Some states deal with the multiple and joint liability rules in some personal injury cases. The rules allow the plaintiffs to hold at least two parties independently liable for all of his or her personal injury damages. It doesn’t matter if each party was only 20% at fault for the injuries.
Personal injury law refers to the responsible parties as tortfeasors. Multiple and joint liability law can make a single defendant pay for all of the plaintiff’s damages, even if he or she was only 10% liable for those damages. The good news is that the defendant who the plaintiff goes after can pursue other defendants and get them to pay part of the settlement if they were responsible for the plaintiff’s injuries as well.
Defendant’s damages are generally reduced by the percentage that the plaintiff was negligent. There are many times that the plaintiff was also at fault that led to an accident. An example will be someone teasing a dog and it attacks. The man or woman has bites and injuries. But you cannot just hold the pet owner responsible for the dog bites.
Note that many states don’t follow the multiple and joint liability rule. Some states follow hybrid liability rules. That allows plaintiffs to collect the full settlement amount owed him or her from multiple defendants simultaneously, as per personal injury lawyer in Arcadia.
Some Things to Know About Multiple and Joint Liability
Pure Multiple and Joint Liability –each tortfeasor must pay the full settlement amount to the plaintiff.
Pure several liability – each tortfeasor is only responsible for paying his or her portion of the settlement with respect to the degree of fault he or she shares for the plaintiff’s total injuries and damages.
Some states follow the pure several liability rule. So, if you were to get into an accident and many people were responsible for it, each person would only have to pay up to the percentage that he or she was liable for your damages and injuries. The law states that if the defendant is less than 50% responsible for the accident, then each tortfeasor is only liable to pay the amount which he or she is liable for the accident.
The rule exists to allow plaintiffs to collect some settlement if many people are responsible for his or her accident and at least one defendant can’t be sued because of no insurance or assets. There is one catch though. The plaintiff won’t be able to collect anything if all of the defendants are judgment proof.
What’s Wrong with the Multiple and Joint Liability Rule?
The rule is imperfect and can result in several inequities, especially if the tortfeasors are financially endowed and each one has to pay the entire settlement amount to the plaintiff. It doesn’t matter if each of their contributions to the accident was less than 10%.
