DIVIDED-DAMAGES RULE
divided-damages rule.Maritime law. The obsolete principle that when two parties are jointly
liable to a third party for a tort, each party is liable for only half the damages. • The courts now
apply a comparative-negligence standard. [Cases: Collision 143. C.J.S. Collision §§ 242, 245,
259, 261–262.]
“For over a hundred years admiralty law embraced the rule of ‘divided damages’ in collision
cases …. In 1975, in United States v. Reliable Transfer Co., 421 U.S. 397, 95 S.Ct. 1708, 44
L.Ed.2d 251 (1975), the Supreme Court jettisoned that inequitable and illogical rule in favor of
proportionate allocation of fault among joint-tortfeasors in collision cases. Each vessel now is
liable to the other offending vessel in contribution for that part of the total damages proportionate
to its fault, and is liable for its per capita (virile) share only when the respective faults of the
vessels are equal, or when proportionate fault can not be ascertained.” Frank L. Maraist, Admiralty
in a Nutshell 165 (2d ed. 1988). [Blacks Law 8th]