Leung

Six days after his birth, plaintiff suffered irreversible brain damage. Through his mother as guardian ad litem, he sued his pediatrician and the hospital in which he was bom. Before trial, plaintiff and the pediatrician agreed to a settlement of $1 million, the limit of the pediatrician’s malpractice insurance policy. At a jury trial, plaintiff was awarded both economic and noneconomic damages. The jury found that the pediatrician was 55 percent at fault, the hospital 40 percent at fault, and the parents 5 percent at fault.

On the hospital’s appeal, a major contention was that under the common law “release rule,” plaintiff’s settlement with the pediatrician also released the nonsettling hospital from liability for plaintiff’s economic damages. The Court of Appeal reluctantly agreed. It observed that although this court “has criticized the common law release rule,” it “has not abandoned it.” Considering itself bound by principles of stare decisis, the Court of Appeal then applied the common law release rule to this case, and it reversed that portion of the trial court’s judgment awarding plaintiff economic damages against the hospital. We granted plaintiff’s petition for…