Court Opinion

ID: 9470567
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:09:25.051427+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:58.581062
License: Public Domain

• PATRICK E. HIGGINBOTHAM, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority seems assured that it has both the right and wisdom to confect a body of tort rules vindicating values it believes essential to the vitality and purpose of the Civil Rights Acts. With deference to the distinguished majority, I am persuaded that in their short cut to a desired result they bypassed signs that might have persuaded that the result was not in fact desired. Perversely the majority opinion hands to this plaintiff a result I doubt he wants and which is, in the long term, injurious to the administration of this stellar right of action.
The Texas rule is simple. A plaintiff ought not recover but once for his injury. In addition to its direct service of plain fairness, the one-satisfaction rule was spawned by considerations of procedural practicability as well. Allowing a plaintiff to recover but once is integral to a body of rules that allocate judgment damages. As will be seen, much is built upon this foundation. In part I, I will explain the Texas rule in context and its operation. I will then turn to the majority’s assertion that Texas law fails to express the goal of deterrence as well as compensation and examine the effect of the majority’s new law. In part II, I will return to the difficulties in this case. In part III, I suggest that the majority’s reliance upon economic literature leads to an incorrect result.
I
Complete Satisfaction — Once
Professor Hodges stated the Texas rule:
Since the plaintiff is entitled to no more than full compensation for his injuries, if the amount paid by alleged tortfeasor A is equal to or greater than the amount of damages plaintiff is found to have suffered, the plaintiff is entitled to no recovery against tortfeasor B; if the amount of the settlement is less than the determined amount of damage, then the plain*772tiff can recover from B only his damage less the amount he has already received in settlement from A; and this is so even though it be determined that A was not negligent at all or was entitled to indemnity from B. Thus if A has paid $6,500 to plaintiff, and in the latter’s subsequent action against B it is found that the damage is $6,500, the plaintiff is not entitled to any judgment against B. If, instead, the damage is determined to be $10,000, then plaintiff may recover only $3,500 from B.
Hodges, Contribution and Indemnity Among Tortfeasors, 26 Tex.L.Rev. 150,171-72 (1947). Professor Hodges’ succinct expression of Texas law can best be understood with an awareness of its history.
The Texas Supreme Court in Palestine Contractors, Inc. v. Perkins, 386 S.W.2d 764 (Tex.1964), relied heavily upon the analysis of Professor Hodges. Under Palestine Contractors, a non-settling defendant is only potentially liable for his proportionate share of plaintiff’s damages and is regardless entitled to credit for any amount paid by joint tortfeasors. Hodges’ description is clear:
[I]f tortfeasor A has paid $6,500 to the plaintiff and in the latter suit against B the damage is determined to be $10,000, the recovery against B would be $3,500; if the damage is $13,000, recovery would be $6,500; damage $20,000, recovery $10,-000; damage, $30,000 recovery $15,000.
26 Tex.L.Rev. at 172.
The one-satisfaction rule was also explained by the Texas Supreme Court in Bradshaw v. Baylor University, 126 Tex. 99, 84 S.W.2d 703 (1935):
The question, thus narrowed down, is, What right has Bradshaw, who has been fully compensated for his injuries, to recover further damages? The only answer which accords with justice and the authorities is that he has none. The jury found that $6,500, if paid at the date of trial, would compensate him for the injuries sustained. He had theretofore been paid that exact amount. It is a rule of general acceptation that an injured party is entitled to but one satisfaction for the injuries sustained by him. That rule is in no sense modified by the circumstance that more than one wrongdoer contributed to bring about his injuries. There being but one injury, there can, in justice, be but one satisfaction for that injury.
Id. 84 S.W.2d at 705.
The one-satisfaction rule has been recently applied by this court. In Howard v. General Cable, 674 F.2d 351 (5th Cir.1982), we required that the non-settling party receive credit under the one-satisfaction rule. There, plaintiffs sued three defendants under the Texas Wrongful Death statute, settling with two before trial for the sum of $595,000. The jury returned a $610,000 verdict against General Cable. We reduced the jury’s award to each plaintiff by the amount each received in the settlement.

Rejection of the One-Satisfaction Rule for § 1983 Cases

The majority rejects the one-satisfaction rule, reasoning that because Dobson received his compensation from only one defendant, leaving parties found liable but not required to pay, it is inconsistent with perceived policies of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. That discovered inconsistency between state and federal law is said to exist because the one-satisfaction rule of Texas denies effectiveness to a required deterrent component of § 1983. The majority’s reasoning is flawed in at least four material respects.
First, the majority’s argument chooses to ignore that a jury’s decision to maximize the deterrent component of § 1983 by awarding punitive damages will not be frustrated by the one-satisfaction rule. The rule does not permit a defendant to reduce any award of punitive damages by the amount of another defendant’s settlement. Hill v. Budget Finance & Thrift Co., 383 S.W.2d 79 (Tex.Civ.App. — Dallas 1964, no writ). The police officer here thus could not have credited Denny’s settlement against an award of punitive damages. There was no award of punitive damages because the jury refused to award them. Although the majority points an accusing finger at a perceived deficiency in Texas *773law, Texas law is not “deficient” in that it does allow the awarding of punitive damages. The majority’s real quarrel is with the jury verdict. By refusing to offset the officer’s liability by the amount of the settlement, the majority effectively prorides Dobson a sum the jury refused to award.
Second, the majority fails to appreciate the deterrent force of the threat that the police officer would be held liable for Dob-son’s injuries. The majority seems to believe that this deterrent effect is lost if the police officer, due to events beyond his control, does not end up paying out of his own pocket for “his share” of the plaintiff’s injury. At its logical extreme police officers would be denied the generous exemptions enjoyed by judgment debtors in Texas and be denied insurance as contrary to public policy. The majority simply does not recognize that the threat of liability and the adjudication of liability are themselves powerful deterrent forces. It was Dobson, not the defendants, who had control over the defendants’ exposure. Had Dobson not settled with Denny’s, he could have obtained execution of his entire judgment against any of the defendants. It turned out here that the police officer got a windfall, but it could easily have been the case that Denny’s got the windfall instead. In the long run the windfalls even out, and the police department that commits more § 1983 violations ends up paying more.
The third flaw is that the majority sets out to reject only a single rule, but ends up by judicially legislating a redefinition of the tort scheme for § 1983. There is no warrant for this exercise. The majority’s endeavor is far more than a single legislative act. Beyond question, it writes an independent tort scheme. Removing a central brick from the old wall, it erects a new one.
The new wall takes the form of a new concept of comparative fault among joint tortfeasors. Joint and several liability is replaced by independent torts. Under this new federal tort law, the jury will decide relative liability. If there are four defendants and the jury finds equal fault, all would be liable but only for one-fourth of the total award. Unless all defendants have adequate purses, a circumstance existing only in ATLA heaven, the result is that a plaintiff is only partially compensated. His “satisfaction” is, I guess, an awareness that each defendant is liable for his pro rata part. The majority acknowledges that “[t]his places on a plaintiff the risk that a tortfeasor may be insolvent,” but dismisses it with the irrelevant observation that the risk of insolvency is already upon a plaintiff in a single defendant case.
The majority announces that “we have separated joint torts into independent multiple torts. Accordingly, a settlement by one tortfeasor has no effect on the liability of a non-settling tortfeasor.” I disagree. It solves this case because Denny’s has paid. But Denny’s would never have paid $30,000 when its exposure was only for a fraction of the total and not for it all. That is, this new theory of independent torts plainly works fundamental changes in the dynamics of settlement.
It is not so easy to simply pick and choose preferred parts of a tort scheme expressive of myriad policies. The majority opinion illustrates that fact. The independent tort idea is necessary to the majority’s withdrawal of the single-satisfaction rule. Otherwise, the majority would be forced to face the question of entitlement of the defendant to contribution. This issue would inevitably be present when the settlements prove to have been, unlike here, favorable to the settling party. If contribution from a settling tortfeasor were denied, then in the majority’s view § 1983 is not vindicated in that the settling defendant is allowed to escape for less than his fair share. The majority could not answer that escape was at the hand of the plaintiff; it has rejected that explanation. On the other hand, were contribution allowed, circuity of action would be inevitable and there would be even less incentive to settle than under the independent tort scheme. Certainly here, Denny’s would have been foolish to settle if it would be at the mercy of a jury trial in which it did not participate. The point is that having started to climb this conceptual *774wall the majority finds it cannot stop halfway to the top. It must either keep climbing or abandon the effort. “Independent tort” seems to be their next handhold. The climb was never necessary. Critically there is no license for the effort.
Finally, even if the compensation principle and the one-satisfaction rule did not adequately serve the goal of deterrence, the majority would not have the authority to do what it has done. “To the extent that Congress intended that awards under § 1983 should deter the deprivation of constitutional rights, there is no evidence that it meant to establish a deterrent more formidable than that inherent in the award of compensatory damages.” Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 256-57, 98 S.Ct. 1042, 1048-49, 55 L.Ed.2d 252 (1978). With deference to the majority, I do not see how the Supreme Court could possibly have made it more clear that deterrence is fully served by compensation and when appropriate by an additional award of punitive damages. In Piphus a unanimous Court with one member concurring in the result held that § 1983 plaintiffs who had been deprived of procedural due process rights could not be awarded substantial nonpunitive damages without proof of actual injury. Yet here the majority concludes that § 1983 plaintiffs must be awarded substantial nonpunitive damages in excess of their actual injuries. But the Supreme Court said in Piphus that “[sjubstantial damages should be awarded only to compensate actual injury or, in the case of exemplary or punitive damages, to deter or punish malicious deprivations of rights.” Id. at 266, 98 S.Ct. at 1054. The majority’s repudiation of controlling precedent in favor of dubious policy should not be allowed to stand.
II
The vice of the majority opinion is further demonstrated by its inability to inform the district court what it is to do on remand. The total of its instruction is “we must remand for a determination of relative liability.” Certainly, defendants are entitled to a jury trial on the question of their relative fault. Moreover, damages and liability are so intertwined that the second jury must also again determine liability. This second jury could find for the defendants on the liability question. Dob-son is now the prevailing party with a right to recover attorney’s fees. If I am correct that we are actually ordering a new trial, he has won a victory that he did not seek.
The remand order also points up my final concern. The majority is doubtlessly correct that it is a simple matter to ask juries in future cases to determine the percentage of fault among defendants. While procedurally simple it blinks at the impact of the new rule upon trial. A solvent defendant is immediately aided by the majority rule because his total exposure is reduced by each percentage point of fault he succeeds in passing to his insolvent co-defendant. The insolvent co-defendant frequently never even appears. The result is that the plaintiff versus defendant adversary contest is skewed. I certainly do not know how cases will actually try under the new rule. I am persuaded that my ignorance is shared by the majority and it is, in fact, experimenting with the values of § 1983 in ways not realized.
Ill
The majority’s result is not aided by its extensive reliance on economic literature. I hesitate to debate the majority on their own ill-chosen terms, but I will point out what seems to me at least one serious flaw in their economic analysis.
The majority professes as their goal that a potential § 1983 defendant “absorb the costs as well as the benefits of a given action.” The hope is that when costs are internalized to the police officer, he will select those courses of action whose benefits exceed their costs. Not necessarily so. A policeman may not reap the benefits that society obtains from more aggressive law enforcement. In other words, the benefits of his actions may not be fully internalized. If so, internalizing all the costs could, in *775theory, lead to less law enforcement than society wants.1
This is an important case. I believe with deference that it is incorrectly decided. I dissent.

. I join the majority in their implicit concession that economics must inform decisions regarding tort liability. While ultimately choices among potential tort rules may turn on notions of “fairness” as viewed through the eyes of each judge’s ethical regimen, those choices will only be guesses if the judges are inadequately informed of their impact. At the same time I fear this undertaking at the appellate level without the benefit of briefs and oral argument. The doctrinal support of our academic critics is yet an inadequate source. While the deficiency in the literature is rapidly being corrected, see, e.g., Calabresi, Some Thoughts On Risk Distribution In The Law Of Torts, 70 Yale L.J. 499 (1961); Landes and Posner, Joint and Multiple Tortfeasors: An Economic Analysis, 9 J. Legal Stud. 517 (1980), we are yet to develop an orderly means for its assimilation at the appellate level. Resort to the increasingly available materials now turns on little more than whether an individual judge is sufficiently confident in his own technical competence to undertake the effort. This may present a greater risk of misreading consequences than the traditional visceral calls. Moreover it strikes me as anomalous that we hedge the use of data-based studies with a host of rules when they are used as evidence to decide a single case but drop all bars when they are relied upon to define rules for all cases. This is more than an academic observation. The coincidence of the present legislative role of the judiciary and the maturation of the social sciences will inevitably put at issue our adjective responses to their plain relevance. It may also put at issue our judicial role.