Error_messages display in Internet Explorer (IE)

My form fields are inside a table; each field in its own

element.
When there is a validation error, the corresponding field gets
highligthed (with a box around the text box). This work perfectly on
Mozilla, but in IE, the browser fils the entire TD column with a
background color ie… the highlights looks real messy. For example if
the TD element size is 50 and the text box size is only 20, the
remaining 30 gets highlighted in Red color instead of a thin red border
around the textbox.

Is there a solution that will make IE work like Mozilla? thanks