Economic Analysis of Joint and Several Liability

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 University of Tehran

2 Phd gratuate

1048308/jlr.2022.224500.2038

Abstract

In the economic analysis of civil liability, efficiency, i.e wealth maximization is the basis for justifying rules. Civil liability by reducing administrative costs, distributing losses among members of society, forcing agents to internalize external costs of their activities and taking precautions to prevent accidents leads to a reduction in total accident costs and thus increase wealth and efficiency. In this essay, the rule of joint and several liability is examined with the approach of economic analysis and efficiency criteria, the results show that applying this rule, depending on whether multiple causes of the damage are aware of each other's solvency or not, and also depending on the nature of the accident, can have different effects that lead to efficiency in only a few cases: where multiple causes of damage are not aware about the solvency of each other, in both joint care accidents and successive care accidents, joint and several liability leads to efficiency through deterrence; where one of the multiple causes is solvent and the other is insolvent, and they are aware of this situation, the exercise of joint and several liability, in addition to leading to precaution and efficiency in joint care accidents, also reduces administrative costs and thereby leads to efficiency.

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History

  • Receive Date: 06 November 2021
  • Revise Date: 19 April 2022
  • Accept Date: 03 May 2022

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