Joint and Several Liability

What Is Joint And Several Liability?

The phrase combines two ideas. Joint liability means the defendants are liable together for the same harm. Several liability means each is liable separately. Put together, the injured person holds a claim for the full amount against every responsible defendant and may collect it from one, some, or all of them, as long as the total collected does not exceed the judgment.

The rule applies when the harm is a single injury that cannot sensibly be divided among the people who caused it. The defendants are called joint tortfeasors. They do not need to have acted together or even known about each other; it is enough that each one’s negligence was a proximate cause of the same injury.

Does North Carolina Follow Joint And Several Liability?

Yes. North Carolina courts hold that when the negligence of two or more people combines to produce a single injury, each is liable for the full damages. The legislature has built on that rule. Its contribution statute begins by referring to persons who become jointly or severally liable in tort for the same injury, and its dram shop law provides that the liability of a negligent underage driver and the business that sold the alcohol is joint and several under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 18B-124.

Many states have replaced this rule with systems that assign each defendant a percentage of fault and limit what each must pay. North Carolina has not. Juries here are not asked to divide fault by percentage among defendants.

How Do North Carolina Defendants Divide A Judgment Among Themselves?

Through contribution. Under the Uniform Contribution Among Tort-Feasors Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1B-1, a defendant who has paid more than a pro rata share of the common liability may recover the excess from the other tortfeasors, and no one can be forced to contribute more than their own pro rata share. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1B-2 says how shares are measured: the relative degree of fault is not considered. Two liable defendants each bear half, and three each bear a third, whether one was barely careless and another reckless.

There are limits. A tortfeasor who intentionally caused the injury has no right of contribution. And contribution is a matter among defendants only. It does not reduce what the injured person may collect, and the injured person does not have to wait while the defendants argue about it.

What Happens When One Defendant Settles A North Carolina Injury Claim?

The claim against the others survives, reduced by the settlement. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1B-4 provides that a release or covenant not to sue given in good faith to one of several tortfeasors does not discharge the others unless its terms say so. It reduces the claim against the remaining defendants by the amount stated in the release or the amount actually paid, whichever is greater, and it protects the settling defendant from contribution claims.

The wording of the release is therefore critical. A release that names “all other persons” can end claims the injured person meant to keep. The statute also contains a one-satisfaction rule: under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1B-3, a judgment against one tortfeasor does not by itself discharge the others, but once the judgment is paid in full the others are discharged. An injured person is compensated once, not once per defendant.

• Settling with one defendant does not release the others unless the release says so.
• The remaining claim is reduced by the settlement amount.
• The settling defendant is protected from contribution claims by the others.
• Full payment of a judgment by any defendant ends the claim against all.

How Does Joint And Several Liability Interact With Contributory Negligence In North Carolina?

The two rules point in opposite directions, and both are all-or-nothing. Joint and several liability favors the injured person: any defendant whose negligence helped cause the injury can be made to pay everything. Contributory negligence favors defendants: if any defendant proves that the injured person’s own negligence contributed to the injury, the claim is barred against all of them. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-139 places the burden of proving contributory negligence on the party asserting it.

In practice this means multi-defendant cases in North Carolina are fought on the plaintiff’s conduct. Defendants who disagree about everything else will join forces on that single issue. For an injured person who was not negligent, the benefit of the joint and several rule is real: the driver with minimum insurance and the company with a commercial policy are each answerable for the full loss. Identifying every responsible party is how serious injuries get fully paid. See the contributory negligence guide for the defense and its exceptions.