New Comparative Fault Opinion: Trial Court's Decision to Allow Fault to Be Allocated to an Agritourism Nonparty Upheld on Appeal

The Tennessee Court of Appeals just issued its opinion in Green v. St. George's Episcopal Church, No. M2017-00413-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Nov. 16, 2018).  The syllabus from the slip opinion reads as follows:

This appeal arises from a jury verdict in a personal injury action. The defendant alleged the comparative fault of a nonparty who was potentially immune from liability under Tennessee’s agritourism statute. See Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 43-39-101 to -103 (Supp. 2018). Before trial, the defendant asked the court to exclude all evidence and argument before the jury regarding statutory immunity as irrelevant and prejudicial. The court excluded argument and evidence of immunity but allowed the parties to present evidence on whether the nonparty had complied with the statute. At the conclusion of the trial, the court permitted the jury to apportion a percentage of fault to the nonparty without considering the nonparty’s compliance with the agritourism statute. On appeal, the plaintiff argues that the trial court erred in allowing the jury to allocate fault to the nonparty because the agritourism statute provided immunity from fault as well as liability. We conclude that nothing in the agritourism statute precludes the allocation of fault to a nonparty agritourism professional in a negligence action. So we affirm.

Here is a link to the slip opinion: 

http://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/green.edna_.opn_.pdf

NOTE: This opinion does a good job of explaining Tennessee's system of modified comparative fault and the allocation of fault under as affected by our agritourism statutes, which grant immunity under certain circumstances.