Political Quotes

“I intend to vote against the Abraham amendment to extend limitations on joint and several liability for noneconomic damages to all civil actions. The sponsors of this bill, and this amendment, have pointed out that there are problems with joint and several liability. In some cases, a defendant who has only a marginal role in the case ends up holding the bag for all of the damages. That doesn't seem fair. On the other hand, there are good reasons for the doctrine of joint and several liability. We all know that cause and effect cannot accurately be assigned on a percentage basis. There may be many causes of an event, the absence of any one of which would have prevented the event from occurring. Because the injury would not have occurred without each of these so-called but for causes, each is, in a very real sense, 100 percent responsible for the resulting injury. This bill and this amendment, however, do not recognize that in the real world, multiple wrongdoers may each cause the same injury. They insist that responsibility be portioned out, with damages divided up into pieces. Under this approach, the more causes the event can be attributed to, the less each defendant will have to pay. Unless the person who has been injured can successfully sue all guilty parties, he or she will not be compensated for his or her entire loss.”