Our Positions | Joint and Several Liability
Joint and several liability is a theory of recovery that permits a plaintiff to recover the full amount of damages from multiple responsible parties or any single responsible party, regardless of the party’s proportion of fault. The rule allows a defendant only minimally liable for a given harm to be forced to pay the entire judgment, where co-defendants are unable to pay their share.
NAMIC position
Joint and several liability is neither fair nor rational, because it fails to distribute liability equitably according to degree of fault. NAMIC supports replacing the rule with the rule of proportionate liability where each co-defendant is proportionally liable for the plaintiff’s harm.
