Also known as: acts in concert · acted in concert · acting in concert · acting in concert with · concerted action
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
Conduct by two or more persons pursuant to a common design or plan. Such conduct renders each participant subject to liability for the tortious acts of the others and permits courts to bind nonparties to injunctive orders directed at the participants.
An employer entrusted its bookkeeper with authority to process incoming checks. The bookkeeper and a friend outside the company jointly forged the employer's indorsement on a customer check and deposited the proceeds into a joint account. When the bank paid the instrument in good faith, the forged indorsement operated as the employer's own indorsement, shifting the loss analysis to whether the bank exercised ordinary care.
Several pharmaceutical companies agreed in advance to market a drug without conducting required safety tests or submitting new-drug applications. When a patient suffered injury traceable to the untested product, each company became liable for the full harm because its participation in the common plan supplied the basis for concert-of-action liability.
Select any source to read its text and confirm it supports the definition.
Civil-rights leaders and local merchants coordinated a boycott of stores that refused to hire black employees. Some participants used threats of reprisal to keep community members from patronizing the stores. The coordinated threats and the common plan placed every participant within the scope of concerted-action liability for resulting business losses.
A motorcycle association sponsored a race and a rider entered under its rules. Both the association's negligent course design and the rider's negligent operation contributed to a spectator's indivisible injury. Because the association and rider acted together under a common event plan, each remained liable for the entire damage.
A dominant aluminum manufacturer and several smaller producers reached an understanding to restrict total industry output and maintain prices. When the government proved the agreement, each participant became liable for the resulting antitrust violation because the coordinated production limits constituted concerted action.
Two hunters agreed to shoot quail in the same field and both negligently fired in the plaintiff's direction at the same moment. One pellet struck the plaintiff, but neither hunter could identify whose shot caused the wound. Their agreement to hunt together supplied the concerted-action basis that allowed the plaintiff to recover the full amount from either defendant.
An injunction binds nonparties who act in active concert or participation with a party once they receive actual notice of the order. Courts apply this rule to prevent an enjoined party from evading the order by shifting the prohibited conduct to aligned third parties such as agents, employees, or contractors who carry out the same tasks.
No. Liability arises when persons act pursuant to a common design, which may be shown by coordinated conduct, shared plans, or substantial assistance given with knowledge of the tortious purpose. An express contract is not necessary. Parallel actions taken to achieve the same unlawful result suffice.
When multiple parties act in concert, each remains jointly and severally liable for the entire indivisible harm. Jurisdictions that have limited joint-and-several liability for independent tortfeasors ordinarily retain it for those who act pursuant to a common plan.
Yes. The statute expressly provides that a fraudulent indorsement made by an employee or by a person acting in concert with the employee is effective as the employer's indorsement when the bank pays in good faith. The non-employee accomplice's participation therefore triggers the same loss-allocation rules that apply to the employee alone.
…stand. It is argued by defendants that they are not joint tort feasors, and thus jointly and severally liable, as they were not acting in concert, and that there is not sufficient evidence to show which defendant was guilty of the negligence which caused the injuries—the shooting by Tice or that by Simonson. Tice argues that there is…