Concurrent Acts of Multiple Defendants Supports Joint & Several Restitution Liability

State v. Johnson, Minn.S.Ct., 7/30/2014.  The trial court ordered Mr. Johnson to pay restitution jointly and severally with other codefendants.  Mr. Johnson made three complaints in this sentencing appeal.  First, he said that he should not have to pay restitution for a loss that an insurance company had already reimbursed the estate of the murder victim.  Second, he said that the trial court had incorrectly calculated the amount of restitution for damage to the deceased’s car.  Third, he said that the trial court did not have statutory authority to order join and several liability for the restitution award. 

Justice Lillehaug, writing for a six person court, Justice Anderson not participating, ducked the question whether Mr. Johnson could be ordered to pay restitution for a claim already paid by an insurance company.  The court said that because Mr. Johnson had not raised this issue in the trial court they were not going to look at it.  Moreover, the record was not all together clear whether the amount claimed did or did not include the insurance reimbursement.

On the damage to the car, the trial court had calculated this award based upon the amount that the estate owed on a promissory note secured by that car.  The court said that this was not how to calculate the value of that claim because the the measure of loss must be determined by the value of the actual damage that Mr. Johnson and his codefendants caused to the car.  The promissory note did not reflect that value of actual damage; it was just what the estate owed the bank.  The court pointed out that had the crime never happened that the victim would have had to repay the note to the bank regardless of what the car was actually worth.

On joint and several liability among codefendants, Mr. Johnson said restitution should be split equally among the codefendants.  The court rejects this equal split approach on Mr. Johnson’s facts.  However, it does not say that joint and several liability is always required.  Rather, the court says that when a victim sustains indivisible loss from multiple defendants’ actions the trial court has the authority to award joint and several liability.  Having left the door ever so slightly ajar for an even split restitution award, the court just may then have immediately slammed that door shut tight.  Justice Lillehaug supports the joint and several restitution award in part by quoting some of the boilerplate buried deep into the standard issue plea petition:

[A] person who participates in a crime by intentionally aiding, advising, counseling and conspiring with another person or persons to commit a crime is just as guilty of that crime as the person or persons who are present and participating in the crime when it is actually committed.