Joint and several liability
In plain English: joint and several liability means that when more than one person is responsible for the same injury, you can recover all of your compensation from any one of them. It's then up to them to sort out who pays what share between themselves.
Why it matters to you
Many accidents have more than one wrongdoer. A multi-car pile-up, a delivery driver working for a company, a slip on a floor cleaned by a contractor in a shop run by someone else. The problem comes when one of the responsible people has no insurance, very little insurance or can't be found. Joint and several liability shifts that risk off you. If one defendant can't pay, the others who share responsibility have to cover the gap, and they can chase the missing party themselves afterward.
You're hit by two drivers in a chain collision. A court finds driver A 70% responsible and driver B 30%. Driver A turns out to be uninsured. Under joint and several liability, you can recover your full damages from driver B's insurer, which can then try to recover A's share from A. Under a purely "several" system, you would only get B's 30% from B.
How the rules differ
United States
This is where the rules vary most. Some states keep traditional joint and several liability. Many have abolished it and replaced it with several-only liability, where each defendant pays only its own percentage. Others use a mix, for example keeping joint liability only for defendants above a certain percentage of fault, or only for economic losses like medical bills and lost income. Your state's rule can change the value of your claim a great deal, so check it early.
England, Wales and Scotland
Where two or more people cause the same indivisible injury, each is usually liable for the whole of it. They can then claim contribution from each other; in England and Wales that is under the Civil Liability (Contribution) Act 1978. You can't recover more than your total loss, though, however many defendants there are.
Canada
Most provinces have negligence statutes that make wrongdoers jointly and severally liable to the injured person, with rights of contribution between them. The detail, especially where you were partly at fault too, differs by province.
What it means for how your claim is run
- Identify every party who might share responsibility early, before the limitation period runs out on any of them.
- Look for the party with the most insurance: employers, companies and property owners often carry more than individual drivers.
- Expect defendants to blame each other. That fight is usually theirs to have, but it can slow down settlement.
- If you settle with one defendant, check how that affects your claim against the others. Release wording matters.
If you were partly at fault, your compensation is usually reduced by your share first, whatever the joint liability rules are.
Next: liability · comparative vs contributory negligence · defendant.
Related terms
General information, not legal or medical advice. Rules differ between US states, the UK and Canadian provinces, so check the law where your accident happened. How we write and check · Legal disclaimer