Joint and Several Liability

When two or more parties are jointly and severally liable for a tortious act, each party is independently liable for the full extent of the injuries stemming from the tortious act. Thus, if a plaintiffwins a money judgment against the parties collectively, the plaintiff may collect the full value of the judgment from any one of them. That party may then seek contribution from the other wrong-doers. This concept of choosing the defendant(s) from whom to collect damages is called the law of indivisible injury.

The issue of joint and several liability is often involved in "toxic torts" claims, such as cases involving asbestos-related mesothelioma. This is because mesothelioma can be caused by exposure to asbestos, but often times workers exposed to asbestos had faced exposure in multiple jobs on multiple job sites, and so it is difficult to pick a single tortfeasor responsible for the resulting mesothelioma.