Settled-Party Comparative-Fault Defense Is Not a “Malpractice Claim” Triggering § 26-2-601 Expert-Qualification Limits

Introduction

Stricker v. Blaine County (Mont. 2026 MT 170N) is the fourth Montana Supreme Court appeal arising from the death of Allen J. Longsoldier, Jr. The plaintiff, Summer Stricker, acting as personal representative of the Estate (the “Estate”), pursued civil claims against Blaine County and Hill County (the “Counties”).

At a November 2024 jury trial, the Counties invoked Montana’s “settled party defense” under § 27-1-703(6), MCA, seeking to have the jury apportion fault to Northern Montana Hospital (“NMH”), which had settled with the Estate more than a decade earlier and declined to intervene.

The appeal presented a threshold statutory question with cascading consequences: whether the Counties’ settled-party comparative-fault defense effectively amounted to a medical malpractice claim against NMH—such that the medical-malpractice expert-witness restrictions in § 26-2-601, MCA would govern the Counties’ expert testimony and (as the Estate argued) require dismissal of the “claims” against NMH and malpractice-themed jury instructions.

The Court also addressed a separate preservation issue regarding an alleged defect in the special verdict form’s damages questions.

Important procedural note: the Court issued a memorandum opinion under its Internal Operating Rules, expressly stating it “shall not be cited and does not serve as precedent.” Even so, the opinion is a clear statement of how the Court reads the relevant statutes’ text and how it enforces objection-preservation requirements in practice.

Summary of the Opinion

  • The jury awarded the Estate $681,000 and apportioned fault: Hill County 41%, Blaine County 15%, NMH 44%.
  • The Counties presented expert testimony from Dr. Thomas Bulger (a retired ER physician) regarding the standard of care. The Estate argued he was unqualified under § 26-2-601, MCA.
  • The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that § 26-2-601 applies only “in an action on a malpractice claim” as defined by § 27-6-103(5), MCA—and the Counties’ settled party defense under § 27-1-703(6), MCA is not a malpractice claim against NMH.
  • On the special verdict form, the Court held the Estate’s objection was not sufficiently specific under Turk v. Turk, 2008 MT 45, and the District Court did not abuse its discretion in submitting the form.

Analysis

Precedents Cited

1) Prior “Longsoldier” appeals

  • Blaine Cnty. v. Stricker, 2017 MT 80 (“Longsoldier I”)
  • Stricker v. Blaine Cnty., 2019 MT 280 (“Longsoldier II”)
  • Stricker v. Blaine Cnty., 2023 MT 209 (“Longsoldier III”)

The Court cited these decisions for case history only, noting that the relevant facts for this proceeding were limited. They did not supply the controlling legal rule in this opinion; instead, the Court treated the current appeal as turning on straightforward statutory text.

2) Standards of review and procedural control cases

  • Briese v. Mont. Pub. Emps.' Ret. Bd., 2012 MT 192 — used for the proposition that statutory interpretation is reviewed for correctness. This framed the key dispute (scope of § 26-2-601) as a pure question of law.
  • Johnson v. Costco Wholesale, 2007 MT 43 — cited for de novo review of judgment-as-a-matter-of-law rulings, relevant to the Estate’s effort to obtain dismissal/JMOL regarding NMH-related fault allocation.
  • Giambra v. Kelsey, 2007 MT 158 — cited for abuse-of-discretion review of special verdict forms and jury instructions, governing the Estate’s complaints about the verdict form and instruction choices.
  • Turk v. Turk, 2008 MT 45 — the decisive preservation case on verdict forms: objections must be specific and state with particularity the grounds.

3) Plain-language statutory interpretation authorities

  • Mont. Sports Shooting Ass'n v. State, 2008 MT 190 (citing State v. Letasky, 2007 MT 51) — invoked for the rule that courts will not interpret beyond plain language when the text is clear and unambiguous.
  • § 1-2-101, MCA — quoted for the interpretive command that courts should not insert what the Legislature omitted or omit what it inserted.

These authorities collectively anchored the Court’s core move: treating the “malpractice claim” trigger phrase in § 26-2-601 as dispositive, and refusing to expand it to cover comparative-fault defenses against a settled nonparty.

Legal Reasoning

A. The threshold classification issue: defense vs. malpractice “claim”

The Estate’s appellate theory depended on recharacterizing the Counties’ settled party defense as a malpractice claim “against” NMH, primarily because § 27-1-703(6)(f)(ii), MCA contemplates giving the settled party an opportunity to “defend against claims affirmatively asserted.”

The Court rejected that reframing as a category error. It drew a sharp distinction between:

  • A claim for damages by a claimant against a health care provider (the malpractice-claim concept in § 27-6-103(5), MCA), and
  • A defendant’s affirmative defense that a claimant’s damages were caused in full or part by someone else, including a settled/released person (the defense described in § 27-1-703(6)(a), MCA).

By the statutes’ plain text, the Court reasoned, the Counties are not “claimants,” and their use of § 27-1-703(6) does not “transform” their comparative-fault position into a malpractice claim against NMH. Once that premise fell, the Estate’s dependent arguments largely collapsed.

B. Consequence: § 26-2-601 expert restrictions do not apply

Section 26-2-601(1), MCA limits who “may testify as an expert witness on issues relating to negligence and standards of care and practice” “in an action on a malpractice claim” (as defined in § 27-6-103).

Because the Counties’ NMH fault-allocation theory was an affirmative defense in a negligence action—not an “action on a malpractice claim” for or against a health care provider—the Court held the statute’s expert-qualification gatekeeping did not control Dr. Bulger’s admissibility for this purpose. Notably, this meant the Court did not need to resolve the Estate’s subsidiary question about whether § 26-2-601(1)(a) bars experts retired more than five years.

C. Special verdict form: preservation failure

The Estate argued the verdict form was flawed for failing to request certain itemized damages, but the Court applied Turk v. Turk, 2008 MT 45 to hold the objection was not preserved with the required specificity.

Two facts were critical:

  • At trial, the Estate’s objection was framed generally as a preference for itemized damages rather than “a single number,” without specifying the particular damage categories it later argued were missing.
  • The Estate also pointed the Supreme Court to a district court filing (Doc. 272) as its “proposed verdict form,” but the Court found that document was actually a motion regarding Dr. Bulger and NMH—so the appellate record did not support the claim that a proper alternative form had been proposed.

With no particularized objection and no demonstrable proposed alternative in the record, the Court held the District Court did not abuse its discretion in submitting the verdict form used.

Impact

Although expressly nonprecedential, the opinion has practical implications for Montana trial strategy and statutory framing:

  • Comparative fault to settled health-care providers: Defendants invoking § 27-1-703(6), MCA to allocate fault to a settled medical provider can argue that they are not prosecuting a “malpractice claim,” and thus need not satisfy the specialized expert-witness constraints of § 26-2-601, MCA.
  • Plaintiff response: Plaintiffs facing settled-party fault allocation should anticipate that the defense may present “standard of care” testimony without being boxed into § 26-2-601’s malpractice-claim framework, and should craft evidentiary objections accordingly (e.g., general expert admissibility standards rather than malpractice-claim-specific qualifications).
  • Verdict form objections: The decision reinforces that appellate courts will enforce strict preservation rules: counsel must state precisely what is wrong with the form, why it is wrong, and what specific alternative language or structure is requested—on the record.

Complex Concepts Simplified

“Settled party defense” (§ 27-1-703(6), MCA)
A rule allowing a defendant in a negligence case to argue that a person who previously settled with the plaintiff (or was released) also caused the plaintiff’s damages, so the jury can assign that person a share of fault even though they are not a defendant at trial.
“Malpractice claim” (§ 27-6-103(5), MCA)
A claim by a claimant against a health care provider for a departure from accepted health-care standards that proximately causes damage. In this opinion, the Court treats this as a specific type of lawsuit/claim, not a label that attaches to any discussion of medical fault.
Why the “claim” vs. “defense” distinction mattered
Section 26-2-601’s expert-witness limitations apply only “in an action on a malpractice claim.” If the only “medical” issues arise because a defendant is allocating fault to a settled provider as part of a comparative-fault defense, the Court held that is not the same thing as litigating a malpractice claim against that provider.
Preserving an objection to a verdict form
To raise a verdict-form error on appeal, the objecting party must clearly identify the problem and the specific grounds at trial. A vague preference (e.g., “we’d rather have itemized damages”) is not enough.

Conclusion

The Court affirmed the judgment and the District Court’s trial rulings by resolving the case at the threshold statutory level: a defendant’s settled-party comparative-fault defense under § 27-1-703(6), MCA does not become a “malpractice claim” under § 27-6-103(5), MCA, and therefore does not trigger § 26-2-601, MCA’s malpractice-action expert-witness qualifications. Separately, the Court applied strict preservation principles under Turk v. Turk, 2008 MT 45 to reject the verdict-form challenge.

Even as a noncitable memorandum disposition, the opinion is significant for its disciplined plain-text approach to statutory categories (claim vs. defense) and its reminder that verdict-form issues require precise, record-supported objections.