What Is Joint and Several Liability in Washington State?

In Washington, joint and several liability is the exception, not the rule. The state’s default is proportionate liability under RCW 4.22.070: each defendant pays only the share of damages that matches their percentage of fault. Joint and several liability, which lets you collect the entire judgment from any single defendant, kicks in only when the plaintiff bears zero fault or when one of a handful of statutory exceptions applies.¹

The Default: Each Defendant Pays Their Own Share

When more than one person or entity contributed to an injury, the jury assigns a fault percentage to every party involved. That includes the plaintiff, every named defendant, third-party defendants, anyone who previously settled, and even entities not present in court. All the percentages must add up to 100.¹

Each defendant then owes the dollar amount that matches their share. A defendant found 20 percent at fault on a $100,000 verdict owes $20,000, period. A minor contributor cannot be forced to cover what another defendant owes. This is the baseline for every Washington civil case involving shared fault, and it stays in place unless a specific exception applies.

Zero Plaintiff Fault Flips the Switch

When the jury determines the plaintiff had no fault at all, every defendant against whom judgment is entered becomes jointly and severally liable for the total damages.¹ The plaintiff can collect the entire award from any single defendant, no matter how small that defendant’s fault percentage was. If three defendants are each 33 percent at fault and the plaintiff is zero percent at fault, the plaintiff can pursue the full judgment against whichever defendant has the deepest pockets.

The logic is that an entirely innocent victim should not bear the risk that one of the people who hurt them is broke or uninsured. Joint and several liability pushes that risk onto the defendants. A defendant who ends up paying more than their share can later seek reimbursement from the others, but that becomes the defendants’ problem rather than the plaintiff’s.

For defendants, the stakes are dramatic. A party found only 5 percent at fault could end up paying a multi-million-dollar judgment in full if the co-defendants lack assets.

Why One Percent of Plaintiff Fault Changes Everything

Nothing about Washington liability law catches people off guard more than this: there is no sliding scale. Joint and several liability is either fully on or fully off, and the switch is the plaintiff’s fault percentage. At zero, every defendant is on the hook for everything. At one percent, each defendant owes only their proportionate slice.¹

Washington follows pure comparative fault, so a plaintiff who shares blame still recovers; the award is just reduced by their percentage.² But that reduction is the smaller consequence. The bigger one is losing the ability to collect the full judgment from a single defendant.

Consider a rear-end collision where the lead driver had a broken taillight. A jury might assign 1 percent fault to the lead driver for the equipment violation and 99 percent to the distracted driver who caused the crash. That single percentage point means the plaintiff can only collect 99 percent of the total damages, and each defendant pays only their share. Had the taillight been working, the full judgment could have been collected from any one defendant.

Defense lawyers know this, and the “empty chair” tactic follows directly from it. The jury can allocate fault to entities who were never named as defendants, including people who settled or have some other defense. Spreading fault among empty chairs reduces the named defendants’ percentages, and if any of that fault lands on the plaintiff, joint and several liability disappears entirely.

Other Situations That Trigger Full Liability

RCW 4.22.070 lists several categories where defendants face full exposure regardless of the plaintiff’s fault percentage.

Acting in Concert

When two or more people consciously combined their actions in unlawful conduct, each is jointly and severally liable for the full damages, even if the plaintiff was partly at fault.¹ The Washington Supreme Court reads this narrowly. Coincidence is not enough. Two drivers who independently run red lights at the same intersection and both hit you are concurrent tortfeasors, not people acting in concert. Two people who agree to street-race and strike a pedestrian are.³

Vicarious Liability

When someone causes harm while acting as an agent or employee of another party, the employer or principal is jointly and severally liable along with the person who did the act.¹ A delivery driver who causes an accident during work hours is the classic example. Both the driver and the employer owe the full judgment.

Hazardous Waste and Toxic Substances

Proportionate liability does not apply to lawsuits involving hazardous waste, toxic substances, or solid waste disposal sites. Every party involved in creating the contamination can be held responsible for the entire cleanup cost.¹

Tortious Interference and Fungible Products

The statute also preserves full liability for claims involving tortious interference with contracts or business relationships, and for lawsuits arising from generic, unmarked products where identifying which manufacturer caused the harm is impossible.¹ The fungible-product carveout historically applied in pharmaceutical cases where multiple companies produced the same drug and no one could prove whose product injured the plaintiff.

Workplace Injuries: The Workers’ Comp Wrinkle

Workplace cases produce some of the most counterintuitive outcomes under Washington’s scheme. When an employee is injured on the job, the employer is generally immune from tort liability because workers’ compensation under Title 51 is the exclusive remedy. After a 1993 amendment to RCW 4.22.070, an employer protected by that immunity is excluded from the fault allocation entirely. The jury assigns no fault percentage to the immune employer.¹

In practical terms, the remaining defendants cannot use the employer as an empty chair to reduce their own share. If an employer was 50 percent responsible for the unsafe conditions and a third-party equipment manufacturer was 50 percent responsible, the manufacturer cannot argue it should only pay half. With the employer removed from the calculation, the manufacturer absorbs the full 100 percent of the fault allocation.⁴ A third-party contractor who might reasonably have been 30 percent at fault can end up owing the entire judgment.

Settlements and Contribution Between Defendants

When a plaintiff settles with one defendant, that defendant is released from further liability, including from contribution claims by the other defendants. The remaining defendants still benefit: the claim against them is reduced by the amount the settling defendant paid.⁵ If a court finds the settlement amount unreasonably low, it can substitute a reasonable figure for the credit, which prevents a plaintiff from cutting a sweetheart deal with one defendant to preserve a larger claim against the others.

A defendant who pays more than their proportionate share of a joint and several judgment can seek contribution from the other liable defendants, either in the original lawsuit or through a separate action.⁶ Contribution is based on comparative fault, and no defendant can be forced to contribute more than their proportionate share of the total damages. If Defendant A was 70 percent at fault and Defendant B was 30 percent, and B paid the entire judgment, B can recover 70 percent from A.

When one defendant is insolvent or beyond the court’s reach, the remaining defendants split that person’s share in proportion to their respective fault percentages.⁶ The loss from a deadbeat co-defendant stays with the other defendants rather than falling on the plaintiff. The plaintiff gets paid first; the defendants sort out the accounting afterward.

1
Washington State Legislature. RCW 4.22.070 – Liability of Parties
2
Washington State Legislature. RCW 4.22.005 – Contributory Fault
3
New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. WPI 50.20 Acting in Concert – RCW 4.22.070 – Definition
4
Justia Law. Gilbert H. Moen Co. v. Island Steel Erectors, Inc.
5
Washington State Legislature. RCW 4.22.060 – Effect of Release
6
Washington State Legislature. RCW 4.22.050 – Contribution