## Facts

- Gloria Sakellariadis was involved in two separate automobile collisions about three months apart: a July 2001 collision with Steven W. Campbell and an October 2001 collision with Bruce E. Walters.
- She sued both drivers for negligence, alleging each collision proximately caused severe and permanent injuries and seeking to hold defendants jointly and severally liable.
- The trial court found both defendants negligent and tried only damages to a jury.
- Evidence showed treatment for injuries including eye, shoulder, spine, and knee complaints, with airbag deployment in each collision.
- The jury returned total damages of about $518,000 and, using a special verdict form allocating damages across multiple categories, assigned 50% responsibility to each defendant.
- While the jury deliberated, plaintiff settled with Campbell for $150,000.
- After the verdict, the trial court entered judgment against the nonsettling defendant (Walters) for one-half of the verdict, about $259,000.

## Issues

1. In a case involving overlapping injuries from two successive accidents, whether a nonsettling defendant is jointly and severally liable for the entire damages award minus the settlement, or only for the portion of damages the jury allocated to that defendant.

## Decision

- The appellate court affirmed the judgment against Walters for 50% of the total verdict, consistent with the jury’s apportionment.
- The court rejected plaintiff’s claim that Walters owed the full verdict reduced only by Campbell’s settlement.
- The court held that the jury’s allocation provided a reasonable basis to apportion damages between the two collisions.
- Campbell’s settlement did not expand Walters’s liability beyond the amount allocated to him.

## Legal Principles

- Damages may be apportioned among multiple causes when there is a reasonable basis to determine each cause’s contribution to a single harm.  
- When a fact finder can reasonably apportion damages between successive tortfeasors, joint and several liability for the entire injury is improper as to the apportioned components.
- A party that requests a procedure requiring apportionment (such as a special verdict form allocating damages by defendant) cannot later seek recovery as if the harm were indivisible after the jury apportions damages.
- A settlement with one defendant does not convert an apportioned judgment into full liability for the nonsettling defendant; the nonsettling defendant remains liable for the allocated share.

## Conclusion

Because the injuries arose from two separate accidents and the jury reasonably apportioned damages between the defendants using a special verdict form, the nonsettling defendant was liable only for his 50% share of the total award, not for the full verdict minus the settlement.


Sakellariadis v. Campbell, 909 N.E.2d 353 (Ill. App. Ct. 2009)