Opinion ID: 1735293
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Refusal to instruct the jury to consider Sauls' negligence in apportioning fault between the participants to the incident giving rise to Chapman's personal injuries.

Text: ¶ 40. Coho argues that the trial court committed reversible error by refusing to instruct the jury to consider Sauls' negligence in apportioning fault for Chapman's injuries. Coho claims that the trial court's refusal to include Sauls in the apportionment of fault is in direct conflict with our law. Chapman argues that even though this Court overruled Accu-Fab & Construction, Inc. v. Ladner, 778 So.2d 766 (Miss.2001), the result in this case would not change because Chapman was included in the apportionment process and the jury allocated zero fault to him. However, Chapman fails to note that the jury wanted to include Sauls in the apportionment process. The jury specifically sent a note to the judge wanting to know why Sauls could not be considered. The court responded to the jury's question and told that jury that if the jury will read the instructions that have been given by the Court, they will find an instruction that deals with the problem or the question that they've submitted to the Court. ¶ 41. In Estate of Hunter v. General Motors Corp., 729 So.2d 1264, 1273 (Miss. 1999), this Court held that party in the statute swept broadly enough to bring in entities which would not or could not have been parties to a lawsuit. This Court went further to note that section 85-5-7 requires that the fault of all participants to the occurrence, including any absent tortfeasors, must be considered in the apportionment of fault. Id. (emphasis in original). This Court declared [t]his State's system of civil justice is based upon the premise that all parties to a lawsuit should be given an opportunity to present their versions of a case to a jury, and the interpretation of § 85-5-7 urged by the plaintiffs [i.e., excluding those parties not in the suit] would seriously infringe upon a defendant's rights in this regard in many cases. Id. at 1274 (emphasis added). Furthermore, this Court in Mack Trucks, Inc. v. Tackett, 841 So.2d 1107 (Miss.2003), reiterated this by holding that a party which is immune from liability, including an employer which is immune by virtue of workers' compensation law, may be assessed fault under the allocated fault statute. This Court stressed the fact that to immunize employers from fault allocation in third-party tort suits would go against the spirit of the bargain between employers and employees that underlies workers' compensation; instead, the third party would pay the employer's cost of compensation, and the employer would have the possibility of recovering in tort for his employer's fault, since that would then be allocated to the third party. This certainly would benefit employers, and to some extend plaintiffs  but third parties should not be assessed to supplement our system of workers' compensation. Id. at 1115. ¶ 42. The jury was obviously confused by the faulty instructions. We find that the trial judge erred in refusing to allow the jury to allocate fault to Sauls. Sauls, although immune from the lawsuit under the workers' compensation law, should be included in the apportionment of fault. On remand the jury shall be instructed to consider Sauls in the apportionment of fault.