Joint and Several Liability
Brien Roche
For any type of injury you may suffe,r there may be more than one cause of your injury. That dual causation creates the potential for joint and several liability. In other words more than one person may be liable. In addition all of those persons may be 100% liable. That is joint and several.
The mere fact that there is more than one cause does not mean that you have to sue all parties responsible for your injury. Any person who is a cause of injury to another person may be made to pay for that injury. This is true even though there may be other persons whose fault concurred to also cause damage.
This concept of concurring negligence does not insulate one party from liability for their own acts. Each party is liable 100%. Call, or contact us for a free consult.
Joint Several Liability Is A Fundamental Of Tort Law
If in fact one of the liable parties pays 100% of that liability, then that person would have a claim for contribution against the other responsible person for 50% of what they paid.
To put this in more concrete terms if in fact you are involved in a intersection collision and there are two other autos that are the cause of the crash you have a right to sue either one or both of those drivers. You may decide that you are only going to sue one of them. Whatever amount is awarded by the Court or jury is the total amount that you can recover. If you decide to sue both drivers, then the amount awarded to you by the Judge or jury is the amount that you can collect against either one or both of the drivers. However you cannot collect more than the amount awarded by the Court or jury.
The so-called “tort reformers” for years have been trying to rescind the concept of joint and several liability. Their reason is that it creates excess liability for corporations. That effort has been successful in some states but not in Virginia.
Joint Several Liability- The Effect of a Judgment
An injured person can bring several different suits against the persons causing the injury. They may pursue the claim against all responsible parties or they may pursue the claims one at a time. Per Virginia Code § 8.01-443, if there has been judgment against one of those individuals, then the full satisfaction of that judgment accepted as such by the plaintiff is a discharge of all of the wrongdoers except as to cost. This however does not preclude the right of contribution that the wrongdoers may have among themselves.
The Effect of Virginia Code § 8.01-35.1
In terms of any releases to be signed, Virginia Code § 8.01-35.1 must be looked at closely. Settlement with one wrongdoer is allowed. The other wrongdoers however have a credit as to that amount of settlement.
Call, or contact us for a free consult. Learn more about joint and several liability in my book entitled Law 101 and see the pages on Wikipedia.