Joint and several liability is a legal concept under which defendants who commit a wrongful act can each be held individually liable for 100% of your injuries.
Nevada follows a modified joint and several liability law. Under NRS 41.141, a defendant is jointly and severally liable for your injuries only in cases involving:
- A claim based on Nevada’s strict liability laws;
- An intentional wrongful act;
- The emission, disposal or spillage of a toxic or hazardous substance;
- The concerted acts of the defendants; or
- Injuries from dangerous products manufactured, distributed, sold or used in Nevada.1
Joint and several liability does not apply in Nevada negligence cases. In such cases, liability is apportioned under Nevada’s comparative negligence law to each party that has acted negligently.
To help you better understand joint and several liability in Nevada, our Nevada personal injury lawyers discuss the following, below:
- 1. What is “joint liability” in Nevada?
- 2. What is “several liability” in Nevada?
- 3. What is the significance of joint and several liability?
- 4. When does joint and several liability apply?
- 5. How does joint and several liability differ from comparative negligence?
- 6. What if a case involves both negligent and intentional tortfeasors?
- Additional reading
1. What is “joint liability” in Nevada?
“Joint liability” simply means that liability for your injury is shared by more than one party.
In legal terminology, the people in Nevada who share responsibility for a wrongful act or outcome are known as “joint tortfeasors.” Joint tortfeasors are two or more parties who:
- Act in concert to commit a wrongful act; or
- Act independently, but cause a single, indivisible injury.
Example: Paul recruits his friend Quentin to help him beat up a troublesome neighbor. The neighbor incurs significant medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering. Because Paul and Quentin committed the assault together, they are joint tortfeasors and jointly responsible for the neighbor’s damages.
2. What is “several liability” in Nevada?
Several liability is a legal doctrine under which a defendant can be sued for injuries without the necessity of suing other liable parties.
The term “several liability” is usually used nowadays as a shorthand for “joint and several liability.” Joint and several liability exists in order to let you recover 100% of your damages from one party (or less than all the parties) who have harmed you during a single course of action.
This is designed to make it easier for you to recover damages in cases in which one or more defendants cannot successfully be sued due to insolvency, residency in another state or any other reason.
Example: Margaret is injured by a defective product. Under Nevada’s product liability laws, the manufacturer, shipper, and retailer are individually liable and thus have several liability. However, their liability is also joint because Margaret’s damages arose from a single injury and product. As a result, their liability is joint and several.
3. What is the significance of joint and several liability?
When defendants share joint and several liability, you do not have to sue all of them in order to recover damages. You can sue them all if you want to, but each defendant alone is liable for 100% of your damages.
If you recover all your damages in a lawsuit from less than all the responsible parties, the losing party or parties can seek contribution from other responsible defendants. In essence, it makes recovering from those defendants the other defendant’s problem, not yours.
Note that joint and several liability does not allow you to recover more than 100% of your damages by suing more than one wrongdoer. If you recover 100% of your damages in a lawsuit or out-of-court settlement with one defendant, the case is over.
If, prior to a lawsuit, you have settled out of court for part of your damages with one or more defendants, the judge will reduce any recovery subsequently obtained against another defendant by the amount previously obtained by you.
4. When does joint and several liability apply?
In Nevada, joint and several liability is a limited doctrine. It does not apply in most negligence cases.
Under NRS 41.141(5), defendants are jointly and severally liable in Nevada solely in actions based upon:
- Strict liability;
- An intentional tort;
- The emission, disposal or spillage of a toxic or hazardous substance;
- The concerted acts of the defendants; or
- An injury to any person or property resulting from a product which is manufactured, distributed, sold or used in this State.
“Concerted acts of the defendants” do not include negligent acts committed by providers of health care while working together to provide treatment to you as a patient.
Example: While Jeanette is getting surgery, the nurse negligently loses count of surgical sponges, and the surgeon fails to notice that he has left a sponge in Jeanette’s body. The nurse and the surgeon are each 50% liable to Jeanette for medical malpractice. Though since their actions were not concerted under Nevada’s joint and several liability laws, Jeanette will have to sue both of them to recover 100% of her damages.1
5. How does joint and several liability differ from comparative negligence?
In Nevada, joint and several liability does not apply when multiple defendants negligently wrong you. Instead, in a negligence case, Nevada’s comparative negligence law requires that a percentage of blame be allocated to each negligent party (including, if applicable, you).2
Example: Driver #1 sustains $100,000 in damages from a three-car pileup. The jury determines Driver #1 was 15% to blame, Driver #2 was 35% to blame, and Driver #3 was 50% to blame. Under Nevada’s comparative negligence law, Driver #1 is entitled to a judgment of $35,000 from Driver #2 and $50,000 from Driver #3.
6. What if a case involves both negligent and intentional tortfeasors?
Sometimes, one or more defendants act negligently while another acts intentionally. The Nevada Supreme Court considered this situation in a 2012 case called Cafe Moda v. Palma.3
In that case, one restaurant patron stabbed another patron. The injured patron sued the assailant for an intentional act of assault, and also sued the restaurant for negligently failing to prevent the attack. A jury determined that:
- the assailant was 80% responsible, and
- the restaurant was 20% responsible.
Since the restaurant only acted negligently, they were liable for just its 20% of the victim’s damages. Though since the assailant acted intentionally, he could be held liable for 100% of the victim’s damages under Nevada’s joint and several liability law.
Additional reading
For more in-depth information, refer to these scholarly articles:
- Multidefendant Settlements: The Impact of Joint and Several Liability – The Journal of Legal Studies.
- The Logic and Fairness of Joint and Several Liability – Memphis State University Law Review.
- Settlements under Joint and Several Liability – NYU Law Review.
- Allocating Liability among Multiple Responsible Causes: A Principled Defense of Joint and Several Liability for Actual Harm and Risk Exposure – U.C. Davis Law Review.
- State Responsibility and the Principle of Joint and Several Liability – Yale Journal of International Law.
Legal references:
- If both the nurse and the surgeon are employed by the hospital, she may be able to recover from a single party. However, the hospital’s liability would still be based on the separate damages caused individually by the nurse and the surgeon.
- NRS 41.141. See also Humphries v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court of State (2013) 129 Nev. 788, 312 P.3d 484.
- Café Moda, LLC v. Palma 272 P.3d 137 (2012).