what to be aware of when divorcing your spouse
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what to be aware of when divorcing your spouse

Every marriage is not meant to last forever. No matter what the reasoning behind the divorce, it is important to have legal representation for each side. I almost lost everything because my former spouse said that he was taking care of things and that he would be fair about how the assets were divided. It took several weeks for me to find out what he was up to. It was then that I hired my own attorney and got what I deserved. You should never attempt to go through a divorce without a lawyer working on your side. On my site, I have listed several of the issues that can get overlooked if you are inexperienced with divorce documents and proceedings.

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what to be aware of when divorcing your spouse

Taking The Mystery Out Of The Mouthful: Joint, Several, And Joint And Several Liability

Joy Johnson

Many people find personal injury laws confusing. For example, the concept of joint; several; and joint and several liability laws are may be a bit confusing. Here is an overview of these legal principles and how they may apply to your personal injury case.

Joint Liability

Joint liability is a situation in which each defendant is fully liable for your total damages. This means each defendant can be compelled to pay the total damages; they can't escape liability by claiming that others were also liable for the injury. However, if you do get your compensation from one defendant, you lose the right to sue the other defendants for the same injury. This makes sense since your award would exceed your damages if you were allowed to file another lawsuit after being fully compensated by the first defendant.

To understand this better, consider a case in which you are accusing three parties – a hospital, doctor, and nurse – of committing medical malpractice. In such a case, you may be able to get your full compensation from the hospital if neither the nurse nor the doctor doesn't have the money, disappears or dies before the case is concluded. Once you get the compensation, however, you lose the rights to sue the doctor or nurse for the same medical malpractice injury.

Several Liability

Several liability is the exact opposite of joint liability in that the multiple defendants are each held liable to a fraction of the damages. The percentage is calculated based on each defendant's contribution to the injury. For example, if the court finds that the doctor was 50% liable for a medical malpractice injury, the nurse 30%, and the nurse 20%, then the three parties have to pay the damages in that ratio. So, if your damages total $100,000, then the doctor should give you $50,000, the doctor $30,000 and the nurse $20,000. This means the hospital will only give you $50,000 even if both the nurse and the doctor are unable to pay their percentages.

Joint and Several Liability

This is a sort of hybrid between the two systems described above. In this case, you don't want to know how much each defendant contributed to the injury; you just want your money and don't care about blame games, so you sue all the parties as a group. In such a case, it's the responsibility of the defendants to determine how much each of them should contribute. If they can't agree on liability percentages, then they can sue each other to settle the issue; either way, you get your compensation.

For more information, contact your local personal injury lawyer.


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