it's really a case that boils down to being between Olman Heath and Donald and nobody else.       As to Fisher, and I think, I need to say that we searched everywhere after the case was filed, and by the evidence in the case we've elected to proceed against some people and not against others.