Joint and several liability is a complex legal setup where the court can hold a party liable for all damages, even those they did not cause. Traditionally, this required there to be indivisible fault between multiple parties, but the way Texas uses it allows a broader application to more kinds of cases.
In Texas, joint and several liability can be applied in most cases where a defendant is more than 50% at-fault for a victim’s damages. However, applying this rule often requires breaking down the fault determination into a step-by-step analysis. Additionally, joint and several liability can be applied in cases where two or more people committed an intentional tort like murder, kidnapping, or sexual assault against the victim, making any of those parties liable for all of the damages.
For a free review of your injury case, call the Dallas, TX personal injury lawyers at The Queenan Law Firm today at (817) 476-1797.
Applying Joint and Several Liability Rules to Injury Cases in Texas
Joint and several liability is one possible way to assign partial fault and allocate who pays damages in an injury case. In cases where the victim is 100% innocent and the defendant is 100% at fault, the case is easy: the defendant pays all damages. However, when there is more than one defendant, the court needs to assign fault to each party and determine how much of the total damages each defendant will pay, subtracting out any fault the victim helped cause. However, joint and several liability rules can make a defendant responsible for other defendants’ damages, too, making it easier for our Houston personal injury lawyers to recover all of your compensation from one party. Then the defendant who paid can seek “contribution” or reimbursement from the other defendants.
Texas’ joint and several liability rules apply more broadly than the traditional sort of rules we will discuss below. Instead, the possibility of applying joint and several liability rules can come up in many cases, but you have to walk through the steps of determining liability before applying these rules. At that point, it will be clearer how this system affects a personal injury case.
Determine Victim’s Contribution
If the victim was partly at fault for causing their own injuries, that might stop them from receiving compensation altogether. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.011, if a victim is more than 50% at fault for their own accident, the case stops and they receive no damages. This analysis has to be done first before you can move on.
Assigning Proportionate Responsibility
After we know the victim’s case can proceed, courts assign a percentage of fault to each party involved in the case under § 33.003. This percentage comes as a whole number, so we do not have to worry about fractional percentages. Additionally, fault can be assigned to the parties in the case – including the plaintiff/victim – as well as third parties who are not involved in the case.
Typically, each party pays only their fair share of damages unless joint and several liability applies. For example, if the victim is 20% at fault and two defendants are each 40% at fault, they would each pay 40% of the total damages in the case, and the victim would be left unpaid for the other 20%.
Checking if Joint and Several Liability Applies
If any defendant is more than 50% responsible, they are found jointly and severally liable. Alternatively, if they are accused of intentional conduct that injured the defendant and overlaps with a list of certain serious crimes, they are also found jointly and severally liable.
What Joint and Several Liability Does in Texas Injury Claims
When a party is deemed jointly and severally liable, it means you can collect all of the damages from them, even beyond the share of fault assigned to them. After they pay you, they can go back and sue the other at-fault parties for “contribution” for their share of the damages.
Let’s look at an example of joint and several liability: imagine a car accident where the victim is totally innocent, but they are hit at the same time by Driver A, who ran a red light, and Driver B, who was a truck driver driving drunk at double the legal limit. Driver A is found 25% liable and Driver B is found 75% liable. The victim can sue both parties and ultimately get 100% of the damages paid by Driver B’s insurance, even though Driver B was only 75% at fault. Then, Driver B can go back and sue Driver A for their 25% share of the damages.
What this does is help victims get the money owed to them. In cases where one party owes only a small share of damages, it might be harder to get it from them – but since the other party owes so much already, you might be able to get all damages from them.
It also helps in situations where one party might be insolvent, have low income, or is otherwise considered “judgment-proof.” A defendant is considered “judgment-proof” if they cannot pay you damages anyway. When one defendant is judgment-proof, you can still get paid for everything by the other at-fault party, and they face the economic struggle of having to collect from the other judgment-proof defendant instead of shifting that struggle to you.
Traditional Joint and Several Liability
Joint and several liability is traditionally used in situations where you cannot determine which parties share which degree of fault, allowing courts to just say that both parties are 100% at fault. This more fairly allows the innocent victim to get 100% of the damages from either party, but many states have added protections like Texas’ 50% rule to avoid making defendants with a low percentage of fault pay for everything.
These kinds of claims would come up in cases like toxic torts where you cannot determine which facility’s chemical dumps caused the injuries – so you hold them each fully responsible and allow them to figure out who owes what.
Call Our Texas Personal Injury Lawyers Today
If you were hurt in an accident, call (817) 476-1797 for a free case review with the Fort Worth personal injury lawyers at The Queenan Law Firm.