State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance v. Continental Casualty Co.

This appeal presents the question of whether the release executed in this instance by the injured party to one of two joint tort-feasors and the latter’s insurance carrier, precludes the insurance carrier of the second joint tortfeasor, who later had made a reasonable settlement with the injured person, from recovering contribution from the insurance carrier of the first joint tort-feasor.

Although the conception of the common law in most jurisdictions is to the contrary, the right to contribution between tort-feasors in Wisconsin, as in. a few other states, has been recognized as a common-law…