Hawkins v. Gadoury, 96-262-A

• Decision Date: 24 June 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-262-A,96-262-A
• Parties: Theresa M. HAWKINS v. Leo P. GADOURY. ppeal.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

Page 799

713 A.2d 799

Theresa M. HAWKINS v. Leo P. GADOURY.

No. 96-262-Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

June 24, 1998.

Peter A. Clarkin, Michelle Lee Iacovelli, for Plaintiff.

Linda Rekas Sloan, Warwick, for Defendant.

Before WEISBERGER, C.J., and LEDERBERG, BOURCIER, FLANDERS and GOLDBERG, JJ.

OPINION

FLANDERS, Justice.

Contribution, indemnity, and subrogation claims by and between alleged joint tortfeasors and their insurers are the subjects of this appeal. A Superior Court motion justice granted summary judgment to the defendant, Leo P. Gadoury (Gadoury), with respect to contribution and indemnification claims filed against him by the plaintiff, Theresa M. Hawkins (Hawkins). Hawkins sued Gadoury after she settled an automobile-accident lawsuit brought against her by one Richard Pelletier (Pelletier), a third-party motorist who was injured in the accident. The motion justice decided that the three-year statute of limitations for personal-injury actions barred Hawkins' lawsuit against Gadoury.

In granting summary judgment, the motion justice reasoned that because Hawkins' insurer, Progressive Casualty Company (Progressive), was the source of the settlement proceeds paid to Pelletier, Progressive would have subrogation rights vis-a-vis Hawkins' claims against Gadoury and, therefore, these claims were subject to the three-year personal-injury statute of limitations that had already expired when Hawkins filed her action. However, in considering Hawkins' appeal from this judgment, we conclude that because the subrogation issue was irrelevant to whether the contribution and indemnification claims filed against Gadoury were time barred, we reverse and remand this case for further proceedings.

Facts and Travel

On February 9, 1990, motor vehicles operated by Hawkins and Pelletier collided at the intersection of Gadoury Street and Read Avenue in the town of Coventry. Gadoury owned a parcel of real estate located on one corner of that intersection. Pelletier sued Hawkins for the personal injuries he sustained in the accident. Pelletier, however, did not sue Gadoury, and Hawkins neither filed a third-party complaint against Gadoury nor otherwise sought to join him in the Pelletier lawsuit or in her settlement negotiations with Pelletier.

Before Pelletier's suit against Hawkins could be tried, they reached a settlement agreement pursuant to which Progressive, in its capacity as Hawkins' liability carrier, funded the $65,000 settlement payment to Pelletier on Hawkins' behalf. In exchange Pelletier executed a release, effective February 2, 1995, in which he agreed to "release, acquit and forever discharge" Hawkins, Progressive and also Gadoury, even though Gadoury was not a party to the lawsuit and did not otherwise participate in the settlement.

On September 27, 1995, nearly five and one-half years after the initial accident but less than one year after the above-described payment and release, Hawkins sued Gadoury alleging that the overgrown hedges and shrubbery sprouting from Gadoury's property had obscured her view of the intersection and caused her to collide with Pelletier. Hawkins asserted that she ought to recover from Gadoury all of the $65,000 paid to Pelletier. She invoked two alternative theories to support her right to recover: (1) common-law indemnity or (2) contribution under the Uniform Contribution Among Joint Tortfeasors Act (UCAJTA or the act), G.L.1956 chapter 6 of title 10. Having received the $65,000 payment and having released Gadoury from liability, Pelletier was not joined in this second litigation in any way.

Gadoury moved for summary judgment on the grounds that Hawkins' lawsuit was in substance an insurer's "subrogation action" and therefore barred by G.L.1956 § 9-1-14(b)'s three-year limitations period applicable to actions for personal injuries. ¹ Hawkins opposed the motion arguing that because her suit was one for indemnity or contribution, it was not subject to § 9-1-14. She argued that her claim was circumscribed only by the one-year post-payment limitations period for contribution actions set forth in § 10-6-4 of UCAJTA, ² or by the general ten-year limitations period of § 9-1-13(a) applicable to indemnity claims, as discussed in this Court's decisions in Silva v. Home Indemnity Co., 416 A.2d 664 (R.I.1980), and Helgerson v. Mammoth Mart, Inc., 114 R.I. 438, 335 A.2d 339 (1975). ³

A Superior Court motion justice, apparently analogizing this case to the situation presented in Silva, granted Gadoury's motion, stating, "The Court believes this is, in fact, a subrogation case and the three-year statute therefore, applies, and this proceeding was brought outside it, and, therefore, summary judgment will issue." Assuming without deciding that Progressive has subrogation rights vis-a-vis Hawkins' claims against Gadoury, we respectfully disagree with the motion justice that because this is "a subrogation case," it is therefore governed by the three-year limitations period set out in § 9-1-14. For this reason, we reverse the granting of summary judgment.

Analysis

The parties do not dispute that if Hawkins' allegations against Gadoury could be established at trial--that is, if Hawkins could prove that Gadoury negligently maintained the vegetation hedging his property such that it obscured the vision of passing motorists like Hawkins and Pelletier--then Gadoury and Hawkins would be joint tortfeasors within the meaning of the act. See Wilson v. Krasnoff, 560 A.2d 335, 339 (R.I.1989); Uniform Contribution Among Tortfeasors Act (Uniform Act), 12 U.L.A. 185, 188 prefatory note (1955 revision) (1996) ("an injury resulting from the joint tort of two or more persons involves each of them, jointly and severally, in liability for the entire damage").

Rhode Island has adopted the 1939 version of the Uniform Act, which defines joint tortfeasors as "two (2) 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." Section 10-6-2; Wilson, 560 A.2d at 339; Augustine v. Langlais, 121 R.I. 802, 804, 402 A.2d 1187, 1189 (1979). Section 10-6-3 of Rhode Island's version of the Uniform Act expressly provides that the "right of contribution exists among joint tortfeasors; provided however, that when there is a disproportion of fault among joint tortfeasors, the relative degree of fault of the joint tortfeasors shall be considered in determining their pro rata shares [of the injured party's damages]." Indeed, this comparative-fault provision is the heart of the act and the key to its creation of a cause of action unknown to the common law. ⁴

If Hawkins had used her own funds to pay $65,000 to Pelletier (rather than using the liability-policy proceeds obtained from her insurer, Progressive) and if she had sued her alleged cotortfeasor, Gadoury, for contribution under the UCAJTA, Hawkins would have been required to prosecute this suit within one year after the payment--not within three years of the vehicle accident. On this point, the UCAJTA is clear. Because the injured party (in this case Pelletier) is the "lord of his action," he or she may choose to sue just one of, several of, or all the alleged cotortfeasors who allegedly caused his or her injuries. See Uniform Act, 12 U.L.A. at 188 prefatory note. But the one-year limitation period contained in § 10-6-4 allows any joint tortfeasor who has been singled out for suit by the injured party to have a one-year postpayment grace period within which to seek contribution from his or her cotortfeasors who, according to Hawkins, ought to reimburse her for their respective pro rata shares of the discharged common liability. See Merrill v. Trenn, 706 A.2d 1305, 1311 (R.I.1998); Wilson, 560 A.2d at 339; Uniform Act, 12 U.L.A. at 188 prefatory note (driving policy of the Uniform Act is to avoid the situation wherein "the injured person may confer immunity from contribution and at the same time secure complete compensation from the luckless tortfeasor whom he wishes to hold liable").

A contrary reading of the act would subject the first-sued tortfeasor to the inequity resulting from an eleventh-hour suit filed by the injured party just a few weeks or days before the expiration of the personal-injury statute of limitations. Indeed the facts of this case bear out this very concern. Pelletier actually sued Hawkins just one week before the expiration of the three-year statute-of-limitations period on his personal-injury cause of action, and he caused the complaint and summons to be served on Hawkins a mere four days before the expiration of the three-year deadline. If Hawkins had not settled and if Pelletier eventually had obtained a judgment against Hawkins for the whole amount of his injuries, ⁵ Hawkins would have been unable to sue other joint tortfeasors for contribution if the same three-year-limitations period applicable to personal-injury actions was also applicable to her contribution cause of action. The UCAJTA avoids this result by providing for a one-year post-payment-limitation period applicable to contribution claims. See § 10-6-4. And this period does not even begin to run until the tortfeasor discharges the common liability shared by all the joint tortfeasors. Id. In so providing, the act recognizes that a cause of action for contribution is separate and distinct from the personal-injury cause of action that arose out of the original accident or tort that initially accrued to the injured party.

A claim for indemnity stands on similar footing. Whereas contribution seeks to allocate fault proportionately among several wrongdoers, indemnity is a right founded upon equitable considerations arising "where one person is exposed to liability by the wrongful act of another in which he does not join" such that the indemnitor will be "liable for the whole outlay and not just a pro rata share." Helgerson, 114 R.I. at 441-42, 335 A.2d at 341; ...