Court Opinion

ID: 9735441
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:15:33.051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:58.673979
License: Public Domain

SULLIVAN, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
With respect to Issue II, the majority correctly analyzes Cornell Harbison Excavating, Inc. v. May (1989) Ind., 546 N.E.2d 1186. Indiana Code 84-4-88-10 covers the pleading and proof burden placed upon a defendant. Cornell reads into 1.C. 34-4-33-10 the precise language of 1.C. 34-4-88-6, which requires disclosure of the "name of the non-party" in verdict forms. Unlike our case, however, Cornell involved a non-party unknown to either party. In that context, therefore, it was logical to preclude the assertion of a non-party defense unless and until the defendant could vouch for the existence of the non-party. Cornell *530held that it was not enough to assert that the accident was caused by a dog which ran into the roadway. Here, the non-party was equally known to each party.
Be that as it may, and even if I were to agree that the burden upon a defendant to specifically name the non-party is an absolute prerequisite to the non-party defense, I cannot agree with the rewriting of 1.C. 84-4-33-10(c). The majority engages in that amendatory course by requiring the defendant not only to name the non-party whose identity is well known to plaintiff, but to do so within such time as fulfills the purpose of the provision. As here stated by the majority, the purpose is to permit plaintiff "'an opportunity to add as named defendants any persons subject to allocation of fault under a defendant's non-party defense.'" Opinion at 529. The plaintiff may choose to avail himself of this opportunity or he may choose to not do so. In any event, when the purpose of the provision is clearly met, in that plaintiff has and has always had actual knowledge of the identity of the non-party, plaintiff should not be entitled to an automatic judgment against defendant with respect to the defense.
I fully agree, however, that the trial court erred in refusing to allow Templins to add Rockwood as an additional party defendant. Such addition renders moot the matter of a non-party defense. On this basis I concur and would reverse with instructions to permit Templins to file an amended complaint joining both defendants.10

. - While the majority in footnote 4 states that it does not reach the issue of conceded error in the jury's divergent and inconsistent allocation of fault, I would state the obvious so that upon retrial, the trial court might avert such eventuality. Furthermore, while I fully concur with footnote 7 of the majority opinion as to the relationship between "fault" and "strict liability", I would make an observation that such conclusion does not dilute the fact that elements of negligence are very much involved in strict liability defective product cases. See Jarrell v. Monsanto Company (1988) 2d Dist., Ind.App., 528 N.E.2d 1158, 1168, trans. denied (1990) Ind., 555 N.E.2d 453.