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Smith v. Ingersoll-Rand Co.12/29/2000
ury or death to person or harm to property, any contributory fault chargeable to the claimant diminishes proportionately the amount awarded as compensatory damages for an injury attributable to the claimant's contributory fault, but does not bar recovery. This rule applies whether or not under prior law the claimant's contributory fault constituted a defense or was disregarded under applicable legal doctrines, such as last clear chance.[ ]
The Alaska Legislature adopted this definition verbatim into the 1986 Tort Reform Act with the exception of the last sentence which it omitted. Smith argues that this omission is significant because it indicates the legislature's desire not to change the prior existing law, including the prior existing law on comparative negligence in products liability cases.
This argument has some plausibility. But we think a more likely explanation of why the legislature omitted this particular sentence is that it was simply not relevant when the Tort Reform Act was enacted. In 1986 an Alaska claimant's contributory fault was not a "defense" in the sense meant by this sentence, nor was "last clear chance" a basis for disregarding contributory fault. The Uniform Comparative Fault Act was written to apply to all of the states of the United States. As of 1977, when the Uniform Act was proposed, only nine states had adopted the pure form of comparative fault proposed in the model act. But Alaska was one of the nine. The sentence in question would serve no purpose here and it seems likely that this is why the legislature did not adopt it.
V. CONCLUSION
The United States District Court for the District of Alaska certified three questions to this court regarding the effect of the 1986 Tort Reform Act on the prior comparative negligence case law in strict products liability actions.
We conclude that the Act changed the law. Prior to the Act, comparative negligence in products liability cases was limited to product misuse and unreasonable assumption of risk. The Act expands that definition to include other types of comparative fault, including a plaintiff's ordinary negligence.
We therefore answer the first certified question in the affirmative. The other two questions thus become moot.
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