Also known as: joint liability · jointly and severally liable · joint and several liability
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
Liability imposed on two or more parties for the same obligation or harm. Each party remains responsible for the entire amount even if others share the duty.
Marvin joined an existing podcast partnership after its equipment financing began. The supplier relied on Marvin's name in branding during forbearance talks. When the partnership defaulted, the supplier recovered the full unpaid balance from Marvin alone.
Marjorie signed a multi-year lab lease for a nonexistent corporation. Zenith Pharma later sued after the lease payments stopped. Marjorie alone satisfied the entire remaining obligation because she knew no entity existed at signing.
Two hunters fired simultaneously toward a shared target area. One pellet struck the plaintiff in the eye. The plaintiff collected the full judgment from either defendant because both shots were negligent causes of the indivisible injury.
On November 20, 1945, plaintiff Summers went quail hunting on the open range with defendants Tice and Simonson. Each of the defendants was armed with a 12 gauge shotgun loaded with shells containing 7 1/2 size shot. Before the hunt began, the plaintiff discussed the hunting procedure with the defendants and indicated that they were to exercise care when shooting and to keep in line. During the course of the hunt, the plaintiff proceeded up a hill, placing the hunters at the points of a triangle. The defendants had an unobstructed view of the plaintiff and knew his location. Defendant Tice flushed a quail which rose in flight to a 10-foot elevation and flew between plaintiff and defendants. At that time defendants were 75 yards from plaintiff. Both defendants shot at the quail, shooting in plaintiff's direction. One shot struck plaintiff in his eye and another in his upper lip, causing injury to his right eye and face. The plaintiff subsequently filed suit against both defendants seeking damages for these personal injuries. The case was tried by the court without a jury. The trial court found that defendants were negligent in so shooting and plaintiff was not contributorily negligent. Each of the defendants appealed from the judgment entered against them, and the appeals were consolidated pursuant to stipulation.
View caseMultiple manufacturers produced identical DES tablets under a common formula. The plaintiff's mother ingested the drug without brand identification. The plaintiff recovered the entire damages from any joined manufacturer holding a substantial market share.
Judith Sindell and Maureen Rogers filed separate lawsuits in California against several pharmaceutical companies that manufactured diethylstilbestrol, commonly known as DES. The complaints stated that the plaintiffs' mothers had taken DES during pregnancy to prevent miscarriage, and that the plaintiffs later developed cancerous and precancerous conditions as a result. Sindell alleged exposure led to a malignant bladder tumor requiring surgery and ongoing adenosis necessitating frequent monitoring. Rogers' allegations were substantially similar. DES was first developed in 1938 and received FDA approval in 1941 for use in preventing miscarriages. Manufacturers produced the drug in multiple forms and strengths under many trade names, but all followed an identical formula set forth in the United States Pharmacopoeia. In 1971 the FDA ordered companies to stop marketing DES for miscarriage prevention after studies linked it to adenocarcinoma in the daughters of women who had used the drug. Hundreds of companies had manufactured DES between 1941 and 1971. Because of the long latency period between ingestion and the appearance of injuries, and because pharmacists often filled prescriptions with whatever brand was in stock, the plaintiffs could not determine which company had produced the particular DES their mothers received. The trial court sustained demurrers filed by the defendants, including Abbott Laboratories, Eli Lilly and Company, E.R. Squibb & Sons, the Upjohn Company, and Rexall Drug Company, on the basis that the plaintiffs had not identified the manufacturer of the injurious product. The actions were consolidated for appeal to the Supreme Court of California. Sindell sought compensatory damages of one million dollars and punitive damages of ten million dollars on her own behalf, along with class-wide equitable relief requiring the defendants to warn physicians and establish free clinics for screening. The complaints further alleged that the defendants had continued to market DES without adequate testing or warnings even after they knew or should have known of its carcinogenic properties.
View caseA vehicle rollover involved both a design defect and driver negligence. The jury could not apportion the indivisible injuries. The plaintiff obtained the full award from the manufacturer alone under the governing joint liability rule.
In 1986 Ford Motor Company manufactured a 1987 Ford Bronco II 4x2 that Cheryl Hale purchased used in June 1999 for a nominal sum after it had accumulated 137,500 miles. On June 17, 2001, Hale was driving the Bronco II along Cromwell Road in Colleton County with several children as passengers, including her daughter in the front seat and Jesse Branham, III in the backseat; no one wore a seatbelt. Hale took her eyes off the road to quiet the excited children, causing the rear right wheel to leave the roadway, then overcorrected to the left, producing a shake that led the vehicle to roll over and eject Branham. Branham filed suit against Ford and Hale in Hampton County alleging a defective rear occupant restraint system and a handling and stability design defect related to rollover propensity, each pursued under negligence and strict liability theories. At trial Branham introduced internal Ford documents dated 1981 and 1982 concerning stability index calculations, Twin I-Beam suspension selection despite engineer objections, J-turn testing results, and expert testimony from Dr. Melvin Richardson and former Ford vice president Thomas Feaheny describing the MacPherson strut as a feasible alternative design. The jury returned a general verdict against both defendants and awarded Branham $16,000,000 in actual damages and $15,000,000 in punitive damages. Ford appealed directly to the Supreme Court of South Carolina under Rule 204(b), SCACR.
View caseSeveral DES manufacturers were joined under a market share theory. The plaintiff sought to hold each defendant for the entire judgment. The court limited recovery to each defendant's proportionate market share rather than allowing full collection from any single party.
Plaintiffs in these consolidated actions were exposed to the drug diethylstilbestrol, known as DES, while in utero after their mothers ingested the drug during pregnancy to prevent miscarriage. Because multiple manufacturers produced DES according to the same formula, the plaintiffs could not identify the specific manufacturer responsible for the particular DES taken by their mothers. The plaintiffs filed suit in the San Francisco Superior Court against numerous drug manufacturers, with typical complaints naming 170 or more defendants. These cases were designated as complex litigation, with pretrial rulings issued in a lead case numbered 830-109 that would apply to at least 69 related actions. The complaints alleged that the defendants manufactured DES from the same formula, that the drug was unsafe for use in preventing miscarriage, and that the manufacturers knew it contained a cancer-causing substance yet failed to provide warnings to users or their physicians. In addition to claims for negligence, the plaintiffs asserted causes of action for strict liability based on design defects in DES, as well as breach of express and implied warranty and fraud. Where they could not identify the specific manufacturer, the plaintiffs sought to hold liable those defendants who had manufactured a substantial share of the DES market. The trial court sustained demurrers to the strict liability design defect claims. It ruled that breach of warranty and fraud claims could not be pursued under the market share theory, while also determining that any liability would be several rather than joint. The Court of Appeal reviewed the trial court's pretrial rulings through writ proceedings and affirmed those determinations. The Supreme Court of California granted review to consider the questions presented by the litigation.
View caseNo. Joint liability arises whenever multiple parties contribute to an indivisible harm or obligation, even if their conduct is independent or sequential.
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Yes. The defining feature of joint liability is that any one responsible party may be required to satisfy the entire obligation or judgment.
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No. A settlement with one party discharges only that party's share unless the release expressly provides otherwise. The remaining parties stay liable for the balance.
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No. A party subject to joint and several liability need not be joined because the plaintiff can obtain full relief from any other jointly liable defendant.
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…the judgment against both defendants may 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…