Multidefendant Settlements: The Impact of Joint and Several Liability

摘要: * Professors of Law, New York University. We acknowledge the generous financial support Filomen D'Agostino and Max E. Greenberg Research Fund at University School Law C. V. Starr Center for Applied Economics Prior versions this article were presented Conference on Environmental Policy, organized by European Association Geneva Association, Paris, April 1991; Comparative Forum, Berkeley, October 1992; workshops North Carolina Stanford School. Edward Sherry's extensive comments very helpful; we also appreciate valuable suggestions Marcel Kahan Kathryn Spier. are grateful research assistance Kent Chen, Hawiger, Jeffrey Spear. ' The classic single-defendant works John P. Gould, Legal Conflicts, 2 J. Stud. 279 (1973); William M. Landes, An Economic Analysis Courts, 14 & Econ. 61 (1971); Richard A. Posner, Approach to Procedure Judicial Administration, 399 (1973). problem multidefendant settlements is analyzed in Frank H. Easterbrook, Contribution among Antitrust Defendants: A Analysis, 23 331 (1980); Mitchell Polinsky Steven Shavell, Claim Reduction 33 Stan. L. Rev. 447 (1981). These articles deal with a case which plaintiff's probabilities success against each defendants perfectly correlated thus cover only narrow slice that examine. approach Posner followed, without major modification, Jong Goo Yi, Litigations Multiple How Settle under Different Apportionment Rules 73-82 (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Univ., February 1991). In recent paper, Lange studies, multiple-defendant context, possible contractual arrangements between plaintiff one or more defendants. Lange, Litigation Risk Exchange: Sliding-Scale Settlements manuscript, Univ. Pennsylvania 1993). He addresses