Talk:Joint and several liability

Rewrite

I've attempted to rewrite a few parts of this article for clarity. In the process, I removed the paragraph below because I don't think that it's correct as written. Even without joint and several liability, the individuals who caused the injury do not get to avoid compensating the victim. They are still responsible for their proportion of liability. It merely changes the amount that they must pay. I suspect this was a misstatement of the principle stated lower in the article that a victim may be undercompensated if one of the defendants is insolvent. Please correct my edit if I misunderstood. I am also standardizing names used in the example to the Ann/Bob/Charlotte/... pattern typically used in mathematics and logic examples. Rossami (talk) 19:54, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another premise of joint and several liability is that corporations, individuals and insurers who have caused an injury by violating the law should not be able to avoid compensating the injured victim simply because they were not the only party that substantially contributed to the victim's injuries or losses. The object of this legal principle is to avoid unfairly shifting to victims losses that were brought about by multiple wrongdoers.

I'm also requesting a citation on this comment: Where a financially wealthy defendant can be joined as a defendant, a plaintiff's expected damages increases. I am interpreting that statement as an observation that the damages awarded are statistically higher if there is a weathly defendant joined to the claim. I have heard anecdotes to that effect but have not yet found a reliable study documenting the correlation. If this statement was only attempting to say that the average compensation received is higher (because of the undercompensation when one of the defendants is insolvent), then I think the sentence is redundant and could be removed. Rossami (talk) 19:54, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct, at least in American law. If X is injured in an accident where A, B, and C are jointly and severably liable, then X's damages do not increase just because, say, C is wealthy. The damages X is entitled to are based on the injuries X recieved--it does not change depending on who is named as a defendant. X can, however, recover the entire amount of damages from C--this is the crux of joint liablity (C then may have an action for joinder or indemnity against A and/or B, given the circumstances). --Stankrom 20:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

World view

I've marked this as not representing a worldwide view, as it is entirely focused on US law despite the fact that the opening paragraph says that it is a 'common law doctrine' (ie implying that it is not limited only to the US legal system). Cynical 18:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is a common law rule in most English speaking countries, but the bigger problem is that it was only written about tort claims. Really the article needs to be about the different types of liability that all multiple-defendant cases can have. I have expanded it a bit (whilst keep the original text, which was all fine), but it could use some extra "meat". I took the tag off too. Legis 15:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Common law" doesn't mean that it applies outside the United States -- it simply means that it is developed by the courts, rather than the legislature. This is how the law usually develops in tort cases, because courts can deal with the various different cases and situations as they come along and establish rules for the just adjudication of them. A legislature, on the other hand, can't predict every conceivable way or circumstance in which one person might justly be liable for harm to another. Captain Quirk (talk) 09:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Contracts and taxation

I'm sure this phrase is used in contracts and taxes, as well (e.g. the tenants on a house may be jointly and severally liable for the rent) Morwen - Talk 22:43, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

When used in Landlord/Tenant law, joint liability means the same thing as it does in tort law, that is, every tenant is liable for the full amount of the contractual rent. I'm not sure that this would require a separate section in the article. Stankrom 20:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Joint liability

"However, in suing, the creditor only has one course of action, i.e., the creditor can only sue for each debt once. If, for example, there are three partners, and the creditor only sues two of them for the outstanding loan amount and cannot recover the full amount, he cannot recover the remaining amount from the partner who is left out of the lawsuit."

This may not be correct. It seems to be conflating two ideas: (1) that a claimant is only entitled to a single recovery; that is, if two people jointly owe a debt for X amount, a claimant can't recover the full amount individually from both people and thereby have 2X; and (2) that a party that has not been joined may escape liability if the suit is decided on the merits against others. The latter point is a question of res judicata. The former is more within the ambit of joint liability, but I'm not so certain of my law to correct the sentence. Alexdi (talk) 03:23, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed: I have reworked this section. OnceATeacher (talk) 13:39, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Differences

I think this article leaves out the question of how joint and sev. liability is different that just joint liability. It's not clear what a P could get or do under the later but not the former. Piratejosh85 (talk) 17:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm not sure there's a difference, either. I suspect it's just another example of the redundancy that is common in legal phrasing. "Each and every", "work and labor", "goods and merchandise", "six (6)", etc. The very worst example of this is when a court clerk says to a jury something along the lines of, "Do you, and each of you, concur in this verdict?" (Really? "You" and "each of you"?) I don't know if they still do this anymore. I hope not.

Anyway, maybe I'll research the issue of "joint & several" liability vs. just "joint" if I get around to it. But don't hold your breath -- I'm a bad procrastinator. ;-) Captain Quirk (talk) 10:01, 25 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This could still be improved. Googling hard, I came up with no sites that clearly distinguished these. Several offer definitions, but none contrasts. Pojo (talk) 01:16, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not redundant wording: there are important differences. I've given it a major rework: see what you think. OnceATeacher (talk) 13:40, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Variations

I know in Washington state at least, there's a variation in which defendants may only be held jointly and severally liable if the plaintiff is not at fault. If the plaintiff is partially at fault, joint and several liability does not apply. Someone who knows this area of law better than I do should add this into the "variations" section. 71.217.99.63 (talk) 22:21, 4 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Proportionate liability?

The article defines three types of liability (joint, several and joint and several). But then the first example mentions "proportionate liability". Is this supposed to be one of the three types previously defined? The term is not mentioned anywhere earlier but it is used as if it were previously defined. My guess is that it is the same as several liability, but this is not at clear from the text. Mnudelman (talk) 18:03, 19 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct that several liability is a synonym for proportionate liability. The article used to be clearer on that point. WP:Be bold and fix it. Rossami (talk) 14:33, 20 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Husband and Wife

The reference to a "husband and wife" with a hotlink to Marriage is unnecessarily suggesting that this is the only relevant form of marriage, as it is not in many jurisdictions. I propose it instead be changed to "a married couple" for avoidance of doubt, and have boldly edited it as such. 192.249.36.3 (talk) 14:02, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other languages

I just fixed the fact that there were two wikidata nodes for joint liability, namely (Q682557) and (Q2904650). These now refer to joint liability and several liability, respectively. That separation is necessary due to the fact that many other Wikipediae do not have a single article called "Joint and several liability", but instead have one article on joint and one on several liability. The downside of that is that the English language article now no longer links to any other languages at all. If someone can think of a clever way to fix this, go right ahead. My view is that it might be helpful, in the general spirit of “one article, one topic“, to follow what the other languages are doing and have two separate articles in English as well: one for joint and one for several liability. If anyone wants to take this one on, go right ahead. --HAdG (talk) 11:28, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Microfinance

The microfinance section should either be moved to an article about microfinance, or to an article about serving as the guarantor of the debt of another. A contractual agreement to be liable for the debts of others is not suited to this article.2601:401:503:62B0:E517:6E3B:D240:672 (talk) 18:41, 20 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it's not that relevant here, or merits only a sentence. The bigger issue (as mentioned by another user above) is that the article assumes (or rather, assumed until yeseterday) that J&S liability is mainly relevant in tort. It's clearly not: it's relevant in contract just as much, it just throws up fewer ethical challenges that legislatures might want to intervene over. Your thoughts on my significant rework are welcome OnceATeacher (talk) 13:42, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]