Hoitt v. Hall

• Decision Date: 07 July 1995
• Docket Number: No. 7324,Docket No. P,7324
• Citation: 661 A.2d 669
• Parties: Eileen R. HOITT, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of John Hoitt v. Richard W. HALL. DecisionLawen-94-359.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 669

661 A.2d 669

Eileen R. HOITT, Individually and as Personal Representative of the Estate of John Hoitt v. Richard W. HALL.

Decision No. 7324.

Law Docket No. Pen-94-359.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Argued Jan. 3, 1995.

Decided July 7, 1995.

Arthur J. Greif (orally), Lowry & Associates Attorneys, Bangor, for plaintiff.

Christopher C. Taintor (orally), Norman, Hanson & DeTroy, Portland, for defendant.

Before WATHEN, C.J., and ROBERTS, GLASSMAN, CLIFFORD, RUDMAN, DANA, and LIPEZ, JJ.

RUDMAN, Justice.

Eileen Hoitt, individually and as personal representative of the estate of John Hoitt, appeals from the denial by the Superior Court (Penobscot County, Saufley, J.) of her motion for a new trial of her legal malpractice claim against Richard W. Hall. Eileen contends that a number of errors in evidentiary rulings and the irrationality of the jury's award of damages required the trial court to grant a new trial. Hall cross-appeals, seeking entry of judgment in his favor.

John Hoitt died following an accident in which the pick-up truck he was driving struck a snowplow truck owned by the State of Maine and operated by Jacqueline Lee Ware, a state employee. John had borrowed the pick-up truck he was driving from a neighbor, Thomas Thurlow. Eileen retained attorney Hall to represent her in a wrongful death action. Hall failed to file a notice of the tort claim as required by the Maine Tort Claims Act ¹, and Eileen lost the opportunity to sue the State. Hall's failure to file the requisite notice was acknowledged by the parties.

Eileen commenced an action against Thurlow for negligence and Hall for legal malpractice. She settled with Thurlow for $50,000 and dismissed her complaint against him with prejudice and without costs. The legal malpractice case required Eileen to prove that she would have recovered against the State if Hall had filed a timely claim. The court ruled that the jury would apportion fault only between John and the State of Maine, rather than among John, the State, and Thurlow. The jury found both the State's employee and John to have been negligent. The jury determined Eileen's damages to be $60,000 for pecuniary loss suffered as a result of John's death, $15,000 for Eileen's loss of consortium, and $15,000 for John's conscious pain and suffering. The jury then reduced the total damages of $90,000 by $40,000 to account for John's negligence, thus awarding Eileen $50,000. The court denied Eileen's motion for a new trial and awarded $0.00 to reflect the settlement reached with Thurlow.

Adequacy of the Damages

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Hall, see Stubbs v. Bartlett, 478 A.2d 690, 692 (Me.1984), and deferring to the jury on issues of credibility, id., we find no abuse of discretion in the trial court's ruling that the jury's award of damages was not the product of bias, prejudice, improper influence, mistake of law, or disregard of the facts. Currier v. Cyr, 570 A.2d 1205, 1210 (Me.1990).

Eileen argues that the jury ignored the testimony of her economic consultant, Robert Doucette. Doucette testified that the present value of the stream of future income lost by Eileen as a result of her husband's death was approximately $300,000. He also stated, however, "If Mr. Hoitt would not have lived anyway, then there would have been no pension to be lost. And if Mrs. Hoitt had not lived to a certain age, then she would have lost nothing, even though her husband lived."

The jury was not obligated to accept Doucette's calculations, even if uncontroverted. See Stubbs, 478 A.2d at 692. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it found that the jury's determination could not be deemed "irrational." Nor was there any indication of a jury compromise between liability and damages.

Apportionment of Fault

Eileen argues that the jury should have been allowed to apportion fault among the State, Thurlow, and John. She asks us to decide the issue left undecided in Minott v. F.W. Cunningham & Sons, 413 A.2d 1325, 1328 n. 3 (Me.1980): whether, in a case with two or more parties responsible for the plaintiff's injury, the comparison of negligence required by 14 M.R.S.A. § 156 (1980) is between the plaintiff and each responsible party or the plaintiff and all responsible parties.

We need not reach this issue because the jury found John's negligence to be less than that of the State, a finding that entitled Eileen to recover. Adding Thurlow's negligence to the equation would not change the result. The statute then requires a jury to reduce the damages "to such extent as the jury thinks just and equitable having regard to the claimant's share in the responsibility for the damage." 14 M.R.S.A. § 156. The jury must first "find and record the total damages which would have been recoverable if the claimant had not been at fault." Id. The jury then reduces the total "by dollars and cents, and not by percentage " to account for the claimant's share of responsibility for the total damages. Id. (emphasis added). The jury in this case determined Eileen's total damages to be $90,000. The jury reduced this amount by $40,000 to account for what it determined to be Eileen's share in the responsibility for the damages. A jury may consider the comparative percentage of fault as one factor in its determination of the just and equitable reduction to reflect the claimant's share of responsibility. See Jackson v. Frederick's Motor Inn, 418 A.2d 168, 174 (Me.1980) ("The relative fault of the parties as determined in connection with the liability issue is, of course, a relevant factor which may be considered by the jury in its apportionment of the damages. But it is not conclusive.") Eileen voluntarily dismissed Thurlow. The court correctly refused to instruct the jury to consider Thurlow's negligence when it reduced Eileen's damages to the extent it thought just and equitable.

Eileen further argues the opportunity lost by Hall's negligence was that of suing both Thurlow and the State in one action. One may only speculate what action Eileen would have brought had Hall not failed to pursue the claim against the State. In reality, she did sue Thurlow and Hall. The case-within-a-case format allowed her to present her action as she would have absent Hall's negligence. Specifically, she had the opportunity to present to the jury her case against the State and Thurlow. Rather than proceeding in this manner, she settled with Thurlow and released him with prejudice. At that point, it was no longer Hall's negligence but Eileen's own tactical decision that deprived her of the opportunity to present Thurlow's negligence to the jury. The court correctly determined that there was no claim pending against Thurlow that would allow the jury to consider the question of his negligence.

Reduction of Damages

Eileen contends that because the jury did not consider Thurlow's fault, the award of damages should not have been reduced by the amount of her settlement with Thurlow. Eileen assumes the trial court applied 14 M.R.S.A. § 163 (1980), ² which it explicitly, and correctly, did not apply. Section 163 mandates reduction of damages awarded against a nonsettling defendant by the settlement amount reached with a settling defendant when recovery is sought for the same injury. See Hewitt v. Bahmueller, 584 A.2d 664, 666-67 (Me.1991) (noting that the only time such reduction is not required is when the settlement is reached with a party later determined by a verdict to be without causative fault). Eileen sought recovery from Thurlow for physical injuries stemming from the accident, and from Hall for economic injury stemming from his professional negligence. The trial court correctly reasoned that because the settling defendant (Thurlow) and the nonsettling defendant (Hall) were sued for independent torts, the settlement could not offset the award of damages pursuant to section 163. See Alexander v. Callanen, 104 Misc.2d 762, 429 N.Y.S.2d 141, 142 (N.Y.App.Div.1979) (explaining that lawyers potentially liable for professional negligence have no right of contribution against doctors for underlying medical malpractice action).

The trial court looked instead to the purpose of damages in legal malpractice actions. The measure of damages is the amount the client would have recovered but for the attorney's negligence. See Moores v. Greenberg, 834 F.2d 1105, 1110-13 (1st Cir.1987). The jury determined that Eileen's losses due to her husband's death amounted to $50,000. Eileen received $50,000 from Thurlow for the same injuries as those resulting from the State's negligence. The trial court properly reduced the award to account for the settlement. See O'Neil v. Vasseur, 118 Idaho 257, 796 P.2d 134, 139-40 (Ct.App.1990) (no compensable damages available against attorneys when client successfully pursued case pro se); Kay v. Bricker, 485 So.2d 486, 487 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1986) (in attorney malpractice case, "[p]laintiff could not recover from the defendant an amount which would exceed the amount of his proven damages.").

Collateral Source

Hall asked Eileen during cross-examination about her survivor's benefit from John's Air Force pension. She contends this violated the collateral source rule and depressed the jury's award of damages. The collateral source rule holds that a plaintiff who has received compensation for her damages from sources independent of the tortfeasor remains entitled to a full recovery. See Potvin v. Seven Elms, Inc., 628 A.2d 115, 116 (Me.1993).

Contrary to Hall's characterization of the benefit as a "continuation of a portion of the pension income otherwise payable to [John Hoitt]," rather than a "replacement of a portion of the pension income lost as a result of Mr. Hoitt's death," we consider it a collateral source. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 920A cmt. b (1979), which provides:

Payments made or benefits conferred by other sources [sources other than the defendant] are known as collateral-source...