APPELLATE COURT OPINIONS

Pursuant to Rule 23, Rules of the Tennessee Supreme Court, the Court has accepted for decision the following question of law certified by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals: Whether principles of comparative fault should apply in Tennessee medical malpractice actions so as to result in the apportionment of damages between the estate of a decedent who acted negligently in causing an initial injury and physician who negligently treated the decedent for that injury.

I dissent from the majority's holding that a person arrested for driving under the influence of an intoxicant will be denied the right to consult with counsel prior to submitting to a breath test, regardless of the circumstances, and also from the majority's holidng that the defendant's right against self-incrimination would not be violated by the adminssion of his refusal to submit to the breath test as evidence of intoxication.

Based on the plaintiff's expectations at the time he filed this lawsuit in 1988, I agree with the majority that, in this transition case, it is reasonable to permit the plaintiff to recover from the defendants that he named in his complaint ("Truckstops") all of his damages that were proximately caused by Truckstops and that were not attributable to the plaintiff's own fault (if any). I also agree with the majority that it is fair in this transition case to permit Truckstops to receive contribution from the parties that were named by Truckstops as third-party defendants. However, I believe that the contribution should be based on the parties' respective percentages of fault, and that this method should apply not only to the negligence claims set forth in the thirdparty complaint, but to the strict products liability claim as well. If liability were thus linked to fault on each claim in the third-party complaint, each defendant (including the third-party defendants) would be liable only for the percentage of the plaintiff's damages that was caused by that defendant's fault, and the doctrine of joint and several liability would have no application.

This interlocutory appeal presents for determination the principles of comparative fault applicable to the assessment of liability among joint tort feasors and the application of those principles to this transitional case, in which the cause of action accrued prior to the decision in McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d52 (Tenn. 1992). The decision of the Court of Appeals is modified and the case is remanded to the trial court.

This is a suit by two high school students and their parents seeking damages resulting from alleged assaults by a high school coach.