In a suit over a child’s fatal accident, an amusement park operator may not seek indemnification from the charter school that organized the outing, but it can seek a verdict allocating fault to the school, the state Supreme Court has ruled.
The amusement park operator is barred from seeking contribution or indemnification from the school because it failed to give notice of claim under the Tort Claims Act, the court said in Jones v. Morey’s Pier. But the amusement park can present evidence at trial that negligence by the school was a proximate cause of the child’s death, and the jury may allocate a percentage of fault to the school, the court said. If the jury does allocate a portion of fault to the school, the amusement park can ask the trial judge to mold the verdict to reduce its liability accordingly, the court said.
