Research On Joint And Several Liability In American Tort Law

Joint and several liability originated from Roman law, and it was inherited by bothContinental law system and Anglo-American law system. In the Anglo-American lawsystem, the joint and several liability was originally established in the UK, introduced tothe United States in the1840s and then widely acknowledged rapidly in many states, dueto it can be implemented on the two goals of tort law-full relief for the victims andinhibition of the infringement act. When joint and several liability first introduced to theUnited States, it followed the English law, but as the demand of the practices changedgradually, the applicable scope of joint and several liability was expanded. However, ascomparative negligence was adopted, as well as the phenomenon of "Deep Pocket"defendant occurred frequently, joint and several liability in the US had been widelyquestioned. Therefore, in the1980s, many states began to reform joint and severalliability in American tort reform movement. In the tort reform movement, there is acontroversy about the existence of joint and several liability, and do several statescompletely abolish joint and several liability, however, the general development trend is tolimit the application of joint and several liability to various degrees. The development andthe modern reform of joint and several liability in United States provides us a newperspective, which bring us a lot of enlightenment to perfect our country’s joint andseveral liability.This article mainly adopted the methods of comparative study and case analysis. Thefirst chapter introduces the history basis of joint and several liability in American tort lawand the legitimacy foundation, which lay the theoretical foundation for later. The secondchapter expounds the establishment of joint and several liability in American tort law onand its early development, in order to make clear the early application scope of joint andseveral liability in American tort law. The third chapter summarizes the background of the reform of joint and several liability in American tort law, as well as the result of the reform.Through analysis of typical cases, the author reveals how is joint and several liability inAmerican tort law improved constantly based on the needs of society to adapt to thedevelopment of the society. The fourth chapter summarizes the status quo of joint andseveral liability in American tort law and the major limitations on joint and several liability,to analyze the rationality of the limitations. The fifth chapter summarizes the defects ofjoint and several liability in China through comparative analysis with the joint liability andjoint liability in American tort law, and put forward the proposal.In China, the research about joint and several liability is relatively scanty, and theresearch about joint and several liability in American tort law is lesser, and most of themwere completed before2009. Therefore, the author hopes this paper can enrich the jointand several liability researches and contribute to improve joint and several liability in ourcountry.