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Joint and several liability provisions were removed from the state budget bill that was signed into law by Governor Doyle on June 29. This is a huge victory for WRA and other business organizations that lobbied against joint and several liability provisions in the state budget.
The state budget provision, known as “joint and several liability,” would have made any person or company found to be at least one percent at fault for an injury liable to pay 100 percent of the damages awarded by a court of law. Current Wisconsin law requires 51 percent fault to make one party liable to pay the entire award.
“We believe this provision would have taken Wisconsin back to the days of “deep pockets” lawsuits, when every injury was looked at as a potential big pay day,” said Ed Lump, President & CEO of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association.
“The joint and several liability provisions proposed in the state budget would have encouraged lawsuits against small businesses that have done nothing wrong, just because they have a bigger insurance policy than the average citizen," said WRA Chairwoman Linda Wendt, owner of Wendt’s on the Lake in Van Dyne. “It would have raised the insurance rates of every one of our members,” added Wendt. “Some of our members have been told by their insurance providers that they might not be able to get property and casualty insurance anymore if joint and several liability were to go through."
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