Joint and several liability

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As between two legal persons — often partners — that their respective liability for a particular legal obligation — often contractual — can be enforced against them together or, at the claimant’s discretion, individually. The claimant may choose against whom it proceeds, but in any weather cannot recover more than the total amount, collectively, owed to it.

This is, to those pegged with such liability, a scary prospect. A new partner in the local law practice may find herself liable for all the debts of the partnership, at least since the point she joined it and assumed them. In general, the partner with the deepest pockets should most expect to be in the cross-hairs. That partner can recover a fair contribution from its confederates; how it does so is not the claimant’s affair

So you can see, for the claimant, it is a much more pragmatic, practical thing. She has suffered a loss; she is entitled to sue; the law should be at her side. That her loss is recoverable from a bunch of people, rather than just one, ought to be a good thing, and will allow her to proceed with the minimum of fuss to recover what is her due. She can walk away compensated, and can leave this derelict confederation to sort out amongst themselves how they should allocated her satisfied claim between them. This leaves her, too, out of the credit concerns that might otherwise exist between the partners. If one has blown up, the others share the loss.

This is a right and proper state of affairs, when the JC has encountered it, he has mainly wished it prevailed more often. Like most people he has

See also

• Burden of proof