Court Opinion

ID: 9742556
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:15:49.818487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:33.628270
License: Public Domain

Wilkie, J.
(concurring). The principal difficulty here, as with many accident cases involving multiple defendants, is the fundamental proposition that the comparison of negligence is always made as between the individual plaintiff and each individual defendant rather than the individual plaintiff with the several defendants *53that may, by their negligence, have collectively contributed to his injuries. The unfairness of this approach grows from the fact that one or more defendants may have contributed to his injuries, yet he can recover only in those situations where he can demonstrate that his negligence is either less than or as great but not greater than the negligence of one or more defendants considered separately. This is provided by the statutory language of the comparative negligence law under sec. 895.045, Stats., which, as recently amended in 1971, still provides:
“Contributory negligence. Contributory negligence shall not bar recovery in an action by any person or his legal representative to recover damages for negligence resulting in death or in injury to person or property, if such negligence was not greater than the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought, but any damages allowed shall be diminished in the proportion to the amount of negligence attributable to the person recovering.”
The legislature should further amend the basic comparative negligence law in Wisconsin to correct this inequity so as to provide for recovery based on a comparison of the causal negligence, if any, of the person injured with the total negligence of all of the persons whose negligence contributed to the injuries. If the plaintiff is considered less negligent, or his negligence is considered only as great as the combined negligence of all of the defendants, then he should be able to recover from the contributing defendants ill proportion to their causal negligence.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Beilfuss joins in this concurring opinion.