>People often wonder how this is fair. And that will fairly be debated until the end of time. Some jurisdictions do not have joint and several liability and s

>People often wonder how this is fair. And that will fairly be debated until the end of time. Some jurisdictions do not have joint and several liability and so your example of liability being capped up to their % of their contributory negligence is a reality. Even in the joint and severally liable jurisdictions, there will be a finding of contributory negligence, but its pretty well understood a jury can't fairly assign %'s of fault anyway. However, as someone who sees the reality of these cases, the guy with the deep pockets really doesn't pay either, their insurance pays, and this is really where things get both weird and fair. Say you hit me with your car and I file a claim with my insurance and your insurance, the insurance companies work it out behind the scene (and I promise they do these settlements in their own best interest, not the insured (your) or the claimants best interests (mine)) and insurance does this knowing tomorrow they will work together on another claim where the other insurance company will be liable. Insurance issues aside, if it weren't for joint and several liability these deep pockets you reference would never be liable, they would always out spend the criminal defendant in attorney's fees and likely be attributed almost no % of liability. Joint and several liability encourages the fair settlement of cases to save time and money to all parties, and gives the claimant the best chance of being made whole, whereas these other system encourages outspending the other parties in litigation and disincentives settlements of claims, shifting a lot of costs on tax payers who pay for the courts.