Joint and Several Liability
Candlefocus EditorIn personal injury cases, for example, to prove joint and several liability a plaintiff only has to prove that more than one defendant was responsible for the injury in question. Even if that percentage of fault is not assigned to each defendant, the court can still award damages to the plaintiff which are the responsibility of the various defendants. The court might also determine that a defendant holds a greater portion of liability and must pay for more damages than another defendant.
Joint and several liability can be a difficult concept for juries to grasp. In its simplest terms, it means that two or more defendants are held jointly responsible even if their contribution to the causing of the injury is devised differently.
In the past, joint and several liability was frequently used because of the difficulty in attributing responsibility to individual defendants. That has changed today in many jurisdictions. More than half of the states in the US have adopted a comparative fault system, enabling trial judges and juries to determine the relative level of fault for each defendant in the case. This is usually expressed as a percentage, ranging from a complete absence of fault (0%) to definite responsibility for the injury (100%). Most states employ a rule of “modified comparative fault,” which reduces the percentage of fault assigned to each defendant accordingly.
Joint and several liability is a concept of broad liability which remains an important part of civil litigation. It can result in a defendant paying more than their fair share of damages awarded in a personal injury case. It revokes the sense of fairness and equal responsibility associated with comparative fault laws as each defendant is responsible for the entire amount of the damages. The use of joint and several liability has been controversial, as it can lead to conflicting interpretations of how an individual’s fault should be evaluated. In the end, the ability to apportion fault rests with the court’s discretion.