Joint and several liability is important in personal injury cases. It applies in situations when two or more defendants can be held responsible for plaintiff’s injuries. In such cases, each defendant is jointly, individually, responsible for all economic damages, regardless of the percentage of fault found against any particular defendant. Here is an example:
A pedestrian is struck by a motorist while in a crosswalk. However, there is no traffic signal at this intersection. Hence, the pedestrian may have an action against the motorist for failing to yield the right of way, and against the City for failing to place a traffic light at the intersection. The pedestrian’s medical bills total $100,000. Medical bills are called “economic damages” because they are objectively verifiable monetary losses.
The pedestrian can either: sue the motorist and collect all of his damages from the motorist; sue the City and collect all of his damages from the City; or sue both and collect damages according to each defendant’s ability to pay. The pedestrian sues both the motorist and the City. At trial, the jury allocates 99 percent of fault to the motorist and 1 percent of fault to the City. However, the motorist is uninsured. This is where joint and several liability helps the pedestrian.
The pedestrian can collect all of his economic damages because the City, who was also found to be at fault, is jointly liable for all of the pedestrian’s economic damages. This means that the City is responsible for $100,000, even though it was found to be 1 percent at fault.
However, the City is not jointly responsible for the pedestrian’s “non-economic damages”, which are subjective, non-monetary losses, such as pain and suffering. Instead, it is responsible only for the amount of non-economic damages allocated to it by the jury. Hence, if the jury awards the pedestrian general damages of $200,000 for pain and suffering, the City is only responsible for 1 percent or $2,000 of the general damages.
This article strictly talks about California law. Laws in other states may differ. This article is for educational purposes only and is not meant to serve as legal advice.
For more information, please call Mason Rashtian of The Mason Law Firm at
661-362-0805 or email mr.law@scvlawcenter.com .