Everybody was lawyered-up long before hour #3. And joint-and-several has been around for a long, long time; if it's due to a proposition, that was a long time ago. It's why every road accident lawsuit includes, even for a tiny fraction of the blame, the city, county, or Caltrans - when (not if) the true at-fault party can't pay the judgment, the government has to pay it all (the deep pocket).

So far, this apparently is being treated as a warranty claim against the contractor. At least that's what it looks like from reading between the lines in the various SFGate articles. If that continues, the contractor will pay up front. That obviously will become a change order claim. Nothing in this world is free.

On a side note, a story I saw several weeks ago says that the TBT project agreed long ago to pay the legal fees for both sides, back at the beginning, for anything related to TBT and Millennium Tower - not just damage, nuisance or anything else. So the bills are coming in and there's no way to avoid them (many million$ are likely over time). That's even without the tilt-and-sink which may or may not be due to TBT but as with joint-and-several in general all they need is a tiny contribution proved in court by a preponderance of evidence (civil, not criminal case) and TBT will have to pay for the skyscraper demo and rebuilding (which is coming, we all know it).