Sued for being rich

Waterbury Republican-American ^ | February 9, 2007 | Editorial

[supercat]

Are you seriously going to be able to risk losing a lawsuit and THEN paying $5 million in legal fees to the company you've sued? Can you afford to risk that?

I would expect that there would be lawyers who would be willing to accept such risk, in exchange for a larger contingency fee, if they expected to win.

If plaintiff's and defendant's legal costs are roughly equal, and if a plaintiff had a 66% chance of winning, a 50% contingency fee would cover both attorney's costs.

[supercat]

There are a number of states that have limited the application of joint and several liability, but I feel that it is bad policy for the reasons I have outlined above.

There are both good and bad things about the concept of joint and several liability. What is lacking, I think, is the concept that many torts should have limited liabilities associated with them regardless of the damages that eventually result therefrom.

It may well be that either of two tortfeasors in a particular case, each in the absence of the other, might be found liable for $100,000, and yet together they might be found liable for $150,000. I would suggest that in such a case, it might be reasonable to have joint and several liability rules apply to $50,000 while each defendant is individually liable for $50,000. So if one defendant skates after paying $10,000 the most the plaintiff could recover would be $110,000 total.