Summers V. Tice - California Supreme Court Ruling

California Supreme Court Ruling

On appeal the defendants argued that they were not joint tortfeasors because they were not acting in concert. On the subject of negligence, defendant Simonson contended that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the finding on that score. The court ruled that Simonson did not however point out wherein the plaintiff's evidence was lacking. Defendant Tice on the other hand stated in his opening brief that "we have decided not to argue the insufficiency of negligence on the part of defendant Tice." The court noted that Tice neither conceded the point nor argued it in his petition for a hearing before the court and the court therefore did not address that issue further. Accordingly, in their view, neither was liable, and they could not be held jointly and severally liable (i.e., each defendant was liable for the full amount of damages).

The court affirmed the lower court ruling that that each defendant’s behavior fell below the standard of care (i.e., they were both negligent) and that the plaintiff's conduct did not contribute to his injury. Laying out the groundbreaking doctrine of alternative liability, because both defendants had been negligent, the court then decided that justice required that the burden of proving which of the defendants had caused either or both of plaintiff’s injuries be shifted to the defendants, so that either could absolve himself of liability if possible. This is because it would have been impossible for the plaintiff to show which of the two negligent actors had caused his harm. Summers v. Tice has had enormous precedential impact within the state of California and persuasive authority in other jurisdictions in the area of product liability.