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Balla v. Paccar8/24/1995
This appeal requires interpreting the provisions of the Comparative Responsibility Statute to determine whether the trial court erred in calculating damages recoverable for serious personal injuries sustained by Kenneth Balla.. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. 33.001 (Vernon Supp. 1995). Appellants assert in six points of error that the trial court erroneously reduced the jury's verdict to permit appellants to recover only $46,115.14 from a verdict of $6,559,011.00. We reform the judgement to reflect that PACCAR be required to pay one percent of the total damages, or $65,590.11, plus prejudgment and postjudgment interest.
Appellee, PACCAR, Inc., ("PACCAR") was one of three defendants named in appellant's original petition alleging negligence. The other two defendants, Palestine Contractors ("Palestine") and Grace Drilling ("Grace"), settled with appellants prior to trial, with Palestine paying $400,000 and Grace paying $2,000,000. Appellants assert that the provisions of Chapter 33 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code provide for only one credit against the total jury verdict of $6,559,011.00, that being the dollar-for-dollar reduction credit equaling the amount of the combined settlements with Palestine and Grace. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. Section(s) 33.012-.015 (Vernon Supp. 1995). However, the trial court further reduced the jury award to reflect the jury's finding PACCAR liable for only one percent of the negligence that proximately caused Kenneth Balla's personal injury . After the trial court applied this second reduction, the trial court's judgment reflected that PACCAR was liable for only $46,115.14. Appellants assert that the trial court's reducing the jury's verdict to reflect PACCAR's one percent responsibility constitutes an impermissible second credit which the statute explicitly prohibits. Appellants filed a supplemental brief proffering an alternative argument that should we hold PACCAR to the jury's assessing its percentage of liability at one percent, then we must multiply this finding by the total damages awarded by the jury, and not by the sum of the settlements.
Section 33 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code constitutes the legislature's attempt at a tort reform scheme. The resulting language, seemingly straightforward on the surface, unfortunately leaves much unanswered for practitioners and the judiciary alike. See Joseph Sanders & Craig Joyce, "Off to the Races": The 1980s Tort Crisis and the Law Reform Process, 27 HOUS. L. REV. 207, 263-64 (1990) (criticizing poor draftsmanship of reform statutes for resulting in ineffectual legislation). Nevertheless, we must construe the statute in light of its context and structure as a whole. TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. Section(s) 311.023 (Vernon 1988). Our decision today rests primarily on section 33.013(a) and its mandate that "a liable defendant is liable to a claimant only for the percentage of the damages found by the trier of fact equal to that defendant's percentage of responsibility." TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. 33.013(a) (Vernon Supp. 1995). The only exceptions to this general rule are found in subsections (b) and (c) which address the limitations on imposing joint and several liability. Section(s) 33.013(b)-(c). Because of the small percentage of responsibility the jury assessed against PACCAR, that of one percent, PACCAR is not jointly and severally liable for the entire amount of damages assessed by the jury. See Kirby v. Amerigas, Inc., 892 S.W.2d 179, 180 (Tex. App. -- Houston [14th Dist.] 1994, writ denied); Patel v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co., 866 S.W.2d 709, 710 (Tex. App. -- Houston [14th Dist.] 1993, no writ).
We find no support for appellants' argument that
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