N-Defendant Litigation and Settlement: The Impact of Joint and Several Liability

摘要: This article generalizes the analysis of settlement under joint and several liability from lawsuits involving one plaintiff two defendants to those n≥2 defendants. We demonstrate that, depending upon correlation outcomes among defendants, but regardless distribution shares, may encourage plaintiffs select some for litigation while settling with remaining. In particular, liability, when each defendant is grouped others sharing correlated outcomes, plaintiff's probability success against any sufficiently high, we show in all Nash equilibrium, litigates group smallest share settles other There are a continuum equilibria they payoff-equivalent up permutation. Plaintiff's payoff identical equilibria; only payoffs members within permuted. also high success, this result holds even allowed form coalitions, derive set offers behaviorally unique coalition proof equilibrium; as before, these induce