Sitzes v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc.

89 S.E.2d 679 (1982)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Sitzes (Ps) are administrators of the estate of Patricia Roberson. She was killed in an automobile accident. She was a passenger in a pick-up truck driven by her husband, James (D), which collided with a motor truck driven by Carter, an agent and employee of Anchor Motor Freight, Inc. (D) She is survived by her husband and her son, Joseph Eugene Roberson. Anchor (D) filed a third-party complaint for contribution against James (D). The court instructed the jury to assign percentages of fault to the third-party plaintiff and third-party defendant if it found that both had been negligent. Partricia was found not to be at fault. The jury returned a verdict for P and assessed damages in the amount of $100,000. The jury directed that Ps should distribute $75,000 (or 75%) of the award to Patricia's son, Joseph Eugene Roberson, and $25,000 to James (D), the third-party defendant. 'On the third-party claim, the jury found both the third-party plaintiff and the third-party defendant negligent, and found that the degree of negligence attributable to Anchor Motor Freight (D) was 70% and the degree attributable to James (D) was 30%. The District Court certified its questions. The state’s normal rules of contribution would apportion damages equally among joint tortfeasors, and the state’s newly-adopted rule of comparative negligence required the jury to assign the proportion of the total negligence among the various parties and completely denied recovery to a plaintiff whose negligence equaled or exceeded 50 percent of the combined negligence of the parties.