More information for parents of injured kids

If your child was bitten, you have special responsibilities, morally and legally, as the guardian of his or her legal rights. Please read Should Parents Get a Lawyer for Their Injured Child?

Footnote 1:

• The following is taken from the Preface to the Uniform Apportionment of Tort Responsibility Act (Sixth Tentative Draft, Styled, January 22, 2002), by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws:
• "Many jurisdictions employing comparative fault today have been persuaded to severely limit joint and several liability. In some ways, one might observe that the law in this area has come full circle, as it were, and has returned in large part to the position of the early common law. As a general rule, where defendants have acted in concert, joint and several liability has been retained. In addition, some jurisdictions have retained joint and several liability where multiple defendants have engaged in conduct which results in environmental harm. Beyond these two situations, however, many jurisdictions today in some manner have abolished joint and several liability and, thereby, any necessity to recognize rights of contributions among joint tortfeasors. How has this trend manifested itself?
• "In those jurisdictions that have not completely abolished joint and several liability outside of the two areas mentioned above (acting in concert and environmental harm), a number of different approaches have been taken to limit joint and several liability. For example, some jurisdictions still permit joint and several liability for economic loss, but do not permit such for non-economic loss. Other jurisdictions do not allow a tortfeasor that is determined to be less than a certain percentage at fault, say 20 percentage, to be held jointly and severally liable with other tortfeasors whose individual responsibility is determined to be in excess of that figure. Still another variation is seen in those jurisdictions that, although initially prohibiting joint and several liability, permit claimants to show that a judgment entered severally against multiple defendants is not capable of being satisfied on that basis. Upon such as showing, a court may be permitted to reallocate the non-paying judgment debtor's obligation to others adjudged responsible for a portion of the harm suffered.(Footnote omitted.) The reallocation process may take one of several forms. For example, it may merely reallocate the non-paying judgment debtor's portion among the remaining judgment debtors. Or, it may take into account any contributory fault on the part of the plaintiff so that the allocation of responsibility itself is revised to take into account the relatively greater responsibility of the claimant once the responsibility of a non-paying judgment debtor is eliminated from the equation.
• "In addition to the above, other issues have become more acute. For example, the issue of comparing intentional conduct with lesser forms of culpability has received much more attention since the Uniform Comparative Fault Act was promulgated. This includes the possibility of comparing any negligence on the part of a claimant with intentionally caused harm by a defendant as well as comparing the intentional conduct of one joint tortfeasor with the negligent conduct of other joint tortfeasors. The occasion for these issues to be raised has increased as the courts have expanded tort liability in areas involving an actor's obligation to protect a tort victim from the intentional tortious acts of a third party. Present legislation dealing with apportionment of tort responsibility does not always address these issues and, where that is the case, court decisions have been anything but unanimous in resolving the problems." (Click here to return to the text.)