## Facts

- An infant, Josephine Ravo, suffered severe and permanent brain damage at birth, resulting in profound cognitive impairment.
- Josephine’s mother had gestational diabetes, and Josephine was an unusually large baby, creating delivery risks.
- The obstetrician, Dr. Sol Rogatnick, committed multiple negligent acts in prenatal management and delivery, including failing to obtain pertinent maternal medical information, underestimating fetal size, and using improper delivery procedures.
- After birth, the pediatrician, Dr. Irwin L. Harris, negligently misdiagnosed and improperly treated the infant’s condition.
- Expert proof supported that each physician’s negligence was a substantial factor contributing to the infant’s brain damage.
- The proof did not permit separating which portions of the brain damage were attributable to each physician; the harm was treated as a single, indivisible injury.
- A jury found both physicians liable, allocated fault 80% to Rogatnick and 20% to Harris, and awarded $2,750,000 in damages.
- Harris sought to limit his liability to 20% of the verdict; the trial court denied the request, and the intermediate appellate court affirmed joint and several liability.

## Issues

1. Whether multiple medical tortfeasors who did not act in concert or concurrently may be held jointly and severally liable when their separate negligence was a substantial factor in causing a single, indivisible injury that cannot be rationally apportioned.
2. Whether a jury’s percentage allocation of fault limits a plaintiff’s recovery against a defendant to that percentage when the injury is indivisible.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment imposing joint and several liability on both physicians for the full verdict.
- The court held that each defendant could be held liable for the entire amount because both were substantial contributing causes of a single, indivisible injury that could not be apportioned.
- The 80%/20% allocation was relevant to contribution between defendants and did not restrict the plaintiff’s right to collect the full judgment from either defendant.

## Legal Principles

- When multiple tortfeasors’ negligence is a substantial factor in producing a single, indivisible injury, each may be held jointly and severally liable for the entire harm if there is no reasonable basis to divide damages by causation.
- Joint and several liability for an indivisible injury does not require that defendants acted in concert or that their negligence was simultaneous.
- Apportionment of fault between liable defendants addresses contribution rights among defendants and is distinct from apportionment of the injury itself.
- A defendant cannot limit liability to a percentage share of damages when the record does not allow a rational division of the injury into separable components caused by each actor.

## Conclusion

New York’s highest court held that where successive medical malpractice by separate physicians substantially contributes to a single, inseparable birth brain injury that cannot be divided by proof, both defendants are jointly and severally liable to the plaintiff for the entire award, with any fault percentages operating only for contribution between the defendants.


Ravo v. Rogatnick, 70 N.Y.2d 305 (1987)