Gauthier v. O'BRIEN

606 So. 2d 915, 1992 WL 275238
CourtLouisiana Court of Appeal
DecidedDecember 21, 1992
Docket92-491
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 606 So. 2d 915 (Gauthier v. O'BRIEN) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Louisiana Court of Appeal primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Gauthier v. O'BRIEN, 606 So. 2d 915, 1992 WL 275238 (La. Ct. App. 1992).

Opinion

606 So.2d 915 (1992)

Vicky GAUTHIER, Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
William J. O'BRIEN, et al., Defendants-Applicants.

No. 92-491.

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, Third Circuit.

October 6, 1992.
Writ Granted December 21, 1992.

Walker, Passman & Michiels, J. Morgan Passman, Alexandria, for defendants-applicants.

*916 Darrell D. Ryland, Marksville, Charles A. O'Brien, III, Baton Rouge, for plaintiff-respondent.

Before DOUCET and YELVERTON, JJ., and CULPEPPER,[*] J. Pro Tem.

YELVERTON, Judge.

There are two issues before us. Both come from rulings on motions in limine. The first issue is whether LSA-C.C. 2324 B, as amended by 1987 legislation, now allows consideration of an employer's negligence, when it comes to apportioning fault, in an employee's tort suit against a negligent third party. The trial court granted a motion filed by the plaintiff, Vicky Gauthier, who had sued third parties in tort following an on-the-job injury, ruling that the 1987 legislation did not change the law and that there could be no assessment of fault against Vicky's employer at the upcoming trial. The second ruling was a denial of a motion in limine filed by the defendants. This motion sought to bar the opinion testimony of the investigating police officer regarding the point of impact of the vehicles involved in the accident which caused the on-the-job injury. The trial court ruled that the testimony was admissible.

Writs were applied for attacking both rulings. We granted writs and called the case up for a full review of these two rulings. We affirm the first and reverse the second.

EMPLOYER NEGLIGENCE

Vicky was an employee of Curry Cooper. On the facts alleged, she was in a car driven by Cooper, on the job, when the car was in a collision with a farm tractor owned by William O'Brien and operated by William Pearce. She sued O'Brien and Pearce, and their insurer, Commercial Union Insurance Company, in tort. They third-partied Cooper for an assessment of his percentage of fault.

The question before us is whether La. C.C. art. 2324 now permits the negligence of the statutorily immune Cooper to be considered in apportioning fault in this employee's suit against third-party tortfeasors.

The accident in this case happened after La.C.C. art. 2324 was amended in 1987. As amended, the article reads:

A. He who conspires with another person to commit an intentional or willful act is answerable, in solido, with that person, for the damage caused by such act.
B. If liability is not solidary pursuant to Paragraph A, or as otherwise provided by law, then liability for damages caused by two or more persons shall be solidary only to the extent necessary for the person suffering injury, death, or loss to recover fifty percent of his recoverable damages; however, when the amount of recovery has been reduced in accordance with the preceding Article, a judgment debtor shall not be liable for more than the degree of his fault to a judgment creditor to whom a greater degree of fault has been attributed. Under the provisions of this Article, all parties shall enjoy their respective rights of indemnity and contribution. Except as described in Paragraph A of this Article, or as otherwise provided by law, and hereinabove, the liability for damages caused by two or more persons shall be a joint, divisible obligation, and a joint tortfeasor shall not be solidarily liable with any other person for damages attributable to the fault of such other person, including the person suffering injury, death, or loss, regardless of such other person's insolvency, ability to pay, degree of fault, or immunity by statute or otherwise.
C. Interruption of prescription against one joint tortfeasor, whether the obligation is considered joint and divisible or solidary, is effective against all joint tortfeasors. Nothing in this Subsection shall be construed to affect in any manner the application of the provisions of R.S. 40:1299.41(G).

The amended language on which the third-party defendants in the present case rely is *917 from the last sentence of Subsection B: "a joint tortfeasor shall not be solidarily liable with any other person ... regardless of such other person's ... immunity by statute or otherwise."

Before this amendment, the law on this subject was that the worker's compensation principle—the employee-employer bargain in the worker's compensation scheme—excluded the concept of employer fault. Guidry v. Frank Guidry Oil Company, 579 So.2d 947 (La.1991). The worker's compensation law made the employer immune from tort liability and from any exposure to a contribution or indemnity action. La.R.S. 23:1032. In Guidry, the question of whether an employer's negligence could be considered in an employee's suit against a third-party tortfeasor was examined in the light of La.C.C.P. art. 1812. This article of civil procedure allows a jury interrogatory asking, if appropriate, whether another person, whether party or not, other than the person suffering injury, death, or loss, was at fault, and, if so: whether such fault was a legal cause of the damages, and, if so: the degree of such fault, expressed in percentage. The argument made in Guidry was that C.C.P. art. 1812 authorized consideration of employer negligence. The Supreme Court disagreed. It held that employer negligence could not be considered, because the compensation principle excludes the concept of employer fault. The court explained:

It is not clear that the statutory language was intended to embrace employer fault. Since the statute does not specifically require juries to consider the comparative fault of employers, there is no express legislative directive on the issue. Extending the amendment to employers would violate the compensation principle and cannot be done by implication.

The argument of the third-party tortfeasor appellants in the present case is that the amending language in C.C. art. 2324 B, stating that a joint tortfeasor shall not be solidarily liable with any other person regardless of such other person's immunity by statute or otherwise, is an express legislative directive on the issue. They argue that the law now requires that the employer's negligence, regardless of immunity, should be quantified by the trier of fact, and that a codefendant is liable for only his virile share, subject to a possible increase up to 50%.

We reject this argument. In our opinion new C.C. art. 2324 does not specifically require the trier of fact to consider the comparative fault of employers. Thus, there remains no express legislative directive on the issue. The statutory immunity of employers from tort liability and from any exposure to a contribution or indemnity action is found in the worker's compensation statutes. If the legislature had intended a change in the law, those statutes would have been the best place to clearly and specifically make the change. If we were to extend the amendment to La.C.C. art. 2324 to employers we would be allowing the amendment to violate the compensation principle by implication.

In reaching this decision we have found the views expressed by Professor David W. Robertson, in The Louisiana Law of Comparative Fault: A Decade of Progress (La. Practice Series, Vol. 1), most persuasive. He supports the view that the new Article 2324 affords no basis for using the fault of a fully immune entity to affect the rights of the plaintiff and the defendant vis-a-vis one another. Referring to the contrary view, he writes, at p. 54:

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Bluebook (online)
606 So. 2d 915, 1992 WL 275238, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gauthier-v-obrien-lactapp-1992.