Opinion ID: 2435493
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Post- McIntyre Federal Cases Dealing with Strict Liability and Tennessee's System of Comparative Fault

Text: With this background in mind, we now turn to the decisions of two federal courts which have considered the issue of whether the doctrine of comparative fault as enunciated in McIntyre applies in strict liability actions. These two decisions have yielded conflicting results. In McKinnie v. Ludell Manufacturing Co., Inc., 825 F. Supp. 834 (W.D.Tenn. 1993), the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee (Judge James D. Todd) held that comparative fault does apply to products liability actions based on strict liability. In reaching this conclusion, the district court focussed on this Court's emphasis on fault in McIntyre . The court stated as follows: The McIntyre court's definition of liability based on `fault' rather than `negligence' addresses the Tennessee Supreme Court's earlier concerns about interposing the plaintiff's negligence as a defense to `conduct which is culpable regardless of the care exercised by the defendant.' See Ellithrope, 503 S.W.2d at 521. Emphasizing `fault' rather than `negligence' appears to have been a conscious decision of the McIntyre court. McIntyre, 833 S.W.2d at 56. Negligence implies a breach of a duty of care, while fault refers merely to an act imposing liability. See e.g., Abbott v. American Honda Motor Co., 682 S.W.2d 206, 209 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1984) (recognizing that `fault' refers to a broader scope of conduct than `negligence'). The comparative fault system's focus on the party's relative `fault' avoids the `apples and oranges' argument which contends that a plaintiff's negligence cannot be effectively compared to a manufacturer's conduct in producing a defective product because strict liability is not predicated on a breach of any duty of care. See Carol A. Mutter, Moving to Comparative Negligence in an Era of Tort Reform: Decisions for Tennessee, 57 Tenn.L.Rev. 199, 295 (1990); Jerry J. Phillips, The Case for Judicial Adoption of Comparative Negligence in South Carolina, 32 S.C.L.Rev. 295, 299 (1980); 1 Comparative Negligence: Law and Practice Section 9.30[4] (Matthew Bender 1993); Dan B. Dobbs et al, Prosser and Keeton on the Law on Torts Section 67, at 478 (5th Ed. 1984 and Supp. 1988). Unlike a negligence-based system, which limits liability to the narrow basis of a party's breach of a duty of care, the fault-based system adopted by the McIntyre court allows the fact-finder to weigh the relative conduct of the parties. See e.g. Uniform Comparative Fault Act § 1(b) cmt., 12 U.L.A. 46 (West Supp. 1993) (`Putting out a product that is dangerous to the user or the public ... involves a measure of fault that can be weighed and compared, even though it is not characterized as negligence.'). 825 F. Supp. at 838-839. (Emphasis added.) The district court concluded its analysis by stating that: Given the Tennessee Supreme Court's focus on `fault' as the basis for liability and its reliance on the practices followed in other jurisdictions, this Court concludes that the Tennessee Supreme Court would follow the numerous other jurisdictions that have extended comparative fault to strict liability. Accordingly, the Court rules that, in light of the recent changes wrought by the Supreme Court of Tennessee, the defense of comparative fault could succeed against the claim asserted  strict products liability  by means of reducing Defendant's liability by the proportion of fault attributable to Plaintiff or third parties. 825 F. Supp. at 840-841. In Roberts v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 834 F. Supp. 987 (E.D.Tenn. 1993), however, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee (Judge Thomas G. Hull, the certifying Judge in this case) reached the opposite result from that announced in McKinnie. The district court supported its conclusion by reasoning that: In regard to Tennessee law, although there is a products liability statute, comparative fault has been solely implemented by a body of common law which consists of essentially only two Tennessee Supreme Court cases, although other Tennessee state and federal courts have utilized principles of comparative fault in various factual situations. Therefore, what other jurisdictions have concluded in regard to the interplay of a comparative fault statute with a products liability statute is dissimilar to the situation at bar. In this case, the Court has been asked to modify a large body of common law existing over many years which construes a statute, not by a modification dictated by another statute, but by extending a limited body of common law which overall does not address the issue before this Court. Based upon the foregoing, this Court declines to extend Tennessee common law principles of comparative fault to statutory actions in strict liability due to the absence of any authoritative Tennessee interpretation to the contrary, due to the Tennessee Supreme Court's recognition of the theoretical distinction of the two theories, and due to the limited language of the holding of McIntyre itself. 834 F. Supp. at 989. Before we are able to determine which of these opposing positions is correct, and, therefore, to answer the first question certified to us by the federal district court, we must first examine two crucial areas: (1) the strict liability law in Tennessee before McIntyre was decided; and (2) how other jurisdictions have handled this question.