Court Opinion

ID: 9687869
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:52:14.579562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:07:57.825495
License: Public Domain

LeGRAND, Justice
(dissenting from Division IV on apportionment of contribution).
I concur in the judgment for plaintiff and in all of the majority opinion except Division IV dealing with the manner in which contribution is apportioned among the defendants.
*733The majority finds Dr. Baker, the hospital, and the two pathologists all guilty of negligence which proximately caused the overwhelming damages which followed. The opinion then orders the judgment be paid one-half by Dr. Baker and one-half jointly by the hospital and the two pathologists. This is the part of the opinion with which I cannot agree.
I have no quarrel with treating the two pathologists as a single entity for purposes of contribution but I dispute the finding which associates the hospital with them for that purpose. The result, of course, is that contribution is distributed in halves rather than thirds and the further result is that Dr. Baker — unfairly—is required to pay one-half of the total judgment rather than one-third, which I think would be the correct assessment.
The majority does this on the theory the hospital’s negligence is vicarious, arising only because of its relationship with the pathologists, who committed the negligent acts upon which liability depends. In the first place, I cannot accept this under the record before us. In reversing the trial court on its finding that Dr. Baker’s negligence was a superseding cause, the majority held against the other defendants on the issue of proximate cause as a matter of law. The record demands that same conclusion as to the hospital’s independent negligence in furnishing a totally unreliable reagent solution — the real trigger for all that followed.
Even assuming the majority is correct, however, in concluding the hospital’s liability is vicarious only, I would apportion contribution equally among Dr. Baker, the hospital, and the pathologists, leaving the matter of contribution between the hospital and the pathologists for determination by later appropriate action.
I refute the rationale by which one of three negligent parties is penalized because the other two bear some relationship to each other entirely separate and distinct from his involvement. Why should this penalize Dr. Baker, whose negligence under the majority’s findings is of the same order as that of the other defendants? It is interesting to note, too, that the majority reaches a result on contribution which none of the parties requests or argues. The only matter presented on this appeal is whether contribution should be in thirds or in fourths. In other words, should the two pathologists be assessed singly or together? No one contends contribution should be in halves. That is an issue which the majority has gratuitously advanced in this case.
I think this is a wrong result, particularly in view of the majority’s claim that contribution should be determined on equitable principles. Yet the decision is singularly inequitable. It is grossly unfair to one defendant and unjustifiably preferential to the others.
As already mentioned, I agree with the judgment in favor of plaintiff. My disagreement goes only to what is a fair adjustment among the defendants who must pay plaintiff’s damages.
I would modify the majority opinion to provide for contribution one-third by Dr. Baker, one-third by the hospital, and one-third jointly by the two pathologists. In all other respects I concur.
REES, J., joins in this dissent.