Court Opinion

ID: 9478375
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:47:48.041996+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:24.212738
License: Public Domain

EDITH H. JONES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
With due respect to my colleagues, I dissent on one point in this case. In allocating the liability shares of two settling co-defendants back to Raymark, thus raising its proportionate liability to the plaintiff from 9% to about 27%, we have invaded the province of the jury. Duncan v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 665 S.W.2d 414 (Tex.1984), bold and far-reaching as it was, did not ordain this result, and I know of no other principle that justifies it.
Despite Whatley’s best efforts, the jurors obviously disbelieved his contention that Raymark, the lone, non-settling defendant at trial, was somehow more liable than other asbestos manufacturers to whose products Whatley was exposed. As a result, the jury found Raymark equally responsible with ten other settling asbestos manufacturers for causing Whatley’s lung cancer. It assessed each of them with approximately 9% fault, and judgment was rendered accordingly.
On appeal, we have correctly found insufficient evidence to hold that Owens-Illinois or Armstrong Products exposed What-ley to harmful asbestos fibers. Thus, as to nine manufacturers, including Raymark, there was sufficient evidence to connect their products to the plaintiff’s injury. The question then becomes how to treat the jury verdict with two fewer manufacturers involved. Three possibilities exist. First, we could remand for a new trial. Second, we could assume that the jury, having clearly determined that Raymark was no more responsible proportionately for What-ley’s cancer than any other manufacturer, *845should bear V9th rather thanVuth of the liability, and we could award 11% of the verdict against Raymark. Third, purporting to apply those cases which have held, in the wake of Duncan, that a non-settling defendant bears the burden of establishing the percent causation of settling tort-feasors, we could reach the majority’s result here.
As I see it, the majority’s result is a fact-bound wolf masquerading in the sheep’s clothing of the Duncan line of cases. I would demonstrate this by showing two closely related, plausible post-Dww-can scenarios involving settling tort-feasors. First, suppose A sued defendants B, C and D and settled with D. According to Duncan, B and C are entitled to point the finger at D as the absent tortfeasor, and the jury is responsible for allocating the share of comparative causation among the parties. The maximum exposure of B and C, absent contributory negligence, will be reduced by the extent of D’s percentage contribution to the tort. Suppose the jury finds B 10% liable, C 30% liable and D, the settler, 60% liable. Suppose further that on appeal, C is legally exonerated. The appellate court obviously cannot continue to hold B liable for 10% of the tort, but should it simply add C’s 30% to the judgment previously entered against B? Such a result, analogous to that of the majority here, would surely not make sense, because we cannot speculate how a jury might have viewed B’s negligence if compared only with that of the absent D rather than the personally participating defendant C. The allocation of causation among the three participating tortfeasors could only be redone before a new trier of fact.
Likewise, consider the possibility that in the present case, two defendants had failed to settle, and they both impleaded the eight other settling asbestos manufacturers. Suppose further that the jury, unlike this one, had awarded different shares of causation among the eleven potential defendants. If we had reversed the judgment because of insufficient evidence of liability as to two settling tortfeasors, would we have the license to apply the percentages applicable to the exonerated tortfeasors in some manner against the two non-settling appellants? I doubt it. What non-arbitrary formula could we employ? The relative shares of liability, when some potential tortfeasors have been excluded from the jury’s consideration, might change dramatically. We would have to order a new trial.
This case differs from the first hypothetical, but not from the second, in only one respect: that cases following Duncan have held that the non-settling defendant has the burden of proof regarding the liability of settling tortfeasors. Shipp v. General Motors Corp., 750 F.2d 418, 425 (5th Cir.1985). That difference is not dispositive, however, because it is still the province of the trier of fact to determine the percent share of causation assigned among the defendants and the settling tortfeasors.
The Texas Supreme Court in Duncan characterized the allocation of comparative causation without qualification as a jury issue:
We hold that in multiple defendant cases in which grounds of recovery other than negligence are established, the non-settling defendants’ liability and the plaintiff's recovery shall be reduced by the percent share of causation assigned to the settling tortfeasor by the trier of fact.
665 S.W.2d at 429 (emphasis added).
In this case, the entire calculus of comparative causation has been changed by eliminating two settling tortfeasors. Unpleasant as it might be for the parties involved, I must conclude that a retrial is the only way to revise the factual determination of Raymark’s percent causation. This situation is no different than if some particularly offensive piece of evidence had entered the trial in regard to one tortfeasor, and we were required to order a new trial devoid of its infectious influence. The majority’s usurpation of the fact-finding function of comparative causation becomes clear in light of the consequences of their re-formulated judgment. The jury found that Ray-mark was no more responsible for What-ley’s lung cancer than any other asbestos manufacturer; the majority have held Ray-*846mark 27% responsible, as against the 73% residual causation by eight other tort-feasors.
The posture of this case is unusual, because there is one plaintiff, one non-settling defendant, and virtually identical issues of liability pertaining to the settling tortfeasors and Raymark. In almost any other postulated Duncan-type case, the majority could not justify the expedient of avoiding a new trial by creating their own allocation of comparative causation. That the case is unusual, however, does not prevent it from being incorrectly decided, as I believe it has been. I would reverse and remand for a new trial.