Joint Tortfeasors
Chapter Fifty
Syllabus topic 2.5, "Joint Tort-Feasors, Nervous Shock and Malicious abuse of Legal Process."
Pages 203 to 206 of 434
In one line
Where two or more people are responsible for the same damage, the injured person may recover the whole of it from any one of them.
In the wording a student can write in an exam: persons are joint tortfeasors where they act in furtherance of a common design, where one is vicariously liable for the tort of the other, or where they breach a joint duty; their liability to the plaintiff is joint and several, so that he may sue any one or all of them and recover the whole of his damages from any one, subject to satisfaction only once, and the rule preventing contribution between wrongdoers has been abandoned so that a tortfeasor who pays may recover a share from the others.
Who is a joint tortfeasor
Agency and vicarious liability. A master and his servant, a principal and his agent, and partners in a firm, where the wrong is committed in the course of the employment, agency or business.
Common design. Two or more persons acting in concert in pursuance of a common purpose, so that the act of one is the act of all.
Breach of a joint duty. Where two persons owe a duty together and both fail, for example joint owners of a building that collapses.
Joint against independent tortfeasors, and composite negligence
| Joint tortfeasors | Independent tortfeasors causing the same damage | |
|---|---|---|
| Relationship | Common design, agency, or a joint duty | None; they act independently |
| The tort | One tort committed by all | Separate torts producing one damage |
| Liability to the plaintiff | Joint and several | Each liable for the damage he caused, and jointly where the damage is indivisible |
| Example | Two partners publishing a libel | Two drivers colliding and injuring a pedestrian |
Composite negligence is the Indian expression for the second situation where the injury is indivisible, and the leading authority is Indian.
Facts. Khenyei v. New India Assurance Co. Ltd, (2015) 9 SCC 273, decided on 7 May 2015. A claimant was injured in an accident caused by the composite negligence of the drivers of a trailer-truck and of a bus. The question was whether the whole compensation could be recovered from one of them and how liability should be apportioned.
Held. In composite negligence the liability of each wrongdoer to the claimant is joint and several. The claimant may recover the whole amount from any one of them, and he is not required to sue all of them or to have the liability apportioned between them first. Apportionment as between the tortfeasors is a matter for them, by contribution among themselves, and does not affect the claimant's right to full compensation from any one.
Why it matters here. It is the practical rule that decides how a Claims Tribunal proceeds under section 168 of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988 when two vehicles are to blame, and it protects the claimant from being made to litigate the drivers' quarrel.
The rest of this chapter
Module one is free. The rest of B.L.S. LL.B. 5 Years Semester 5 is part of the bundle.
You are reading a chapter from a later module. Everything in module one of every subject stays free, and so does every question paper and the syllabus.
See the semester for ₹798 Already bought it? Sign in
Free either way: question papers, the syllabus, and module one of every subject.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.