Concurrent Wrongdoers in UK Law

Three reasons were given, first, that it would turn all the usual conventions of civil litigation upside down because D1 would have to call evidence in the possession of the claimant to establish its own liability and D2 would then call D1's witnesses in order raise a doubt about D1's liability; secondly, if the result of the contribution proceedings was that the liability of D2 was established, but that the liability of D1 was not, the defendant making the compromise, D1, would get no contribution although it itself was not to blame and D2, who really was to blame, would have to pay nothing; and thirdly, a defendant might be deterred from compromising claims in which liability was in doubt if their right to contribution was thereby put at risk.

The importance of the decision of the House of Lords in Jameson, as it seems to me, is that it shows that A's claim against one concurrent tortfeasor, say C, may be extinguished not only by the satisfaction of a judgment obtained against another concurrent tortfeasor, say B, but also by the payment by B to A of an amount which A and B have agreed shall be accepted in full satisfaction of A's claim.