Roland v. Bernstein
| Decision Date | 24 October 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 2,CA-CV,2 |
| Citation | 828 P.2d 1237,171 Ariz. 96 |
| Parties | Patricia C. ROLAND, a single woman, Plaintiff/Appellant/Cross-Appellee, v. Ronald A. BERNSTEIN, M.D., a married man; and Desert Neurosurgery of Tucson, P.C., an Arizona corporation, Defendants/Appellees/Cross-Appellants. 91-0086. |
| Court | Arizona Court of Appeals |
Plaintiff brought a medical malpractice complaint against Ronald Bernstein, a neurosurgeon, his professional corporation, Desert Neurosurgery, Joseph Marcinkowski, an anesthesiologist, and Tucson General Hospital. Tucson General and Marcinkowski settled the claim for $700,000 each and the case proceeded to trial against Bernstein and his corporation. The jury found plaintiff's damages to be $1,965,000 and the degree of fault to be 47% for Bernstein, 28% for Marcinkowski, and 25% for Tucson General Hospital. The question then arose whether under A.R.S. § 12-2504 the amount Bernstein had to pay should be reduced by the amount of the pre-existing settlements. The trial court held that it should and thus entered a judgment for $565,000 rather than for $923,550 (47% of $1,965,000). This appeal followed. We reverse.
When more than one defendant caused plaintiff's injuries the rule originally was that each such defendant was liable for the whole injury, that recovery against one eliminated the claim against the others, and that no right of contribution existed among defendants. See generally W. Prosser & W. Keeton, Torts §§ 46-52 (5th ed. 1984). Over time the rigor of these rules was relaxed, permitting settlement by one of the defendants without eliminating rights against the others, so long as double recovery did not occur, and contribution among tortfeasors. That result was accomplished in Arizona by passage of the Uniform Contribution Among Tortfeasors Act, A.R.S. § 12-2501 et seq. Section 12-2504, at issue in this case, provides that a settlement with "one of two or more persons liable in tort for the same injury ... does not discharge any of the other tortfeasors from liability for the injury ... but it reduces the claim against the others" by the amount of the settlement. If that section were applicable here the trial judge's ruling would be correct because the $1,400,000 settlement would be deducted from the $1,965,000 verdict to arrive at a $565,000 judgment against Bernstein.
We conclude, however, that § 12-2504 does not apply because it was enacted as part of a statute permitting contribution between defendants liable for the entire amount of damages caused by the concurrent negligence of each of them. It was not designed for this case which was tried under A.R.S. § 12-2506, a more recently enacted statute. Section 12-2506 abolished joint and several liability, limiting recovery against any defendant to that percentage of a plaintiff's total injuries representing that defendant's degree of fault. 1 Because recovery is so limited, contribution can never occur. Section 12-2504, passed as part of a statute regulating contribution, therefore is not, obviously, applicable to a situation where there is no right to contribution.
This result can be easily squared with the statutory language. Section 12-2504 applies when "two or more persons [are] liable in tort for the same injury." Section 12-2506, on the contrary, provides that "the liability of each defendant for damages is several only and is not joint." In short, each defendant is liable only for the portion of the injury he caused, not the whole injury; no two are liable for the same injury. See Kussman v. City and County of Denver, 706 P.2d 776 (Colo.1985).
In addition, we believe that it would be anomalous to give the benefit of an advantageous settlement, not to the plaintiff who negotiated it, but to the non-settling tortfeasor. Had plaintiff made a disadvantageous settlement, she would have borne that consequence because her recovery against Bernstein would have been limited to $923,550. At a minimum, symmetry requires that if the disadvantage of settlement is hers...
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...paying its fair share of the damages once the jury award is reduced by the amount of the settlement. See, e.g., Roland v. Bernstein (App.1991), 171 Ariz. 96, 828 P.2d 1237, 1239 (stating that a rule allowing a non-settling tortfeasor to escape liability by reason of "the faulty assessment o......
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