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Tort Reform
Joint and Several Liability
124th General Assembly
Status:
SB 120, sponsored by Sen. Bruce Johnson (R-Westerville), focuses
on one critical yet vastly unfair component of Ohio’s civil justice
system: joint and several liability. This important business initiative
passed out of the Senate on June 26, 2001 and hearings in the House
will begin in the fall.
History: Under current law, defendants are jointly and severally
liable for any damage that they cause to a plaintiff. This means that
if a court determines that an individual or business is responsible
for any percentage of the injuries to another person the individual
or business is liable for the entire amount of the settlement if any
or all of the other defendants is unable to pay. The current system
therefore encourages plaintiffs to file “shotgun” lawsuits
aimed at collecting full damages from anyone with “deep pockets,”
regardless of a particular defendant’s degree of fault. This makes
an individual or business, which for example may be only ten percent
at fault for the damage sustained by an injured party, responsible for
paying 100% of the plaintiff’s damages.
According to the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), 34 states
have abolished or modified their rules of joint and several liability.
Four other states (Alabama, Indiana, Kansas and Oklahoma) have never
applied the rule of joint and several liability. As you can see, if
SB 120 becomes law, Ohio would be in the mainstream by following
the majority of states in mitigating the unfair impact of joint and
several liability.
Impact of SB 120: SB 120 creates a more fair and
equitable result in our civil justice system by requiring a business
to pay only its proportionate share of liability. In essence, SB
120 eliminates joint and several liability for those defendants
who are found to be 50% or less at fault. In other words, this bill
requires a business who is 50% or less at fault to pay only its proportionate
share of liability instead of making every defendant in a tort lawsuit
potentially liable for the entire amount of a plaintiff’s damages
regardless of the defendant’s relative degree of fault.
In fact, we are not asking to completely abolish joint and several liability.
Defendants who are found to be more than fifty-percent liable for a
plaintiff’s damages will continue to be on the hook for 100% of
the damages even if SB 120 were to be enacted.
An additional positive effect of SB 120 is that the proportionate
liability system established under the bill will require trial attorneys
to conduct better investigations and be more precise in determining
which businesses or individuals against whom to file suit. This should
reduce the number of “shot gun” lawsuits whose only aim is
to find at least one “deep pocket” defendant to pay for 100%
of the damages and exert pressure on that party to settle the case.
The current system, which subjects all defendants to joint and several
liability, is extremely detrimental to Ohio’s smaller business
owners since one judgment against them could close down their operation
forever.
Ohio Chamber’s Position: The Ohio Chamber strongly supports
SB 120. We have been working on reforming Ohio’s civil justice
system for more than a decade and this legislation is another step in
the right direction. We believe a plaintiff should only be able to recover
damages from responsible parties based on their proportion of fault.
Predictably, opponents of the bill claim that SB 120 passes a
defendant’s liability onto an “innocent” third party,
but this is far from the truth. SB 120 does not attempt to eliminate
liability for any defendant but does attempt to establish a civil justice
system that is fair and equitable to both plaintiffs and defendants.
In sum, it simply requires those parties who are liable for another
person’s injuries to pay only their proportionate share of the
damages and not be held responsible for another party’s liability.
For more information on this issue contact Ohio Chamber Director of
Labor and Human Resources policy, Tony Fiore, at (614) 228-4201, toll
free at (800) 622-1893 or afiore@ohiochamber.com.
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