 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Lewis v. Samson9/14/1999
tortfeasor's liability to the plaintiff. Those determinations made in Lujan are controlling in our consideration of what occurred before and during the trial in this case.
{50} The jury was properly presented with evidence detailing the extent of the patient's injuries at the hands of the assailant as part of the relevant medical evidence for determining the proximate cause of his death, alleged to be Defendants' fault. But evidence of the assailant's fault, that is, his criminal liability or his negligence, was irrelevant and improper to a determination of Defendant's liability by the jury. See ยง 41-3A-1(D); Lujan, 120 N.M. at 426-27, 902 P.2d at 1029-30. Obviously, once it could be determined that Defendants were successive and not concurrent tortfeasors, the trial court must consider and give to the jury the proper instructions on successive tortfeasor and not concurrent tortfeasor liability, as occurred at trial here.
{51} The trial court's denial of Plaintiff's motion erroneously permitted Defendants' strategy to introduce the assailant's comparative negligence, indeed, his negligence per se, to the jury. The court thus essentially allowed Defendants to present a comparative negligence case and to successfully argue, based on the assailant's criminal conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, that the assailant, not Defendants, proximately caused the patient's death. Indeed, the opening arguments of both Defendants stressed the assailant's criminal and civil liability for the entire injury , including the patient's death. This irrelevant evidence of the assailant's fault erroneously distracted the jury from properly examining Defendants' causation without comparisons to the assailant's negligence, as required by Lujan.
{52} Defendants rely on Martinez, 107 N.M. at 271, 755 P.2d at 609, for the proposition that they were entitled to offer evidence of the assailant's negligence to allow the jury to compare the percentage of total liability among the three parties. In Martinez, the plaintiff sued a physician for malpractice after suffering injuries at the hands of a nonparty driver of an automobile. Martinez held that the jury could not apportion fault between the driver and the physician without presenting evidence of the driver's negligence, suggesting that the physician should have joined the driver. See id. Martinez strongly implied that "if the negligence of the pickup truck driver had been established, the jury properly could have apportioned his fault with that of the treating physician and then could have reduced the physician's liability for the plaintiff's enhanced injury in proportion to the driver's fault." Lujan, 120 N.M. at 424, 902 P.2d at 1027 (citing Martinez, 107 N.M. at 271, 755 P.2d at 609).
{53} In light of the later ruling in Lujan and Section 41-3A-1, which statute was not in effect at the time Martinez was filed, we decline to apply the implied holding of Martinez. In Martinez, this Court apparently assumed that Bartlett abolished joint and several liability for both concurrent and successive tortfeasors and that the fault of successive tortfeasors should be compared to determine their respective liability to the plaintiff. See Martinez, 107 N.M. at 270, 755 P.2d at 608. To the extent Martinez could be read to have held that the physician's liability for the plaintiff's enhanced injury could be reduced in proportion to the driver's fault, we conclude that such holding in Martinez was superseded and modified by our Supreme Court in Lujan and by Section 41-3A-1. See Pofahl, supra, at 697 (In ruling that successive tortfeasors are liable only for the distinct injuries that they cause, "[Lujan] overruled the suggestion in Martinez . . . that succes
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 New Mexico Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|