Court Opinion

ID: 9657027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 20:11:01.431866+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:39.754736
License: Public Domain

LEVINE, Justice,
concurring specially.
In Butz v. Werner, 438 N.W.2d 509 (N.D.1989), I expressed my dissenting view that only one failure-to-warn theory should be submitted to the jury. Had that been done and had Werner been deemed blameworthy, the appellants may have been entitled to contribution. However, the majority view prevailed and so we are faced with the issue at hand.
The appellants, while acknowledging that Chapter 32-03.2, NDCC, is not controlling, urge that we nonetheless apply it because it reflects the public policy that each defendant at fault pay its pro rata share whether that fault is greater than plaintiff’s or not. NDCC §§ 32-03.2-02 and 32-03.2-03. The problem I have with this argument is my uncertainty that, if the case had been submitted to the jury under the new legislation’s theory of pure comparative fault, the jury may not have assessed any fault to Werner, or may have allocated to him a different quantum of fault. It is simply too hypothetical a factual proposition to conclude that the fifteen percent negligence attributed to Werner under the law of the case would have remained the same under different law. Accordingly, I agree that, under the law of the case, there is no common liability and thus, there can be no contribution.