Diggins v. Jackson
Diggins v. Jackson
Concurring Opinion
with whom EASTAUGH, Justice, joins, concurring.
In this case the plaintiff settled claims with two defendants for $106,000.
Today's opinion answers this question in the affirmative. It relies on the recently decided case of Petrolane, Inc. v. Robles.
Petrolane now stands as a decision of this court and as such it has precedential effect. Today's opinion is right in holding that it controls the outcome of this case. Based on the principle of stare decisis I join in the result that today's opinion reaches even though I remain convinced that Petrolane was wrongly decided.
As matters now stand the long-standing policy prohibiting double recoveries has been eliminated. Plaintiffs who have received all that they should receive as determined by a jury can receive duplicate (and triplicate) payments. The reasons cited in support of this policy-that plaintiffs bear the risk of settling for too little and that permitting double recovery facilitates settlement-seem insubstantial. Settling for too little has always been a risk for plaintiffs. They might lose in the trial against the remaining defendant, or a favorable judgment might prove to be uncollectable. Settlements occur because of risk-reward calculations that remain complex, with or without the possibility of a double recovery. Neither of these reasons approaches in force the reason underlying the policy against double recoveries: the coercive force of the law should not require a party to pay for a loss for which full compensation has already been paid.
I believe that permitting double recoveries continues to be bad public policy and that the fact that double recoveries are now permitted is an unintended consequence of the tort reform movement. Nonetheless, this is where Petrolane leaves us. If there is to be a change, it must come through the legislative process.
. In round numbers.
. 154 P.3d 1014 (Alaska 2007).
. Id. at 1028.
. Stare decisis is at its strongest in cases involving the interpretation of statutes. Unlike cases involving the constitution, the legislature may override an incorrect statutory interpretation. There is thus less justification in such cases for a court to overturn its own rulings. See William Eskridge, Overruling Statutory Precedents, 76 Geo. L.J. 1361 (1988).
Opinion of the Court
OPINION
On August 22, 1999, Lance Jackson was riding his bicycle on a bike path in Anchorage. Because of ongoing repairs, a section of the bike path's pavement had been removed. Jackson rode into the gap, flipped his bike, and fractured his neck.
Jackson sued three contractors involved in the repair work: Moseley Enterprises, Inc., Warning Lites of Alaska, Inc., and Diggins Concrete. He settled with Moseley and Warning Lites before trial, receiving a total of $106,190.60 ($91,190.60 from Moseley and $15,000 from Warning Lites). Jackson proceeded to trial against Diggins. The jury's verdict found that Jackson's damages totaled $94,948.40, that Diggins, Moseley, and Jackson had acted negligently in causing those damages, but that Warning Lites was not responsible for the accident. The verdict allocated ten percent of the liability to Dig-gins, twenty percent to Moseley, seventy percent to Jackson, and none to Warning Lites.
This nominally left Diggins Hable to Jackson for $9,494.34-ten percent of Jackson's total damages. But Diggins asked the trial court, Superior Court Judge Philip R. Vol-land, to offset Jackson's damages by the amounts already paid to him in settlement by Moseley and Warning Lites; since the pretrial settlement payments exceeded Jackson's total damages as awarded by the jury, the
Diggins filed this appeal, challenging the superior court's order declining to offset the prior settlement payments. After hearing oral argument, we stayed Diggins's appeal pending our ruling in an already submitted appeal involving analogous facts and a similar issue, Petrolane Inc. v. Robles
In Petrolane we asked, "Is a non-settling defendant tortfeasor entitled to offset against his liability to the plaintiff the amount of a settlement between the plaintiff and a settling defendant?"
The only salient difference between the situation in the case now before us and the cireumstances at issue in Petrolane is that AS 09.17.080(c)'s "subject to reduction" language was still in effect in 1993, when the accident in Petrolane occurred, whereas the language had been repealed by the time Jackson's injury occurred in 1999. But as we implicitly recognized in Petrolane, the proportionate-share rule we adopted there does not hinge on subsection .080(c)'s repeal; indeed, as a practical matter, the fact that the provision was repealed before Jackson's accident can only favor the conclusion that Petro-lame must also apply here.
Diggins cites no authority and raises no arguments that we did not consider in Petro-lame; accordingly, we adhere to the approach we adopted there and reiterate the basis for our ruling: "Proportionate share offsets are logical incidents of several liability, and in recognizing them we simply adopt the most efficient and well-accepted solution."
Because Petrolane applies here and precludes Diggins's request for a full offset, we AFFIRM the superior court's judgment.
. Under this verdict, because Jackson was responsible for seventy percent of his own damages, the amount he could recover from the two other responsible parties, Diggins and Moseley, totaled $28,483.00-thirty percent of $94,943.40.
. Petrolane Inc. v. Robles, 154 P.3d 1014 (Alaska 2007).
. Id. at 1016.
. Id. at 1020.
. Id. at 1020-21 (footnotes omitted) (citing McDermott, Inc. v. AmClyde, 511 U.S. 202, 208-17, 114 S.Ct. 1461, 128 L.Ed.2d 148 (1994).
. Id. at 1021.
. Id. at 1020 & n. 21, 1022-23.
. Id. at 1023.
. Id. at 1024 (rejecting the notion that the "subject to" provision of subsection .080(c) repealed by the legislature in 1997 was "critical language" compelling a full offset until that provision's repeal).
. Id.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Robert & Donald DIGGINS, D/B/A/ Diggins Concrete, Appellants, v. Lance JACKSON, Appellee
- Cited By
- 8 cases
- Status
- Published