Section 33 Protection From Claims for Contribution

• Library: Damages 2012

Section 537.060, RSMo 2000, also provides protection from contribution actions against settling parties. The idea is to encourage settlement by bringing finality to the defendant who settles.

In a wrongful death action in which one plaintiff was also a joint tortfeasor, principles of fairness dictated that the law of contribution, and not the law of comparative fault, applied among joint tortfeasors. Teeter v. Mo. Highway & Transp. Comm’n,
891 S.W.2d 817, 820 (Mo. banc 1995). The Court acknowledged the rule that comparative fault of a decedent may be assessed against beneficiaries to a wrongful death action, but the comparative fault of one beneficiary should not be imputed to the other beneficiaries. Id. In Teeter, the defendants sought to reduce their liability by the percentage of fault that the jury assessed against one of the beneficiaries who was driving the car at the time of the collision. Because a wrongful death action is indivisible—only one action can be filed and the court must apportion the recovery among the beneficiaries—the apportionment among beneficiaries...