Courts allocate responsibility in an injury case using various doctrines such as joint and several liability or several liability and a system of comparative or contributory negligence. Under joint and several liability, any defendant can be held responsible for the full amount of damages, while under several liability, each party is liable only for their portion of fault as determined by the court. Comparative negligence allows recovery to be reduced based on the plaintiff’s own negligence; while contributory negligence may bar recovery entirely if the plaintiff is found to be at all at fault.
For example: In a car accident involving two drivers where one is 70% at fault and the other is 30% at fault, under pure comparative negligence, if driver one suffered $100,000 in damages, they could recover $70,000 from driver two.