Apportionment and the Caps

On Thursday, the Mississippi Supreme Court dismissed the cert petition granted in Mississippi Valley Silica Company, Inc. v. Dorothy Barnett, Individually and as Wrongful Death Beneficiary of Howard Barnett, Deceased, and on Behalf of All Wrongful Death Beneficiaries of Howard Barnett, Deceased finding that it was improvidently granted.  This left the Court of Appeals opinion as the law in place located here. 

The main issue of interest is how the caps on noneconomic damages apply when there is more than one Defendant.  Mississippi Code Section 11-1-60(2)(b) provides that “in the event the trier of fact finds the defendant liable, they shall not award the plaintiff more than One Million Dollars ($1,000,000.00) for noneconomic damages.”  The statute further provides that “[i]t is the intent of this section to limit all noneconomic damages to the above.”  Id.  Mississippi Code Section 85-5-7(2) provides that “the liability for damages caused by two (2) or more persons shall be several only, and not joint and several and a joint tort-feasor shall be liable only for the amount of damages allocated
to him in direct proportion to his percentage of fault.”.

Reading these two together, the defendants are assigned their amount of fault by the jury, then the caps are applied only to their portion of liability.