I see a lot of discussion of the legal system and assignment of liability. There's an interesting fact about the legal system in non-criminal cases that is widely overlooked--there is usually no possible outcome that doesn't screw someone.

Accordingly, when someone is found liable in tort, it doesn't necessarily mean the court is blaming them for the accident.

Let me give a classic example. Three men go out hunting. They come to a clearing, and two of the men go around on the left and the third goes around on the right.

A game bird flies up from the clearing when the two groups are on opposite sides. Both men on the left fire at the bird. One of them gets the bird. One of them misses the bird but hits their companion who was going around the right.

It is not possible to determine which man shot the bird and which shot the human. Both shooters claim that they definitely shot the bird, of course.

The third man sues the first two. There's no outcome that does not screw at least one of the three:

1. The court could find neither shooter is liable, since it cannot be proven which actually fired the errant shot. That screws the third man since he got shot and cannot collect damages from the shooter.

2. The court could find that both shooters are liable, and make each pay half the damages. Assuming each shooter can actually afford half the damages that is fair to the third man, but screws whichever shooter actually hit the bird.

3. Furthermore, in #3, support it turns out one of the shooters has a lot more money than the other. Then in addition to screwing one of the shooters, the third man could get screwed in that he might not be able to collect enough to cover his medical bills.

4. The court could find that the two shooters are jointly liable, and not even try to allocate blame between them. The third man can enforce the judgement against them however he wants. So, if one shooter has a lot of money and one does not, the third man would enforce against the one with the most money. This is good for the third man as it lets him get his medical bills covered. It potentially screws the wealthy shooter, though, if in fact he was the one who shot the bird--he's left holding the bag for all of the damages.

The way it actually happens in most states is #4. The idea is that of the three men the one who least deserves getting screwed is the guy who got shot, so we want to maximize the chances that he can recover full damages, and can do so quickly. Only #4 ensures that.

As far as the shooters go, if one of them isn't happy with the way the third man chooses to go about collating the damages, he's free to file a lawsuit against the other shooter to recover the amount he thinks he was unfairly forced to pay.

Note that even though one of the shooters did not shoot the third man, it was his shot that created the ambiguity as to which one of them did shoot the third man.

This is called "joint and several liability".

This is a pretty good system. It lets the party that is actually injured get damages quicker to get them on the road to recovery (and keep them from getting bankrupted by medical bills), but still lets the parties that contributed to the injury fight it out among themselves to figure out how, ultimately, the damages should be split among them.

Note: joint and several liability only applies to defendants who do have some liability, as determined by the court, I believe.