Short answer. Whatever the court determines. Article 109 says that if there are two or more persons civilly liable for a felony, the courts shall fix the amount for which each must respond. There is no automatic equal division, and no fixed formula in the article itself.
What the law says
If there are two or more persons civilly liable for a felony, the courts shall determine the amount for which each must respond.
Revised Penal Code, Article 109 — Apportioning Civil Liability. Read the full provision →
The article gives the task to the court, not a formula
Article 109 is a single sentence: if there are two or more persons civilly liable for a felony, the courts shall determine the amount for which each must respond. What is striking is what it leaves out. It does not divide the sum by the number of the accused, it does not tie each share to the sentence each received, and it does not rank them by any scheme set out in this provision. It commits the apportionment to judicial determination, which is a deliberate choice: shares are settled case by case, on the facts.
Why a share does not follow automatically from the conviction
People convicted together are often not equally involved, and the sums at stake do not always attach to all of them in the same way. Because the article speaks of the amount for which each must respond, the court is directed to the individual rather than to the group total, and different participants can end up carrying different figures. That is also why a co-accused cannot safely assume, from a co-defendant's outcome, what his own exposure will be. The determination is made in the judgment, and it is the judgment that answers the question.
Apportionment is not the same as collectibility
The share a court fixes tells you what a person must respond for; it is a separate question how the injured party actually recovers where one of those liable cannot pay. The Code deals with that elsewhere, and Article 109 should not be read as settling it. This distinction is worth holding on to, because it is where expectations most often go wrong — a figure written against one name in a judgment is not necessarily the whole of anyone's practical position, in either direction.
What to read in the decision itself
Go to the dispositive portion. That is where the amounts are stated and where the court's apportionment, if it made one, will appear against each name. If your copy of the decision does not break the sum down, that omission is itself significant and worth raising with counsel promptly rather than after the judgment has settled. Bring the full decision, not an excerpt or a summary — the reasoning above the disposition frequently explains why the shares fell as they did.
Related provisions
- Revised Penal Code, Article 109 — Apportioning Civil Liability
- Revised Penal Code, Article 100 — Criminal Liability Means Civil Liability