Court Opinion

ID: 9542704
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:37:32.18885+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:08:43.819048
License: Public Domain

LOPEZ, Judge (dissenting). I dissent from that part of the decision which relates to compensatory damages. The plaintiff here received $200,000 following a judgment for $357,390.92. There is nothing in the record from which we can infer that $157,390.92 of that amount represented satisfaction of the claim for compensatory damages nor can we find any support for adopting such a legal fiction. The majority’s conclusion that the judgment has been satisfied in full rests on the validity of the discharge of Culver. While we would agree that the agreement between Culver and the plaintiff was binding with respect to the parties to the agreement, the validity of that agreement does not determine the nature of the plaintiff’s rights with respect to Fortuna. Satisfaction and discharge of a judgment with respect to one joint tortfeasor does not serve to discharge another where the plaintiff has not received compensation in full. Herrera v. Uhl, 80 N.M. 140, 452 P.2d 474 (1969). To introduce the illusion that the plaintiff here has been fully compensated because the discharge is binding will return the courts to the dissension over the release rules which the adoption of the Uniform Contribution Among Tortfeasors Act (§§ 24-1-11 to 24-1-18, N.M.S.A.1953 (Vol. 5) should have silenced.