Fye v. Kennedy

991 S.W.2d 754, 1998 Tenn. App. LEXIS 411, 1998 WL 338198
CourtCourt of Appeals of Tennessee
DecidedJune 26, 1998
Docket03A01-9707-CV-00287
StatusPublished
Cited by40 cases

This text of 991 S.W.2d 754 (Fye v. Kennedy) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Fye v. Kennedy, 991 S.W.2d 754, 1998 Tenn. App. LEXIS 411, 1998 WL 338198 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinions

OPINION

CHARLES D. SUSANO, Jr., Judge.

This is a wrongful death and loss of services action that arose out of a two-vehicle accident. Following the second of two jury trials, the trial court, acting pursuant to Rule 50, Tenn.R.Civ.P., set aside the jury’s verdict for the plaintiff, Edward Fye, and directed the entry of a judgment for the remaining defendants, Anne D. Kennedy and James D. Kennedy, III.1 Plaintiff appealed, raising two issues:

1. Did the trial court err in granting the Kennedys a directed verdict?
2. Did the trial judge who presided over the first trial improperly limit the percentage of fault that could be assessed to the Kennedys in the second jury trial?

The Kennedys argue, by way of a separate issue, that the “trial court improperly applied the collateral source rule in determining the amount of damages to which plaintiff was entitled.”

I.

This case finds its genesis in an April 30, 1991, accident involving a vehicle driven by the defendant Anne D. Kennedy (“Kennedy”) — in which vehicle the plaintiffs decedent, Barbara May Fye (“Fye”), was riding as a guest passenger — and a vehicle driven by Jeffrey W. Keller (“Keller”). Just prior to the accident, Kennedy was proceeding east in the left through-traffic lane of 23rd Street in Hamilton County, approaching the intersection of 4th Avenue. At the same time, Keller was proceeding west on 23rd Street. As Keller approached the intersection, he moved his vehicle to the middle or turn lane of 23rd Street, intending to turn left onto 4th Avenue. 23rd Street has two lanes for traffic proceeding east and two lanes for traffic moving west. The through-traffic lanes are separated by a middle or turn lane. As Keller was turning left, his Chevrolet Blazer was struck in the right front quarter panel by the front of Kennedy’s 1988 Chevrolet Suburban. As a result of the collision, Fye was seriously injured. She was hospitalized in the intensive care unit of Erlanger Medical Center, where she remained for just short of six months. She died from her injuries on October 20, 1991.

The plaintiff brought suit for his wife’s wrongful death and for loss of services. In addition to Kennedy and Keller, the plaintiff named as defendants, (1) the owners of the two vehicles, (2) General Motors Corporation, and (3) Newton Chevrolet-GEO, Inc. The latter two defendants were sued on a number of theories, all of which were related to the plaintiffs contention that Fye’s seat belt was defectively designed. The plaintiff claimed that Fye’s injuries were enhanced because of the defectively-designed seat belt.

Prior to trial, Keller and his father settled their liability to the plaintiff for $1,500,000,2 and they were dismissed as defendants. Thereafter, the remaining claims proceeded to trial. Following a ten-day trial, the jury exonerated General Motors Corporation and Newton Chevrolet-GEO, Inc. On the verdict form, the jury reported that it found Kennedy, Keller, and Fye each guilty of negligence that was a proximate cause of the accident and [757]*757Fye’s injuries and death.3 parties fault as follows: It found4 the

Kennedy • 1%

Keller 90

Fye 9

Damages in the wrongful death case, without regard to fault, were set at $1,505,750. The loss of services claim was valued at $500,000.

On post-trial motion, the trial judge, the Honorable William M. Barker, stated that while he could and would approve the jury’s verdict with respect to damages, he could not agree with the jury’s determination that Fye was guilty of actionable negligence. He stated that he did not believe she was guilty of any negligence, much less 9%. He opined that he was satisfied with the jury’s finding with respect to the fault of Keller. After an extended discussion among counsel and the court, Judge Barker ordered a new trial solely on liability, but set limits on the re-trial:

Now, here’s what I’m going to do, and I know that there is no authority for this, but I also know there’s no authority against it. I am going to direct that there be a new trial as between Mrs. Fye’s estate and the Defendant Anne Kennedy and her husband James D. Kennedy, and the new trial will be limited. There will not be a new trial with regard to the total amount of the damage award assigned by the former jury....
Two, the jury will not be told of the prior allocation of fault for this accident as between Mr. Keller and the Kenne-dys. However, once the jury verdict is accepted and rendered, the previous Jury’s finding of 90 percent of the fault as to Mr. Keller will be written into their verdict, so that the Kennedys will be exposed in a new trial to only a reconsideration of whether their fault was zero percent or up to 10 percent. That is to say, a jury hearing this second trial may assign 60 percent of the fault to the Kellers and 40 percent to the Kennedys. If that’s the case, the Ken-nedys will be liable for 10 percent of the damages previously determined. The jury may find 95 percent of the fault against the Kellers, and only 5 percent against the Kennedys. That being the case, the Kennedys would pay 5 percent of those damages.
Now, I’m doing that because I simply feel that without any law on the subject, that’s just and that’s fair. I do agree with the defense that to reexamine all of the allocation of fault between the negligent defendants or negligence-charged defendants would be giving the Plaintiff too much of a bite at the apple again.

The issue of Fye’s negligence was not to be presented for resolution to the second jury, for the simple reason that the Kenne-dys, who were then the only remaining defendants in the case, had never claimed that Fye was guilty of any negligence. Fye’s alleged negligence was “in play” at the first trial only because the defectively-designed-seat-belt defendants had claimed that Fye had improperly fastened her seat belt. With the seat belt issue out of the second trial,5 there was to be no testimony presented to the second jury regarding Fye’s use or misuse of her seat belt. See T.C.A. § 55-9-604(a).

At the second trial, the Honorable Samuel H. Payne presided. Following a two-day trial solely on the issue of the liability/comparative fault of Kennedy and Kel[758]*758ler, the jury found both guilty of actionable negligence and assigned 60% of the fault to Keller and 40% to Kennedy. Coincidentally, this was one of the hypothetical scenarios that had been used by Judge Barker when he explained how the mechanism he had set in place would be applied to ensure that Kennedy would not, under any circumstances, be assigned more than 10% fault.

Kennedy pursued her motion for a directed verdict following the entry of the judgment confirming the second jury’s verdict. As previously indicated, Judge Payne granted the motion, finding that reasonable minds could only conclude that Kennedy was not guilty of any negligence that proximately caused or contributed to the accident and Fye’s injuries and death. He concluded that Keller’s act of turning in front of Kennedy was the sole proximate cause of the accident. Judge Payne stated on the record, and confirmed in his subsequently-entered order that

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
991 S.W.2d 754, 1998 Tenn. App. LEXIS 411, 1998 WL 338198, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/fye-v-kennedy-tennctapp-1998.