Court Opinion

ID: 9669358
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:53:42.415764+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:14.030333
License: Public Domain

Black, J.
(concurring in reversal). GrCR 1963, 206.1 permits the plaintiff to join defendants when, as pleaded here, there is asserted a right to relief in respect of or arising out of the same series of occurrences, and if a question of law or fact common to them will arise in the action. It does not decide that separate issues, if such are established when the pleadings are complete and pretrial summary has been filed, must be tried together. That question is generally a matter of judicial discretion per OCR 1963, 206.2, 207, and 505.2. It has not arisen in this case as yet and requires no present discussion.
The narrow question decided below and brought here is whether this plaintiff was possessed of permissive right to join the two defendants. GCR 1963, 206.1 answers that question affirmatively. The result is that the circuit judge erred in this ease when he dismissed one of the two defendants on motion assigning, as sole ground for dismissal, “improper joinder of parties defendant.”
The question is procedural. As for the substantial rights of the parties, I suggest (simply to avoid misunderstanding as the case proceeds) that we should reiterate adherence to Cooley’s text, quoted' in Meier v. Holt, 347 Mich 430, 438, 439, in Maddux v. Donaldson, 362 Mich 425, 450 (100 ALR2d 1), and in Justice Otis Smith’s opinion of instant Watts. Also, as before, we should make definitely clear the limited essence of Maddux’ holding. It is simply *127this: In the application of Cooley’s said text, no one or all of the alleged tort-feasors should he absolved as a matter of law, simply because of the complexity of the injury or injuries plaintiff has suffered. See Maddux at 432, 434, 436.
Note that such essence was expressly taken, by former Justice Talbot Smith, from Cuddy v. Horn, 46 Mich 596, 603 (41 Am Rep 178). That was a case where “simultaneous” negligent acts of the masters of the steamer “Garland” and the steam-yacht “Mamie” resulted in a marine collision and the death by drowning of plaintiff’s decedent, a passenger on the “Mamie.” Then examine Albrecht v. St. Hedwig’s Roman Catholic Benevolent Society, 205 Mich 395, wherein the importance of the time-differential was stressed in connection with what had been found in Cuddy v. Horn.1 The Court said, in Albrecht at 399:
“There was no concert of action between those who were charged jointly with the unlawful assaults. Plaintiff’s counsel, however, claims that they should be jointly liable because the amount of damages done by each of the claimed assailants cannot be separated. With this contention we cannot agree. The rule is thus stated in 38 Cyc, p 484, where it is said:
“ ‘The fact that it is difficult to separate the injury done by each from that done by the others furnishes no reason for holding that one tort-feasor should be liable for the acts of others with whom he is not acting in concert.’
“See Strawbridge v. Stern, 112 Mich 16; Diel v. Kellogg, 163 Mich 162. It should be borne in mind *128that in the present case the tortious acts complained of were not contemporaneous, but some time elapsed between them, and they were in no way connected, which was not true in the case of Cuddy v. Horn, 46 Mich 596 (41 Am Rep 178), relied upon by plaintiff’s counsel in his brief.”
The time element in these cases is usually crucial to decisions the trial judge must make when he prepares to instruct the jury. It is so because, if there is a lapse of appreciable time between the consecutive blows, that lapse usually provides some proof or inference from proof, on strength of which the trier or triers of fact may and accordingly should assess the plaintiff’s damages in separate amounts, “however difficult it may be as a practical matter to establish the exact proportion.” On the other hand, if the time element is too short for such proof, or if other factors combine to eliminate any such proof, the jury should be instructed that the causally negligent actors “are to be held liable as joint tortfeasors.”
By the above I follow directly what was separately written in Maddux at 450, 451.2 The experience of four years intervening since release of Maddux suggests generally that such separate writing is the best way to approach pertinent legal questions, one after the other as they arise in these successive impact motor accident eases, whether such questions arise upon motion or upon preparation of jury instructions. ' '
Maddux has just been brought up to date by an exhaustive annotation due to appear in 100 ALR2d starting at page 16, “Apportionment of damages in*129volving successive impacts by different motor vehicles.” A careful review of the galleys has brought the writer to even more firm conviction that the received delineative proof in each case will determine best what rule or rules of law the trier or triers of fact should apply to these successive impact cases, and that the availability of some or any proof (of what was after the first impact, and what was after the second and third, and so on) will likely provide more dependable legal guides, for court decision or jury instruction, than will the conclusionary allegations of pleadings or what Justice Souris aptly refers to as “the arcane jargon of the law.” (See comment in Hill v. Harbor Steel & Supply Corp., 374 Mich 194, 207, 208; also in In re Wood Estate, 374 Mich 278, 292 [5 ALR3d 1], and Felgner v. Anderson, 375 Mich 23, 30.)

To recapitulate:

By court rule plaintiff had a right to join both defendants. Whether his claims against the two defendants should be tried together or separately is primarily for the trial court. The question is not before us now. Should the trial judge decide in favor of one trial it would seem, looking at plaintiff’s-declaration and his detailed bill of particulars, that he has available to him sufficient testimony to bring the case within Meier v. Holt (majority opinion and concurring opinion) and the case cited in the majority opinion, Rodgers v. Canfield, 272 Mich 562. He can testify to the symptoms and results of the first tort as alleged by and known to him, and then testify to the symptoms and results which followed the second tort as alleged by and known to him. The two were hours apart; whereas in Maddux the consecutive torts were separated by seconds only and in Cuddy they were separated by no time at all.
I concur in reversal.

 The Court found, in Cuddy (pp 603, 604):
“The injury done in this ease resulted from a collision caused by the contemporaneous act of two separate wrong-doers, who, though not acting in concert, yet by their simultaneous wrongful aets put in motion the agencies whieh together caused a single injury; and for this the injured party eould receive but a single compensation, fit is the fact that they all united in the wrongful act, or set on foot or put in motion the agency by which it was committed,- that renders them jointly liable to the person injured,’ ”

 “Now we affirm that, where the trier or triers of faet find they cannot ascertain the amount of damages each wrongdoer has inflicted, then such trier or triers are authorized to assess the plaintiff’s damages against any one or all of such wongdoers on ground that the latter have — in law — participated in the infliction of ‘a single, indivisible injury.’ ” (Maddux at 450, 451.) -