A genuinely clean several-only rule
Under Wyo. Stat. § 1-1-109, liability among multiple defendants in Wyoming is several only: each defendant found causally negligent pays only its own proportionate share of the total fault, and is never responsible for covering another defendant's portion of the damages.
No threshold, no exception
Here's what makes Wyoming's version genuinely distinctive compared to several of its 51%-bar peers. Many other states impose joint and several liability once a given defendant's fault crosses some threshold — sometimes a fairly low one. Wyoming's several-only rule doesn't include that kind of exception at all. However high one defendant's individual percentage of fault runs, their financial exposure stays capped at exactly that percentage.
The real consequence when a defendant can't pay
This structure has a genuine, practical downside for plaintiffs specifically when a defendant turns out to be judgment-proof or otherwise unable to pay. Because there's no joint and several mechanism to shift that uncollectible amount onto a co-defendant, the plaintiff may simply be unable to recover that portion of the judgment at all — a real risk worth weighing, especially in cases involving a defendant of uncertain financial means.
A trade-off worth understanding both ways
From a defendant's perspective, this rule offers genuine protection: no defendant in Wyoming risks being stuck covering a co-defendant's share, however that co-defendant's financial situation plays out. From a plaintiff's perspective, it means the practical value of a judgment against multiple defendants depends more heavily on each individual defendant's own ability to pay.
Who decides
If a case goes to trial, the jury assigns a percentage of fault to each party found to have contributed to the harm, including the plaintiff's own share where relevant. See our Wyoming comparative negligence calculator to see how that percentage translates directly into a dollar figure.