Turner v. Jordan
Supreme Court of Tennessee
957 S.W.2d 815 (1997)
Dr. Jordan (defendant), a psychiatrist, diagnosed inpatient Williams as aggressive, combative, and dangerous to himself and others, yet took no steps to medicate, restrain, or transfer him, and Williams later violently attacked nurse Turner (plaintiff); Turner sued Jordan for medical negligence without naming Williams as a defendant, and the trial court instructed the jury to compare Williams's intentional attack against Jordan's negligence in allocating fault, resulting in a jury verdict finding Jordan 100% at fault and awarding over $1.1 million. The trial court granted Jordan a new trial believing the fault allocation was wrong despite agreeing with the verdict itself, the court of appeals affirmed, and the Tennessee Supreme Court granted review.
Whether, if a defendant's negligent conduct creates a foreseeable risk that a third party will commit an intentional tort against a plaintiff, the negligence can be compared with the third party's intentional act for purposes of determining the comparative fault of the defendant.