Court Opinion

ID: 9726857
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:10:50.614003+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:31.556822
License: Public Domain

PARAS, Acting P. J., Dissenting.
I cannot agree that American Motorcycle Assn. v. Superior Court (1978) 20 Cal.3d 578 [146 Cal. Rptr. 182, 578 P.2d 899], abrogated the equitable indemnity doctrine. Inter alia I note that were that the intention of the Supreme Court, it could so easily have been stated. Instead, the opposite was voiced. “[W]e conclude that the current equitable indemnity rule should be modified to permit a concurrent tortfeasor to obtain partial indemnity from other concurrent tortfeasors on a comparative fault basis.” (Italics added. 20 Cal.3d at p. 598.)
Moreover, the same equitable considerations which originally brought the total indemnity principle into being compel its continuation as a *879doctrine separate and distinct from that of comparative indemnity. Where one who has committed no affirmative wrongful act is caused to incur liability by the act of another, justice demands total indemnity. The most simple and obvious example of course is that of a landowner whom the law holds liable for a dangerous condition on his property created by someone else. Why should equity not forthrightly continue to assess the full loss upon the latter? I do not read American Motorcycle as declaring otherwise; nor do I read its partial indemnity doctrine, with its ramifications, as achieving the same result.
Total equitable indemnity should not be foreclosed by the “good faith” settlement of an active wrongdoer and the injured party, leaving the latter free to pursue his claim further against factually innocent, yet remedyless, persons. Without reaching the merits of the cross-complaint here, I dissent from the majority holding and would reverse the summary judgment, thus permitting the appellant to attempt to bring itself within the total indemnity doctrine.
A petition for a rehearing was denied March 13, 1981. Paras, J., was of the opinion that the petition should be granted.