Court Opinion

ID: 9639882
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:50:46.787935+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:22.725283
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Associate Justice
(dissenting).
No doubt contribution seems just as between the tortfeasors, but a recent study by Professor James of the Yale Law School leads me to doubt whether it is good for society. He found, among other things, that “Contribution in practice is mainly used in two types of cases: those in which an insurance company or a large self-insurer seeks it against an uninsured individual; and those in which a self-insurer or insur-anee company seeks it against another such company. * * * In the first situation,, contribution allows defendants who * * * [could] distribute the loss over society to cast it back instead onto the shoulders of individuals who cannot distribute it at all. In the second situation contribution does little good — for the injustices it would elim-mate cancel each other out under the present law.”1 I am inclined to agree with his-conclusion that “The common law rule forbidding contribution among tort-feasors-should * * * be retained, even though it mars a theoretical symmetry in the law of negligence.”

 James, Contribution Among Joint Tortfeasors: A Pragmatic Criticism, 54 Harv. L.Rev. 1156, 1169.