Hackett v. Hyson ., s. 8780, 8781.

• Decision Date: 24 July 1946
• Docket Number: Nos. 8780, 8781.,s. 8780, 8781.
• Citation: 48 A.2d 353
• Parties: HACKETT v. HYSON (two cases).
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

48 A.2d 353

HACKETT

v.HYSON (two cases).

Nos. 8780, 8781.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

July 24, 1946.

Exceptions from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Charles A. Walsh, Judge.

Consolidated actions of trespass on the case for negligence by Felix Hackett and Elizabeth Hackett against Earl W. Hyson, Jr. To review an order overruling plaintiffs' demurrers to defendant's special pleas in bar, the plaintiffs bring exceptions.

Exception in each case sustained, and case remitted to the Superior Court for further proceedings.

John J. Mee, of Woonsocket, for plaintiffs.

Sherwood & Clifford and Sidney Clifford, all of Providence, for defendant.

CONDON, Justice.

These actions of trespass on the case for negligence were heard together in the superior court on plaintiffs' demurrers to defendant's special pleas in bar. The superior court overruled the demurrers and sustained the pleas. Plaintiffs excepted to those rulings and have duly prosecuted their bills of exceptions to this court.

Those exceptions raise a question of construction of Public Laws 1940, chapter 940, otherwise called the ‘uniform contribution among tortfeasors act’. By section 1 of that act joint tortfeasors are defined to be ‘two or more persons jointly or severally liable in tort for the same injury to person or property, whether or not judgment has been recovered against all or some of them.’ Thereinafter, by sec. 2, paragraph (1), it is declared that ‘The right of contribution exists among joint tortfeasors.’ By sec. 3 it is provided that ‘The recovery of a judgment by the injured person against one joint tortfeasor does not discharge the other joint tortfeasors.’ And sec. 4 provides: ‘A release by the injured person of one joint tortfeasor, whether before or after judgment, does not discharge the other tortfeasors unless the release so provides; but reduces the claim against the other tortfeasors in the amount of the consideration paid for the release, or in any amount or proportion by which the release provides that the total claim shall be reduced, if greater than the consideration paid.’

Defendant is, within the meaning of that act, a joint tortfeasor. As a result of a collision, on a public highway in Woonsocket, between his automobile and one operated by George H. Cote, plaintiff Elizabeth Hackett, a passenger in Cote's automobile, was injured. She and her husband, Felix Hackett, brought actions for damages against Cote and recovered judgments. They also brought the instant actions against defendant, but, in the meantime, before those actions were heard the judgments against Cote were satisfied. Thereupon defendant by special pleas set up the satisfaction of such judgments as a bar to plaintiffs' actions against him. Plaintiffs demurred to the pleas on the ground that sec. 3 expressly negatives such discharge.

Defendant contended before us that sec. 3 did not apply to the cases at bar for the reason that here plaintiffs had not merely recovered judgments against Cote but they had also received satisfaction of them. He urged that, in such a situation, the rule at common law applied, namely, that the satisfaction of a judgment against one joint tortfeasor discharged all joint tortfeasors. On the other hand, plaintiffs contended that sec. 3 should be construed broadly to mean actual recovery on the judgment and not merely rendition of the judgment.

Section 8 of the act provides that its interpretation and construction shall be such ‘as to effectuate its general purpose to make uniform the law of those states that enact it.’ At the time of the hearing in this court it did not appear that sec. 3 had ever been judicially construed. See 9 U.L.A. p. 163, § 3, and pocket supplement for 1945. On its face the section would seem to need no interpretation, but in view of the diversity of the rules in the various states governing the discharge of other joint tortfeasors as a result of the injured person dealing with one of them, there is some ambiguity in the use of the words ‘recovery of a judgment’. When the act was enacted here the rule in some states, perhaps the majority, was that recovery of a judgment against one tortfeasor discharged the other joint tortfeasors, if the judgment was satisfied, but not otherwise. In other states it was sufficient if execution was taken out on the judgment; while in a few others recovery of a judgment in the sense of a mere rendition of the judgment sufficed. See Fitzgerald v. Campbell, 131 Va. 486, 109 S.E. 308, 27 A.L.R. 799, 805 annotations.

This court, as far as we are aware, has never expressly...