Opinion ID: 1683646
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: dismissal and realignment

Text: Tom's next alleges error in the trial court's refusal to either dismiss Consolidated from the case or realign the parties to make Consolidated a plaintiff. According to Tom's, the interests of plaintiff, Carter, and defendant, Consolidated, were identical. Both parties sought a jury verdict that would exceed $250,000 and that would maximize Tom's liability or percentage of fault. In the event of such a verdict, Carter would collect more than the $250,000 guaranteed by Consolidated, yet Consolidated would pay nothing. In this scenario, Tom's is correct that Consolidated's status as a party-defendant is illusory. That is not to say, however, that the virtually identical interests between Carter and Consolidated necessitate formal realignment, much less Consolidated's dismissal. The need for a single jury to apportion fault among all potentially culpable parties and thereby promote judicial economy and preclude inconsistent verdicts is reason enough for Consolidated to remain in the case. Moreover, the fact that Consolidated's interests are different from Tom's does not necessarily justify formal realignment. Codefendants in any lawsuit who have filed cross-claims to apportion fault against each other are usually mutually antagonistic, whether or not one or the other is a party to a settlement agreement with plaintiff. Furthermore, a formal realignment in which Consolidated would be referred to as a plaintiff might promote, instead of alleviate, confusion about the parties' true interests. With such formal realignment, the jury would be asked to assess a percentage of fault against plaintiff Consolidated, which would have every appearance of a party-defendant but no similarity to a party-plaintiff. We agree, however, that realignment can and should be achieved in some manner other than by denominating a defendant as a plaintiff. With this understanding, the trial court took several steps to prevent undue advantage in favor of Carter and Consolidated as a consequence of their settlement agreement. As will be discussed in the next section, the trial court, after voir dire, allocated two of the defendants' three peremptory strikes to Tom's and only one strike to Consolidated. Additionally, the trial court ruled in pretrial conference that Consolidated should be prohibited from any involvement at trial on the question of damages. Although plaintiff, in proving damages, introduced depositions of medical testimony that included questions asked by counsel for Consolidated, the fact that Consolidated's counsel participated in the questioning was not disclosed to the jury. Furthermore, in closing argument, the trial court curtailed Consolidated's participation by limiting its time for argument to twenty minutes even though the other parties were each granted forty minutes. Most importantly, an informal realignment was achieved when the trial court read to the jury the instruction outlining all of the basic terms of the Mary Carter agreement and permitted both Tom's and Consolidated to discuss the agreement in closing arguments. In these ways, the jury was made aware of the parties' respective interests. Under these circumstances, the trial court's refusal to dismiss Consolidated or to formally realign Consolidated as a party plaintiff was not error.