Joint and Several Liability

Joint and several liability is a theory of recovery that permits the plaintiff to recover damages from multiple defendants collectively, or from each defendant individually. In a state that follows the rule of joint and several liability, if a plaintiff sues three defendants, two of whom are 95% responsible for the defendant’s injuries, but are also bankrupt, the plaintiff may recover 100% of her damages from the solvent defendant that is 5% responsible for her injuries.

The rule of joint and several liability is neither fair, nor rational, because it fails to equitably distribute liability. The rule allows a defendant only minimally liable for a given harm to be forced to pay the entire judgment, where the co-defendants are unable to pay their share.

ATRA supports replacing the rule of joint and several liability with the rule of proportionate liability. In a proportionate liability system, each co-defendant is proportionally liable for the plaintiff’s harm. For example, a co-defendant that is found by a jury to be 20% responsible for a plaintiff’s injury would be required to pay no more than 20% of the entire settlement. More moderate reforms that ATRA supports include: (1) barring the application of joint and several liability to recover non-economic damages; and (2) barring the application of joint and several liability to recover from co-defendants found to be responsible for less than a certain percentage (such as 25%) of the plaintiff’s harm.