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Torts • Joint and Several Liability
TORT#118
Legal Definition
Joint and several liability occurs when defendants commit two or more negligent acts that combine to proximately cause an indivisible injury. As such, each individual defendant is liable for the plaintiff's entire injury. However, in many states, there is no joint liability if (1) the defendant is judged to be less at fault than the plaintiff, and (2) a defendant is only liable for his proportion of fault for a plaintiff's non-economic damages.
Plain English Explanation
"Joint and several liability" means that a group of two or more people are both jointly (as a group) liable, and severally (separately, individually) liable. In other words, if a group of 10 people cause $100 in damage to a victim, the victim may choose to pursue all 10 of them for $10 each, or 1 of them for $100, or any other combination that gets the victim to a total of $100.
The most pure form of joint and several liability occurs when two or more people work together in order to commit a tort against someone else. For example, if two gang members track down their victim and one of them punches the victim, both gang members would be liable for the harm caused. However, this concept is rarely tested this way.
The more common way that exams test joint and several liability is through negligence of two or more parties. For example, if two drivers are negligently texting while driving and accidentally hit a pedestrian, it is difficult to say who exactly may have caused which specific injury, so the law pools the damages into a single harm and holds both negligent parties jointly and severally liable.
The most pure form of joint and several liability occurs when two or more people work together in order to commit a tort against someone else. For example, if two gang members track down their victim and one of them punches the victim, both gang members would be liable for the harm caused. However, this concept is rarely tested this way.
The more common way that exams test joint and several liability is through negligence of two or more parties. For example, if two drivers are negligently texting while driving and accidentally hit a pedestrian, it is difficult to say who exactly may have caused which specific injury, so the law pools the damages into a single harm and holds both negligent parties jointly and severally liable.
