The mind rolls back to the words of the Bard in The Merchant of Venice:

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That in the course of justice, none of us

Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy,

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render

The needs of mercy.¹

Finally, the United States has officially come around to the view that joint and several liability does not apply in some Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) §107 ² cases, even though the harm at the site is indivisible. The government adopts this view in its recent brief in Mola Development Corp. v. United States in a December 1985 pleading styled, "Response to the Court's Order for Briefing on the United States Counterclaim."³