Part of the problem with the U.S. legal system, as I see it, is your adoption of ‘joint and several liability’. In case you’re not familiar with this, it means that even if you are found to be only 10% liable, you can be forced to pay for all damages if the other guilty parties are incapable of paying.
A fairly famous case I know of involved a person who was injured when his aircraft slammed into a truck on a runway as he was attempting to take off. Here’s what happened:
This person was taxiing out in a Piper Cub to take aerial movies. To do this, he had welded a camera mount over the front seat (he was flying from the back seat). This homebuilt installation was not approved by anyone.
This person owed money to the airport. The airport manager saw him taxiing out for takeoff, and drove his truck onto the runway to block him. What he didn’t realize was that the combination of flying a tailwheel airplane with a camera mounted in front of him meant the pilot had no forward visibility and could not see the truck until he rotated.
So, the pilot continued his takeoff run, and when he rotated and saw the truck he hit the brakes. The airplane skidded into the truck, and the pilot slammed his head against the camera mount, incurring brain damage.
The proximate causes of the accident were determined to be mostly the negligence of the airport owner in driving a truck onto the runway, and the negligence of the pilot in installing a dangerous camera rig that left him unable to see forward, and also posed a serious hazard in case of an accident.
Two minor players in this were Piper Aircraft Co., and the manufacturer of the tires. The lawyers who sued for the pilot basically used a shotgun approach, suing anyone who could even be remotely connected to the case. Piper was sued because the plaintiffs alleged that the tailwheel design contributed to poor takeoff visibility (no shit - they always have, always will. It’s not a design defect, it’s a design tradeoff that gains safety and performance in many other areas), and there was no shoulder belt installed in the aircraft (it wasn’t required when the aircraft was built, and it was not standard practice - the airplane was built in 1946).
As for the tire manufacturer, the plaintiff managed to dig up some obscure safety report claiming that the tread pattern had inadequate braking performance. There was no question that the collision would have occured regardless of what tires were used, but the plaintiff alleged that the poor tread pattern contributed to the extent of the injuries.
Anyway, in the final shakeout Piper was largely found innocent, as was the tire manufacturer. I think they were each considered to have contributed only a percentage or two, whereas the negligence of the pilot and airport owner were considered to have been about 98% responsible for the accident.
HOWEVER… The airport owner had no money, and the settlement was for several million dollars. Guess who paid? Piper and the tire company. Shortly thereafter, Piper stopped selling small aircraft. They eventually re-entered the market, but were out of business for several years.
Bear in mind that they had to pay huge money to someone for damages incurred in a product that had flown safely for 50 years, and had no known defects. They were basically sued for not demanding that pilots retrofit the aircraft with shouldder belts, even though the law does not require it.
Joint and Several Liability is nothing more than social welfare for accident victims, at the expense of people or comapanies with ‘deep pockets’. It also ensures that lawyers employ a shotgun approach in lawsuits, suing anyone they can because everyone found even partially at fault becomes an economic reserve.
In other parts of the world, if you are found to be 1% liable you only pay 1% of the damages. If the other parties can’t pay, too bad. This sounds eminently fair and reasonable, and I’d like to hear arguments for and against it.
