Tennessee Administrative Office of the Courts

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.

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.