Court Opinion

ID: 9715356
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:01:06.433155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:33.836765
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE MILLER, specially concurring: I concur in the result and reasoning contained in the majority opinion. I write separately, however, to emphasize how narrow the court’s holding is with respect to Munsterman’s action against the third-party defendants for implied indemnity. As the majority opinion recounts, the injured plaintiff sued A. F. Munsterman, Inc., the company that supplied the trailer hitch and chains, on theories of negligence and strict liability; the trial judge directed a verdict against Munsterman on the strict liability theory, and the jury found in the plaintiff’s favor on the negligence count. According to the jury instructions used in this case, the plaintiff’s allegations of negligence asserted that Munsterman had supplied codefendant Allen, operator of the truck and trailer combination, “with a pintle hook which it knew or should have known was in an unreasonably dangerous condition,” and “with a low-boy type trailer with attached safety chains and ‘S’ hooks which it knew or should have known were inadequate, under the circumstances, to secure said trailer to the rear of the vehicle operated by Keith Allen.” Moreover, the jury answered a special interrogatory finding Munsterman guilty of negligence proximately causing the plaintiff’s injuries. It may be noted that Munsterman’s conduct, as found by the jury, exceeded the nonculpable failure to discover a product defect. Munsterman’s action against the third-party defendants for contribution trader the Contribution Act was barred by the plaintiff’s settlement of her own claims against those parties (see Ill. Rev. Stat. 1981, ch. 70, pars. 302(c), (d)), and Munsterman makes no challenge to the good-faith basis of the settlement. Furthermore, I agree with the majority that Munsterman’s negligent conduct in this case, as determined by the jury, precluded Munsterman from bringing a nonstatutory action for implied indemnity against the third-party defendants. We have previously ruled that the active/passive form of implied indemnity is incompatible with this court’s decision in Alvis v. Ribar (1981), 85 Ill. 2d 1, adopting the comparative negligence doctrine. (See Allison v. Shell Oil Co. (1986), 113 Ill. 2d 26, 32-34.) We have left open, however, the question whether certain other theories of implied indemnity, such as an action based on vicarious liability, or an action brought by a “downstream” seller against an “upstream” product manufacturer or distributor, which is the form asserted by Munsterman in this case, survived the decision in Skinner v. Reed-Prentice Division Package Machinery Co. (1977), 70 Ill. 2d 1, and the subsequent enactment of the Contribution Act. See Allison, 113 Ill. 2d at 35; see also Heinrich v. Peabody International Corp. (1987), 117 Ill. 2d 162,167-68. As the majority opinion demonstrates, we need not decide that question here. An action for implied indemnity, predicated on the “upstream” liability of a product manufacturer or distributor, contemplates an absence of culpability on the part of the “downstream” indemnitee. (See, e.g., Vertecs Corp. v. Reichhold Chemicals, Inc. (Alaska 1983), 661 P.2d 619; Tolbert v. Gerber Industries, Inc. (Minn. 1977), 255 N.W.2d 362.) But the jury found that Munsterman was negligent, and therefore Munsterman cannot be the blameless indemnitee that the doctrine would require. For that reason, then, we need not, and do not, decide here the question whether an “upstream” implied indemnity action is compatible with the Contribution Act. Assuming that the “upstream” action still exists, we hold simply that it is not available to Munsterman in this case.