Mills v. Fulmarque, Inc.
| Decision Date | 24 February 2012 |
| Docket Number | No. W2010–00933–SC–R11–CV.,W2010–00933–SC–R11–CV. |
| Citation | 360 S.W.3d 362 |
| Parties | Calvin Gray MILLS, Jr., et al. v. FULMARQUE, INC. |
| Court | Tennessee Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Andrew H. Owens, Memphis, Tennessee, for the appellant, Fulmarque, Inc.
Irma Merrill Stratton, Memphis, Tennessee, and J. Houston Gordon, Covington, Tennessee, for the appellees, Calvin Gray Mills, Jr. and Linda Mills.
GARY R. WADE, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
We accepted this appeal to determine whether the phrase “a defendant named ... within the applicable statute of limitations” in Tennessee Code Annotated section 20–1–119(a) (2009) refers only to a defendant sued within the statute of limitations applicable to the plaintiff's claim or also refers to defendants not sued within the statute of limitations applicable to the plaintiff's claim, but added to the lawsuit during the ninety-day period provided by section 20–1–119(a). Whether section 20–1–119(a) affords successive ninety-day windows during which a plaintiff may amend a complaint to add a new nonparty defendant as a comparative tortfeasor is an issue of first impression. Because we answer that question in the negative, we reverse the Court of Appeals and reinstate the judgment of the trial court granting Fulmarque's motion for summary judgment and dismissing this action.
Because this case was dismissed on a motion for summary judgment, only a statement of the relevant procedural history is necessary to our determination of the issues presented.
On April 24, 2002, Calvin J. Mills, Jr., fell from the chair in which he was sitting while making a business call at the Allen Stone Box Company in Halls, Tennessee. On December 20, 2002, Mr. Mills and his wife (collectively “Plaintiffs” or “the Millses”) timely filed a personal injury lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee.1 Plaintiffs' original complaint named two defendants, N & M Investment, L.P. 2 and The Royal Group, Inc. d/b/a The Allen Stone Box Company (“The Royal Group”).
On January 2, 2004, The Royal Group filed a second amended answer that alleged the comparative fault of Aaron Rents, Inc. (“Aaron Rents”), the company that sold the chair. After obtaining leave of court, the Millses amended their complaint on January 26, 2004, adding Aaron Rents as a defendant. The one-year statute of limitations applicable to their personal injury cause of action had expired before The Royal Group filed its amended answer naming Aaron Rents. As a result, Plaintiffs filed their amended complaint within ninety days of The Royal Group's amended answer, relying upon Tennessee Code Annotated section 20–1–119, which provides in part:
(a) In civil actions where comparative fault is or becomes an issue, if a defendant named in an original complaint initiating a suit filed within the applicable statute of limitations, ... alleges in an ... amended answer to the original or amended complaint that a person not a party to the suit caused or contributed to the injury or damage for which the plaintiff seeks recovery, and if the plaintiff's cause or causes of action against that person would be barred by any applicable statute of limitations but for the operation of this section, the plaintiff may, within ninety (90) days of the filing of the ... first amended answer alleging that person's fault ... [a]mend the complaint to add the person as a defendant....
(b) A cause of action brought within ninety (90) days pursuant to subsection
Tenn.Code Ann. § 20–1–119(a)–(b) (emphasis added).
In its April 4, 2004 answer to the Millses' amended complaint, Aaron Rents alleged fault against Fulmarque, Inc. (“Fulmarque”), the company that manufactured the chair Aaron Rents sold to The Royal Group. In response, the Millses again obtained leave of court and filed a second amended complaint on April 30, 2004, naming Fulmarque as a defendant. The Royal Group thereafter filed an amended answer also alleging comparative fault against Fulmarque.
The addition of Fulmarque, a Tennessee corporation, destroyed diversity jurisdiction, so the federal litigation was dismissed on December 9, 2004. On November 10, 2005, the Millses refiled their lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Shelby County, Tennessee, this time naming Aaron Rents and Fulmarque as defendants.3 On January 26, 2006, Fulmarque filed its answer, asserting the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense. On February 5, 2007, Fulmarque moved for summary judgment, asserting that it had not been sued within the applicable statute of limitations. The trial court denied Fulmarque's motion for summary judgment by an order entered May 18, 2007; however, on January 15, 2008, the trial court granted Fulmarque permission to seek an interlocutory appeal. See Tenn. R.App. P. 9. The Court of Appeals denied Fulmarque's Rule 9 application on February 19, 2008, and Fulmarque did not seek an appeal to this Court.
When the trial court proceedings resumed,4 Fulmarque filed a renewed motion for summary judgment on March 18, 2009. On October 16, 2009, the Millses entered an order of voluntary dismissal as to Aaron Rents. The trial court, by an order entered on March 2, 2010, granted Fulmarque's motion for summary judgment, concluding that the action was barred by the statute of limitations. In so deciding, the trial court pointed out that the Millses did not file suit against Aaron Rents or Fulmarque within the one-year statute of limitations applicable to personal injury suits. See Tenn.Code Ann. § 28–3–104. The trial court then considered whether the lawsuit against Fulmarque was timely under Tennessee Code Annotated section 20–1–119. The trial court interpreted the statutory phrase “applicable statute of limitations” to refer only to the one-year statute of limitations for personal injury causes of action. As a result, the trial court concluded that the ninety-day window provided by section 20–1–119 was not triggered by Aaron Rents' answer alleging comparative fault against Fulmarque. Quoting section 20–1–119, the trial court explained that “Aaron Rents was not ‘a defendant named in an original complaint initiating a suit within the applicable statute of limitations or named in an amended complaint filed within the applicable statute of limitations.’ ” 5
Plaintiffs appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed. Unlike the trial court, the Court of Appeals interpreted the phrase “applicable statute of limitations” as referring both to the one-year limitation period for personal injury causes of action and “to the limitation period as extended by the ninety-day window.” Mills v. Fulmarque, Inc., No. W2010–00933–COA–R3–CV, 2010 WL 5449839, at *1 (Tenn.Ct.App. Dec. 23, 2010). Applying this interpretation, the Court of Appeals determined that, when Aaron Rents was added after expiration of the one-year statute of limitations, but within ninety days of The Royal Group's amended answer, Aaron Rents had been “named in an amended complaint filed within the applicable statute of limitations” as required by section 20–1–119. Thus, the Court of Appeals explained, when Aaron Rents' answer alleged comparative fault against Fulmarque, section 20–1–119 was again triggered, affording the Millses a second ninety-day period within which to file an amended complaint naming Fulmarque as a defendant. Because the Millses filed an amended complaint naming Fulmarque within this second ninety-day period, the Court of Appeals concluded that Plaintiffs' lawsuit against Fulmarque was timely.
We granted Fulmarque's application for permission to appeal.
This case has been appealed from the trial court's grant of summary judgment to Fulmarque. Summary judgment is proper only if “the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.04. As the parties do not disagree concerning any material fact in the case, the issue presented is purely a question of law. We review the trial court's decision as to summary judgment de novo with no presumption of correctness. Hall v. Haynes, 319 S.W.3d 564, 571 (Tenn.2010); Bailey v. Blount Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 303 S.W.3d 216, 226 (Tenn.2010). This appeal also involves an issue of statutory construction, which we also review de novo with no presumption of correctness. Austin v. State, 222 S.W.3d 354, 357 (Tenn.2007).
In McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52, 56 (Tenn.1992), we abrogated our long-held principles of contributory negligence and adopted a system of modified comparative fault for the resolution of tort claims. Under the McIntyre system, “so long as a plaintiff's negligence remains less than the defendant's negligence the plaintiff may recover; in such a case, plaintiff's damages are to be reduced in proportion to the percentage of the total negligence attributable to the plaintiff.” Id. at 57. “In adopting this system, we attempted to reconcile a plaintiff's interest in being made whole with a defendant's interest in paying only those damages for which he or she is responsible.” Jones v. Prof'l Motorcycle Escort Serv., L.L.C., 193 S.W.3d 564, 567 (Tenn.2006). To attain this goal, we recognized:
[F]airness and efficiency require that defendants called upon to answer allegations in negligence be permitted to allege, as an affirmative defense, that a nonparty caused or contributed to the injury or damage for which recovery is sought. In cases where such a defense is raised, the trial court shall instruct the jury to assign this nonparty the percentage of the...
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