He probably can't. Assuming the amount stands on appeal, and assuming that he doesn't have an insurance policy with policy limits high enough to cover it, he'll pay as much as he can out of personal assets and probably have his wages garnished.

He might also be able to declare bankruptcy to get out of some or all of it.

An interesting question is what the plaintiffs can do if they just cannot get anywhere near the amount owed from him.

A handful of states have "joint and several liability" for most torts. If this had been in one of those states the way damages work when there are multiple defendants is:

• Each defendant is fully responsible for all damages

• The plaintiff can not collect more than the total damage award

In such a state the plaintiffs could simply ask Tesla for the entire $329 million and Tesla would have to pay. Tesla would then have a claim for $220 million against McGee.

Of course McGee probably can't come up with that, so McGee still ends up in bankruptcy, but instead of plaintiffs being shortchanged by $220 million it would be Tesla getting shortchanged.

The idea behind joint and several liability is that in situations like there where someone has to be screwed it shouldn't be the innocent plaintiff.

Many other states have "modified joint and several liability". In those states rather than each defendant being fully responsible, only defendants whose share of the fault exceeds some threshold (often 50%) are fully responsible.

For example suppose there are three plaintiffs whose fault shares are 60%, 30%, and 10%. In a pure joint and several liability state plaintiff could collect from whichever are most able to come up with the money. If that's the 10% one they could demand 100% from them and leave it to that defendant to try to get reimbursed from the others.

In a modified joint and several liability state with a 50% threshold the most the plaintiff can ask from the 30% and 10% defendants is 30% and 10% respectively. They could ask the 60% defendant for 100% instead. If the 60% defendant is the deep pockets defendant that works out fine for the plaintiff, but if it is the 10% one and the other two are poor then the plaintiff is the one that gets screwed.

Finally there are some states that have gotten rid of joint and several liability, including Florida in 2006. In those states plaintiff can only collect from each defendant bases on their share of fault. Tesla pays their 33%, McGee pays whatever tiny amount he can, and the plaintiff is screwed.