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Richardson v. Navistar International Transportation8/15/2000
al, and the trial court dismissed the plaintiffs' action with prejudice. Thus, the issue of damages was never tried at the trial court, nor was a final judgment entered.
On August 15, 1995, the plaintiffs filed an action against Navistar International Transportation Corporation and Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc. ("defendants") in the United States District Court for the District of Utah. Based on theories of strict product liability and negligence, the plaintiffs sought to recover for injuries and/or enhanced and exacerbated injuries beyond, over, and above the injuries, if any, which they would have suffered from the July 3, 1989 motor vehicle collision in the absence of defendants' defective product and/or negligence. The defendants filed a motion for summary judgment asserting that the plaintiffs were collaterally estopped from seeking an allocation of fault since that issue had previously been litigated and fault totaling 100% had been allocated. The federal district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment and dismissed the case with prejudice. Plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. After full briefing and oral arguments, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals took the matter under advisement and certified the question at issue to this court.
ANALYSIS
The phrasing of the question certified to us by the U.S. Court of Appeals has, we believe, obscured the factual context in which it arises and therefore caused some distortion in the arguments made to us. Although, as the question and the record reflect, there was a trial in Utah District Court in which a jury returned a verdict allocating "100% of fault among the parties," that verdict was never reduced to a final judgment. Instead, the state court proceedings were truncated by a settlement between the parties and dismissal of the case. Thus, the parties reached a settlement before the state court entered a judgment allocating fault pursuant to the Utah Liability Reform Act, and the jury's verdict on allocation had no binding or preclusive effect on any party or court.
The case before the federal court is therefore simply one where the plaintiffs are pursuing other potential tortfeasors who were not parties to the settlement agreement with the defendants in the state case. Parties may of course settle with some defendants without jeopardizing their right to seek redress from others. Our judgment on the effect of fully litigated (i.e., to final judgment) claims against some but not all defendants under the Liability Reform Act in a case like this must await another day. We therefore answer the certified question in the affirmative, emphasizing again that we view the state case as having been settled, not litigated to judgment.
Chief Justice Howe, Associate Chief Justice Russon, Justice Durrant, and Justice Wilkins concur in Justice Durham's opinion.
Page 1 2 Utah Personal Injury Attorneys
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