Tatum v. Schering Corp.
Citation | 523 So.2d 1042 |
Parties | Elma TATUM, as administrator of the Estate of Dixie V. Tatum, deceased v. SCHERING CORPORATION. 86-536-CER. |
Decision Date | 18 March 1988 |
Court | Supreme Court of Alabama |
Frank M. Wilson of Beasley, Wilson, Traeger, Allen, and Mendelsohn, Montgomery, for appellant.
Jean-Pierre Garnier, Falls Church, Va., and Stanley A. Cash of Huie, Fernambucq & Stewart, Birmingham, for appellee.
The United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama has certified these questions:
Elma Tatum, as administrator of the estate of Dixie V. Tatum, deceased, filed a wrongful death case in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, alleging that Mrs. Tatum died as the result of her physician's negligence in failing to follow directions for administering injectable gold in the treatment of Mrs. Tatum's arthritis. Tatum amended the complaint to include claims of negligence and violation of the Alabama Extended Manufacturer's Liability Doctrine against Schering Corporation and another manufacturer of the ethical drugs used to treat Mrs. Tatum. He alleged that these manufacturers placed on the market a drug that was unreasonably dangerous and that they failed to adequately warn Mrs. Tatum's physician of the dangers involved. Plaintiff Tatum reached a settlement with the physician in the amount of $400,000 and with one of the drug manufacturers in the amount of $50,000. Pro tanto releases were given to these defendants and they were dismissed as parties. This created diversity of citizenship between the plaintiff and the remaining defendant, and that remaining defendant, Schering Corporation, removed the case to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama.
The certificate from the district court states that the phrasing of the questions is intended as a guide and is not meant to restrict our consideration of the impact of a pro tanto settlement with a tort-feasor in a wrongful death case on the subsequent trial of another alleged tort-feasor.
The certified questions have been briefed extensively by able counsel for both sides, and the Court has heard persuasive oral arguments in support of, and in opposition to, a change in our rule that there can be no apportionment of punitive damages, even when there are joint tort-feasors, regardless of the degree of their individual culpability.
Although highly persuasive arguments can be made that prior cases of this Court were incorrectly decided, this Court has resolutely refused to change the rule of law that punitive damages are not apportionable among joint tort-feasors. In fact, this Court reaffirmed the rule last term in the case of Black Belt Wood Co. v. Sessions, 514 So.2d 1249 (Ala.1987).
There, this Court specifically asked the parties to brief the same issue presented by these certified questions, and in our opinion we wrote, as follows:
The first Alabama case dealing with the apportionment issue was Bell v. Riley Bus Lines, 257 Ala. 120, 57 So.2d 612 (1952). That case was a wrongful death action. The plaintiff's decedent was killed when a truck and trailer collided with the bus in which he was riding. We find that case dispositive of the questions here presented, and we quote from it extensively:
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...the injured party for all damage proximately caused by the wrongful act, omission, or negligence; Tatum v. Schering Corp., 523 So.2d 1042, 1048 (Ala.1988) (Houston, J., dissenting). However, as a Justice, it is not within my power to determine the propriety, the wisdom, the necessity, the u......
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Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Malone
...defendant is entitled to credit settlements from settling defendants against its liability for punitive damages. See Tatum v. Schering Corp., 523 So.2d 1042, 1045 (Ala.1988). The trial court also reduced all the compensatory awards to reflect the settlement Under the trial court's judgment,......
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Smith v. Schulte
...398 Mass. 582, 499 N.E.2d 1195 (1986).15 I have disagreed with the majority's reasoning (see Tatum v. Schering Corp., 523 So.2d 1042, 1047-63 (Ala.1988) (Houston, J., dissenting)); however, because no constitutional phantom, but only statutory construction, is involved, I no longer dissent ......
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Industrial Chemical & Fiberglass Corp. v. Chandler
...of its civil character. Although damages recoverable in an Alabama wrongful death action are punitive in nature (Tatum v. Schering Corp., 523 So.2d 1042 (Ala.1988)), the wrongful death statute, first passed by the Alabama legislature in 1872, has been historically held to be nonpenal in "La......