Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/196

176 1/6 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. CONTRIBUTION BETWEEN PERSONS JOINTLY CHARGED FOR NEGLIGENCE — MERRY- WEATHER V. NIXAN.i AS the commerce and business of the world broaden and the relations of persons engaged in industrial enterprises be- come more complicated, the question whether the courts will allow contribution between persons jointly chargeable as for quasi delicts or mere unintentional negligence is of ever increasing significance and importance. The text- writers have not recognized the importance of the ques- tion, and have usually contented themselves with vague generalities, sometimes contradictory and often inaccurate. Whatever difficul- ties exist are due in part to the loose method in which many of the text-writers have treated the question, and are not due to any conflict in the decided cases themselves. The effort of this paper will be to present briefly examples of all the classes of cases on the subject, together with an analysis of the facts upon which each decision proceeded, the hope being thus to aid in clearing up a vitally important question left by the text-writers in great uncertainty. The propositions of law under which all the cases will fall are believed to be two, and the discussion of them follows. As between conscious, wilful, malicious, or intentional joint wrong- doers, or tort-feasors who are in pari delicto, neither the law nor equity will intervene to adjust the damage by etiforcing contribution. Merryweather v. Nixan is usually styled the leading case on which the proposition rests. , While this is true, yet the point there decided was clearly foreshadowed one hundred and seventy-five years earlier in Battersey's case.^ With the foreknowledge and grasp of the law so often evinced by the early English judges, the court foresaw with clearness where the line should be drawn be- tween cases in which recovery over would or would not be allowed, 1 8 Term Rep. i86, by King's Bench, in 1799. 2 Winch's Rep. 48, by Common Pleas, in 1623.