Court Opinion

ID: 9659895
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:57:41.377954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:05:18.744346
License: Public Domain

Mues, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. I disagree with that portion of the majority’s decision which finds error in the failure to instruct the jury to separately determine economic and noneconomic damages and in the manner in which the trial court entered judgment. If Clinten had sued both Roger and Jack as joint tortfeasors, I would wholeheartedly agree with the majority’s conclusions. But Clinten did not sue both Roger and Jack — Clinten sued only Roger, seeking 100 percent of his recovery.

Joinder of Tort-Feasors.

It has long been the rule in this state that a plaintiff need not join all tort-feasors as defendants in an action for damages. See Fick v. Herman, 161 Neb. 110, 72 N.W.2d 598 (1955). The Nebraska Supreme Court has recently reaffirmed that rule in a suit by a bank for tortious conversion where the defendant argued a third party was necessary or indispensable. In finding that the bank was not required to join all possible joint tort-feasors, the Supreme Court stated: “A plaintiff need not join all tort-feasors as defendants in an action for damages. Every joint tort-feasor is liable for all damages to which his conduct has contributed, and it is no defense that these damages would not have occurred without the concurring misconduct of another person.” Battle Creek State Bank v. Preusker, 253 Neb. 502, 512, 571 N.W.2d 294, 301 (1997).
It has also been said that a defendant may not tender a substitute defendant to the plaintiff by pleading that the cause of *720the plaintiff’s injury was the act of the third-party defendant and not of the original defendant, since a person may be brought in as a third party only if he is secondarily liable to the third person, rather than directly liable to the original plaintiff. 67 A C.J.S. Parties § 98 (1978).

Third-Party Practice.

Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-331 (Reissue 1995) is Nebraska’s impleader statute. Impleader is a procedural device which does not create substantive rights but merely accelerates the accrual of the right to assert a claim of liability over. See 67A C.J.S. Parties § 95 (1978). Thus, § 25-331 provides a procedure by which a defendant, “as a third-party plaintiff,” may bring into an action a party who is or may be liable for all or part of the plaintiff’s claim. Leave of court is required, and when authorized, the person brought in is called the “third-party defendant.”
Of significance to my dissent is that impleader is not mandatory, nor is the plaintiff compelled to assert any claim against the third-party defendant, even one arising out of the transaction or occurrence that is the subject matter of the plaintiff’s claim against the original defendant. § 25-331. The court or any party may move to strike the third-party claim or for its severance or separate trial if the third-party claim should delay trial, might tend to confuse a jury, or in any way jeopardizes the rights of the plaintiff. Id.
A third-party claim under § 25-331 may be asserted when a third party’s liability is in some way dependent upon the outcome of the main claim or when the third party is secondarily liable to the defendant. Life Investors Ins. Co. v. Citizens Nat. Bank, 223 Neb. 663, 392 N.W.2d 771 (1986). The basic function of third-party practice is the original defendant’s seeking to transfer to the third-party defendant the liability asserted by the original plaintiff. Id. The granting of leave to file a third-party complaint is within the discretion of the trial judge. Northwestern Bell Tel. Co. v. Woodmen of the World Life Ins. Soc., 189 Neb. 30, 199 N.W.2d 729 (1972).

Contribution.

There is no dispute that Jack’s involvement in this case is as a third-party defendant sued by Roger on a theory of contribu*721tion. Clinten asserted no claim against Jack after the impleader was allowed, nor was he compelled to do so under § 25-331.1 believe any verdict for Clinten under a typical case prior to the passage of § 25-21,185.10 could only have been against Roger, the person Clinten sued. In turn, Roger would have been entitled to a judgment against Jack to shift a part of the common liability on the premise that Roger, in facing Clinten’s judgment, would be discharging more than his fair share of the common liability. See, e.g., Smith v. Kellerman, 4 Neb. App. 178, 541 N.W.2d 59 (1995).
Generally, the method of contribution among joint tort-feasors varies. In some jurisdictions, it is pro rata or proportionate, based upon the number of tort-feasors. In others, each tort-feasor bears the loss in proportion to his fault. See 18 C.J.S. Contribution § 8 (1990). To my knowledge, Nebraska’s method of apportioning loss between joint tort-feasors for purposes of contribution before § 25-21,185.10 has never been specifically defined by the Supreme Court.

Statutory Construction.

Statutory language is to be given its plain and ordinary meaning. This court will, if possible, try to avoid a construction which would lead to absurd, unconscionable, or unjust results. Hilliard v. Robertson, 253 Neb. 232, 570 N.W.2d 180 (1997). The majority essentially concludes that there is no rational distinction between Jack’s status as a third-party defendant as opposed to that of an original defendant, when assessing the applicability of § 25-21,185.10. To reach that conclusion, the majority implicitly construes the term “defendant” in § 25-21,185.10 to include “third-party defendant,” a term used only in § 25-331. The majority has read into the statute language which is not there, and I believe the construction it places on this section leads to several unjust results.
The first is that Clinten, not Roger, is forced to bear the risk of the collectibility of a judgment against Jack. As stated, in a third-party proceeding seeking contribution under § 25-331, the judgment would normally be in favor of the third-party plaintiff, Roger, as the trial court determined here. Next, it seems fundamentally wrong that a judgment be entered against someone and *722in favor of another who has not sought it. Such a result defies basic pleading rules. Moreover, it contradicts the rule in Fick v. Herman, 161 Neb. 110, 72 N.W.2d 598 (1955), that a plaintiff cannot be forced to join all tort-feasors and the language of § 25-331 that a plaintiff is not compelled to assert a claim against the third-party defendant. By treating the third-party defendant, Jack, as if he were an original defendant sued by Clinten, the majority has effectively “joined” Jack as a tortfeasor for Clinten. If the intent of the Legislature in enacting § 25-21,185.10 was to abrogate the Fick rule and alter longstanding rules of procedure on necessary and indispensable parties, it seems it could have easily said so.
Moreover, although perhaps not “unjust,” the majority’s reasoning, if correct, accentuates yet another significant change brought about by § 25-21,185.10. The effect of the majority’s conclusion is that the substantive common law of contribution between joint tort-feasors has been replaced by the provisions of § 25-21,185.10, a statute which, on its face, ostensibly applies only when a plaintiff seeks relief, not when a defendant seeks contribution from another tort-feasor.
While construing the formula of § 25-21,185.10 to be applicable to Roger’s suit for contribution is an ingenious way to clarify a subject heretofore uncertain in this state, Nebraska’s common law of allocating damages for contribution purposes was arguably much different than the legislatively imposed formula of § 25-21,185.10. See, e.g., 18 C.J.S. Contribution § 8 (methods of contribution vary, in some instances it being pro rata based upon number of tort-feasors). See, also, Smith v. Kellerman, supra.
Section 25-21,185.10 clearly evidences the Legislature’s intent to limit a tort-feasor’s liability to a plaintiff for noneconomic damages to a percentage of that tort-feasor’s negligence when a plaintiff seeks to recover from more than one defendant. While I do not challenge the majority’s logic in implying a similar intent as to third-party actions between tort-feasors for contribution, the statute does not address this topic, and it is one which I suspect is not normally associated with the statutory scheme which focuses on the liability of the defendants to the plaintiffs and not on the defendants’ liability to one another.
*723In sum, I am not convinced that the issues raised by Roger are answered by the subject legislation. Surely, the majority’s opinion is a well-reasoned attempt to balance § 25-21,185.10 with existing law. But in my view, the majority goes too far when it interprets the statute in ways that abrogate well-established principles — some statutory and some common law, some procedural and some substantive — without the Legislature’s clear indication that such was the intended result. Based on current Nebraska law, the action below involved two separate proceedings which were tried together at the discretion of the trial court. There was no error in the jury’s failure to determine Clinten’s economic and noneconomic damages or to allocate negligence between Roger and Jack in Clinten’s suit against Roger. Moreover, based on the pleadings, I believe the district court correctly entered judgment in favor of Clinten and against Roger for the full amount of Clinten’s damages. Assuming arguendo that the suit by Roger against Jack required a determination of their respective percentages of negligence, it would have been solely for contribution purposes. While such results are not necessarily compatible with the majority’s view of § 25-21,185.10, I believe they are the ones compelled by Nebraska’s current jurisprudence. And compatible or not, I believe they are the results which must continue in such matters unless or until the Legislature specifically directs to the contrary.