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Saranillio v. Silva2/7/1995
no room for judicial construction"); Krukiewicz, 725 P.2d at 1351-52; see also Yates, 330 N.C. at 793-94, 412 S.E.2d at 669.
As the Rhode Island Supreme Court said in Smith:
Emphasizing by the prefatory phrase -- "For the purposes of this chapter" -- that its sole concern was with the meaning of the term "joint tort-feasors" within the context of the act and not otherwise, the legislature continued and in plain and concise language fixed as the sole test for determining the existence of the joint tortfeasor relationship whether two or more persons were either jointly or severally liable in tort for the same injury to a party. Judged by that standard defendant [the master] and her servant were joint tort-feasors because concededly, upon the occurrence of the tort, they become jointly or severally liable to plaintiff.
101 R.I. at 567-68, 225 A.2d at 667 (emphasis in original). In the view of these courts, then, because an employee and his/her vicariously liable employer fall within the UCATA's definition of joint tortfeasor, section 4's release provision applies. That is, the common law rule that the release of an employee automatically releases the employer is abrogated and the employer is released only if "the release so provides[.]"
Not all courts construing the 1939 version of the UCATA have concluded that it applies to situations involving vicarious liability. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has held that an agent and its principal are not joint tortfeasors under the UCATA when the liability of the principal is derived vicariously, and thus the release of the agent precludes further recovery against the principal. Mamalis, 522 Pa. at 219-22, 560 A.2d at 1383-84. Acknowledging that the definition of joint tortfeasor in the UCATA might be read to encompass the principal/agent relationship, the court concluded that it could not "divorce the definition of joint tortfeasor from the context of the [UCATA] itself." Id. at 220, 560 A.2d at 1383. In its view, the UCATA served a purpose that was fundamentally distinct from the policies behind vicarious liability:
The rules of vicarious liability respond to a specific need in the law of torts: how to fully compensate an injury caused by the act of a single tortfeasor. Upon a showing of agency, vicarious liability increases the likelihood that an injury will be compensated, by providing two funds from which a plaintiff may recover. If the ultimately responsible agent is unavailable or lacks the ability to pay, the innocent victim has recourse against the principal. If the agent is available or has means to pay, invocation of the doctrine is unnecessary because the injured party has a fund from which to recover.
The system of contribution among joint tortfeasors, of which the Uniform Act's apportionment rules are a key component, has arisen completely apart from the system of vicarious liability and indemnity and meets an entirely distinct problem: how to compensate an injury inflicted by the acts of more than one tortfeasor. Unlike the liability of a principal, the liability of a joint tortfeasor is direct (because the tortfeasor actually contributed to the plaintiff's injury) and divisible (since the conduct of at least one other also contributed to the injury).
Id. at 220-21, 560 A.2d 1383 (quoting Mamalis v. Atlas Van Lines, Inc., 364 Pa. Super. 360, 365-66, 528 A.2d 198, 200-01 (1987)); see also Pallante v. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 427 Pa. Super. 371, 629 A.2d 146 (1993) (applying rationale of Mamalis and holding that release of vicariously liable principal operates to release agent); Kinetics, Inc. v. El Paso Products Co., 99 N.M. 22, 28, 653 P.2d 522, 528 (N.M. Ct. App. 19
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