Whitehead v. Toyota Motor Corp.

• Decision Date: 01 May 1995
• Citation: 897 S.W.2d 684
• Parties: Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 14,240 Mark D. WHITEHEAD; H.D. Whitehead; and Jean D. Whitehead, Plaintiffs-Respondents-Petitioners, v. TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION; Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.; and Toyota Motor Distributors, Inc., Defendants-Petitioners-Respondents.
• Court: Tennessee Supreme Court

Page 684

897 S.W.2d 684

Prod.Liab.Rep. (CCH) P 14,240

Mark D. WHITEHEAD; H.D. Whitehead; and Jean D. Whitehead Plaintiffs-Respondents-Petitioners, v. TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION; Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. and Toyota Motor Distributors, Inc. Defendants-Petitioners-Respondents.

Supreme Court of Tennessee at Nashville.

May 1, 1995.

Fred C. Dance, Dance, Dance & Lane, Nashville, for plaintiffs.

Dennis J. Meaker and Winston S. Evans, Evans, Jones & Reynolds, Nashville, for amicus curiae.

John A. McReynolds, Jr., Baker, McReynolds, Byrne, Brackett, O'Kane & Shea, Knoxville, for defendants.

T. Harold Pinkley and Wynne C. Hall, Paine, Swiney & Tarwater, Knoxville, for amicus curiae.

DROWOTA, Justice.

QUESTIONS CERTIFIED

Pursuant to Rule 23 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, this Court has accepted two questions certified to us by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. The questions are as follows:

1. Whether the affirmative defense of comparative fault can be raised in a products liability action based on strict liability in tort?

2. If the affirmative defense of comparative fault may be raised in a products liability action based upon strict liability in tort, is this defense applicable to an enhanced injury case where it is undisputed that the alleged defect in the defendant's product did not cause or contribute to the underlying accident?

For the following reasons, we answer each of these questions in the affirmative.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

This is a products liability action that arises from an accident that occurred on January 22, 1992. On that day Mark D. Whitehead, plaintiff, was injured when a 1988 Toyota pickup truck that he was driving crossed the center line of the road and collided head-on with a vehicle that was traveling in the opposite direction from Mr. Whitehead's pickup truck.

The plaintiffs sued the defendants, the manufacturer and seller of the truck, based on the plaintiffs' contention that Mark D. Whitehead's injuries were enhanced beyond those he would have received had the truck he was driving been more crashworthy. The plaintiffs specifically contend that the seatbelt system of the Toyota pickup truck was defective. See T.C.A. § 29-28-105. The defendants answered the complaint, maintaining that there were no defects in the truck. The defendants also asserted, inter alia, the affirmative defense of comparative fault.

The plaintiffs filed a motion for partial summary judgment in which they sought to have the U.S. District Court dismiss the defendants' affirmative defenses, including the defense of comparative fault. On June 24, 1994, the district court entered an order in which it granted the plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment and dismissed all of the defendants' affirmative defenses, including the defense of comparative fault. With respect to the defense of comparative fault, the district court stated that "... the Court will not charge comparative fault in this case. It will abide by its earlier decisions that the comparative fault defense is not applicable to an action based on strict liability in tort."

The defendants then filed a motion in the district court in which they sought an interlocutory appeal on the comparative fault issue. The court granted the defendants' motion for an interlocutory appeal, stating as follows:

This Court amends its Order of June 24, 1994, insofar as it dismissed the affirmative defense of comparative fault in this products liability action, to find that it involves a controlling question of law as to which there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and that an immediate appeal from this order may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation.

The district court then certified to this Court the first question listed above; and we accepted the question by an order dated August 19, 1994. Pursuant to a motion filed by the plaintiffs, the district court amended its first certification order to add the second question listed above. We entered an order on September 22, 1994, accepting certification of the second question. After briefing of the issues by the parties and by amicus curiae, we set this case for oral argument to be heard on February 6, 1995, in Nashville.

FIRST CERTIFIED QUESTION

On May 4, 1992, this Court decided McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn.1992), in which we adopted a system of modified comparative fault. We described the system as follows:

We therefore hold that so long as a plaintiff's negligence remains less than a 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.

833 S.W.2d at 57.

After setting forth our holding, we acknowledged that the decision would drastically transform the law in Tennessee by stating that "[w]e recognize that today's decision affects numerous legal principles surrounding tort litigation. For the most part, harmonizing these principles with comparative fault must await another day." 833 S.W.2d at 57. However, we believed that such changes were justified in order to achieve a system that more closely links liability and fault.

Since our decision in McIntyre, we have consistently applied the doctrine of comparative fault to other legal principles. In Perez v. McConkey, 872 S.W.2d 897 (Tenn.1994), we held that the doctrine of secondary implied assumption of risk should not be retained as a separate defense but that, "[t]he reasonableness of a party's conduct in confronting a risk should be determined under the principles of comparative fault." 872 S.W.2d at 905. In Bervoets v. Harde Ralls Pontiac-Olds, Inc., 891 S.W.2d 905 (Tenn.1994), we held that the remedy of contribution was not abolished by McIntyre and that actions for contribution should be tried in accordance with the principles of comparative fault. We continued to integrate our system of comparative fault into Tennessee law in Eaton v. McLain, 891 S.W.2d 587 (Tenn.1994), where we set forth a general set of guidelines to assist trial courts and juries in their duties of apportioning fault. And in Volz v. Ledes, 895 S.W.2d 677 (Tenn.1995), we confirmed that the doctrine of joint and several liability had been rendered obsolete by our decision in McIntyre, reasoning as follows:

We believe that a system wherein a particular defendant is liable only for the percentage of a plaintiff's damages that are caused by that defendant's fault is the system that best achieves our stated goal in McIntyre v. Balentine of linking liability and fault. In keeping with this goal, we decline to adopt a rule comparable to the rule under the Uniform Comparative Fault Act pursuant to which the liability of a given defendant is enhanced beyond that defendant's percentage of fault if another culpable defendant is insolvent. We do not believe that the goal of linking liability with fault is furthered by a rule that allows a particular defendant's liability to be determined by the happenstance of the financial wherewithal of other defendants.

895 S.W.2d at 680.

Post-McIntyre Federal Cases Dealing with Strict Liability

and Tennessee's System of Comparative Fault

With this background in mind, we now turn to the decisions of two federal courts which have considered the issue of whether the doctrine of comparative fault as enunciated in McIntyre applies in strict liability actions. These two decisions have yielded conflicting results.

In McKinnie v. Ludell Manufacturing Co., Inc., 825 F.Supp. 834 (W.D.Tenn.1993), the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee (Judge James D. Todd) held that comparative fault does apply to products liability actions based on strict liability. In reaching this conclusion, the district court focussed on this Court's emphasis on "fault" in McIntyre. The court stated as follows The McIntyre court's definition of liability based on 'fault' rather than 'negligence' addresses the Tennessee Supreme Court's earlier concerns about interposing the plaintiff's negligence as a defense to 'conduct which is culpable regardless of the care exercised by the defendant.' See Ellithrope, 503 S.W.2d at 521. Emphasizing 'fault' rather than 'negligence' appears to have been a conscious decision of the McIntyre court. McIntyre, 833 S.W.2d at 56. Negligence implies a breach of a duty of care, while fault refers merely to an act imposing liability. See e.g., Abbott v. American Honda Motor Co., 682 S.W.2d 206, 209 (Tenn.Ct.App.1984) (recognizing that 'fault' refers to a broader scope of conduct than 'negligence'). The comparative fault system's focus on the party's relative 'fault' avoids the 'apples and oranges' argument which contends that a plaintiff's negligence cannot be effectively compared to a manufacturer's conduct in producing a defective product because strict liability is not predicated on a breach of any duty of care. See Carol A. Mutter, Moving to Comparative Negligence in an Era of Tort Reform: Decisions for Tennessee, 57 Tenn.L.Rev. 199, 295 (1990); Jerry J. Phillips, The Case for Judicial Adoption of Comparative Negligence in South Carolina, 32 S.C.L.Rev. 295, 299 (1980); 1 Comparative Negligence: Law and Practice Section 9.30 (Matthew Bender 1993); Dan B. Dobbs et al, Prosser and Keeton on the Law on Torts Section 67, at 478 (5th Ed.1984 and Supp.1988). Unlike a negligence-based system, which limits liability to the narrow basis of a party's breach of a duty of care, the fault-based system adopted by the McIntyre court allows the fact-finder to weigh the relative conduct of the parties. See e.g. Uniform Comparative Fault Act § 1(b) cmt., 12 U.L.A. 46 (West Supp.1993) ('Putting out a product that is dangerous to the user or the public ... involves a measure of fault that can be weighed and compared, even though it is not characterized as negligence.').

825 F.Supp. at 838-839. (...