Law of indivisible injury is a tort law concept that allows plaintiffs to recover damages from an injury caused by multiple parties, whose acts cannot be separated to assess their direct harm. In such a situation, each defendant, or party whose acts may have caused the harm, is liable for all of the plaintiff’s injury.
Law of indivisible injury is unique because the plaintiff can recover from any of the parties. The party held liable then has the burden of seeking recovery from the other parties potentially liable. This recovery is acceptable when there is an indivisible injury because it is impossible to identify which party directly caused the harm or how much their individual acts contributed to the harm. This is an example of joint and several liability.
A common example of an indivisible injury is exposure-caused diseases. A retired construction worker discovers they have developed mesothelioma and lung cancer, after 40 years of working for multiple employers who all have OSHA violations for asbestos exposure in the past. The construction worker cannot identify which employer’s violations caused their lung cancer, since the construction worker was exposed at each workplace. Therefore, the construction worker is able to recover from any one of their former employers for the harm.
[Last updated in August of 2024 by the Wex Definitions Team]