Court Opinion

ID: 9597132
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:55:51.794332+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:57.499045
License: Public Domain

RAY THORNTON, Justice, dissenting. For more than thirty years, it has been the law in Arkansas that a plaintiff can recover damages from those whose negligence caused a loss if the negligence of the plaintiff is of a lesser degree than the combined negligence of the other parties whose negligence contributed to the loss. Today the majority overturns that well-established principle, and concludes that because the plaintiff had settled its claim against one of the tortfeasors, the twenty-one percent apportionment of negligence against that tortfeasor could not be combined with the thirty-two percent negligence of a second tortfeasor for the purpose of allowing recovery by a plaintiff whose own negligence was less than fifty percent of the total negligence of all those whose negligence caused the loss. Disallowing a plaintiff, whose negligence is less than fifty percent of the total negligence of all parties whose negligence contributed to the loss, stands our law of comparative fault on its head, and I respectfully dissent. A review of the development of law on comparative fault shows clearly that it has never been the legislative intent to prohibit recovery by a plaintiff found by a jury to have been less that fifty percent at fault. By enacting the Act 191 of 1955, the “Prosser Act,” the General Assembly established the first comparative fault statute in Arkansas. See, e.g., Walton v. Tull, 234 Ark. 882, 356 S.W.2d 20 (1962). Under the provisions of the “Prosser Act,” the recovery of damages was apportioned among all those whose negligent acts caused the damages in accordance with the degree of fault attributable to each of them. A plaintiff, whose own negligence was sixty percent of all negligence causing the loss, could still recover the forty percent of the damages attributable to others. The intent was to distribute the total liability so that each party would bear his fair share, taking both his injuries and his percentage of fault into account. Id. (citing Robert A. Leflar, Comparative Negligence: A Survey for Arkansas Lawyers, 10 Ark. L. Rev. 54 (1955)). Concerned that allowing recovery by a plaintiff whose negligence was more than fifty percent of the total fault, the legislature amended the statute to limit recovery to those instances where “the negligence of the person injured or killed is of a lesser degree than the negligence of any person, firm or corporation causing such damages.” Ark. Stat. Ann. § 27-1730.1 (cited in Walton, supra). In 1962 in Walton, supra, we interpreted this act to mean that the negligence of all tortfeasors should be aggregated, and that the plaintiff should be denied recovery only when his own negligence was fifty percent or higher. Writing for the court, Justice George Rose Smith stated: “We are not convinced that the legislature meant to go any farther than to deny a recovery to a plaintiff whose own negligence was at least fifty percent of the cause of the damage.” Id. Justice Smith then warned that to go farther would “be almost a return to the common law doctrine of contributory negligence.” Id. This principle has been the bedrock of our interpretation of the law of comparative fault, and in the case of Riddell & McGraw v. Little, 253 Ark. 686, 488 S.W.2d 34 (1972), we reemphasized that the basic purpose of the comparative fault statute was to distribute the total damages among those who cause them. We then stated: “Furthermore, the legislature did not mean to go any farther than to deny recovery to a plaintiff only when his negligence was at least fifty percent of the cause of the alleged injuries or damages.” Id. Murray Guard admits, and the majority agrees, that under the principles of Walton, supra, and Riddell, supra, that the plaintiff should be able to recover from KPMG and Murray Guard on the basis of their combined assessment of fault, by jury verdict, as fifty-three percent. Flowever, the majority reasons that in 1975, the legislature overturned these cases by an amendment limiting the comparison of fault. According to the majority, twenty-five years ago, the law was changed. As a result of the 1975 amendment, according to the majority, “Thus, the statute in its current form no longer provides for a comparison of fault among all those responsible for the harm.” First, to address the conclusion that the 1975 statute had overturned the principles of comparative fault articulated in Walton, supra, and Riddell, supra, without anyone noticing, I have carefully reviewed the 1975 statute to see how such sweeping changes were accomplished without alerting anyone as to the effect of such changes. The statute reads as follows: 16-64-122. Comparative fault. (a) In all actions for damages for personal injuries or wrongful death or injury to property in which recovery is predicated upon fault, liability shall be determined by comparing the fault chargeable to a claiming party with the fault chargeable to the party or parties from whom the claiming party seeks to recover damages. (b) (1) If the fault chargeable to a party claiming damages is of a lesser degree than the fault chargeable to the party or parties from whom the claiming party seeks to recover damages, then the claiming party is entitled to recover the amount of his damages after they have been diminished in proportion to the degree of his own fault. (2) If the fault chargeable to a party claiming damages is equal to or greater in degree than any fault chargeable to the party or parties from whom the claiming parly seeks to recover damages, then the claiming party is not entitled to recover such damages. Id. I can find no language specifically providing that a comparison of fault among all those responsible for the harm has been repealed. Indeed, the plain words of the present statute suggest that “liability shall be determined by comparing the fault chargeable to a claiming party with the fault chargeable to the party or parties from whom the claiming party seeks to recover damages.” Id. The earlier statute, which we interpreted in Walton, supra, and Riddell, supra, provides that recovery shall be allowed “where the negligence of persons injured or killed is of a lesser degree than the negligence of any person, firm or corporation causing such damage.” Ark. Stat. Ann. § 27-1730.1. Thus, according to the majority, the legislature overturned the principles of comparative fault by drawing a distinction between the phrase, “the negligence of any person, firm or corporation causing the damage,” id., and the phrase, “the fault chargeable to the party or parties from whom the claiming party seeks to recover damages.” Ark. Code Ann. § 16-64-122. Just how this change of phrase was intended to overturn the principles of comparative fault eludes me, but at least I have the comfort of observing that it has eluded everyone else for twenty-five years. The fine distinction upon which the majority opinion rests is that because KPMG was not a defendant in the plaintiff’s action against Murray Guard, KPMG’s fault of twenty-one percent cannot be aggregated with Murray Guard’s fault of thirty-two percent for the purpose of determining whether NationsBank shall be allowed any recovery for the negligence of the other parties to the litigation. This brings us to the pivotal question: Was KPMG a party from whom NationsBank claimed damages? The answer is “yes.” In fact, NationsBank had been paid damages by KPMG in a settlement agreement during the course of this controversy. Yet because NationsBank did not name KPMG as a defendant, which it could not do after the settlement, the majority takes the position that “[a]t no time did NationsBank and KPMG claim damages from one another.” That is not accurate. NationsBank settled its claim against KPMG, and KPMG’s negligence should be added to the negligence charged against Murray Guard. To hold otherwise will chill any possibility of settlement of claims between an injured party and joint tortfeasors. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent, and I am authorized to state that Chief Justice ARNOLD and Justice HANNAH join in this dissent. Arnold, C.J., and Hannah, J., join.