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Ind. Code § 34-51-2-8

Jury instructions; multiple defendants

Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case TRW Vehicle Safety Systems, Inc. v. Moore (2010)

Most recently applied in The Estate of Gary Pfafman v. Lori Lancaster, Individually, and as Guardian of the Estate of Kole Craig (January 2017)

As added by P.L.1-1998, SEC.47.

How often courts cite this section

20012010201730
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

Sec. 8. (a) This section applies to an action based on fault that:

(1) is brought against two (2) or more defendants; and

(2) is tried to a jury.

(b) The court, unless all the parties agree otherwise, shall instruct the jury to determine its verdict in the following manner:

(1) The jury shall determine the percentage of fault of the claimant, of the defendants, and of any person who is a nonparty. The jury may not be informed of any immunity defense that might be available to a nonparty. In assessing percentage of fault, the jury shall consider the fault of all persons who caused or contributed to cause the alleged injury, death, or damage to property, tangible or intangible, regardless of whether the person was or could have been named as a party. The percentage of fault of parties to the action may total less than one hundred percent (100%) if the jury finds that fault contributing to cause the claimant's loss has also come from a nonparty or nonparties.

(2) If the percentage of fault of the claimant is greater than fifty percent (50%) of the total fault involved in the incident which caused the claimant's death, injury, or property damage, the jury shall return a verdict for the defendants and no further deliberation of the jury is required.

(3) If the percentage of fault of the claimant is not greater than fifty percent (50%) of the total fault, the jury shall then determine the total amount of damages the claimant would be entitled to recover if contributory fault were disregarded.

(4) The jury next shall multiply the percentage of fault of each defendant by the amount of damages determined under subdivision (3) and shall enter a verdict against each defendant (and such other defendants as are liable with the defendant by reason of their relationship to a defendant) in the amount of the product of the multiplication of each defendant's percentage of fault times the amount of damages as determined under subdivision (3).

Official source: Indiana General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain Indiana statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.