What Happens If The Crash Was Partly My Fault?
In a modified comparative negligence state you can still recover when you were partly at fault, as long as your share is not greater than the other side's. At 51 percent you recover nothing. At 30 percent, what you recover is reduced by 30 percent.
What modified comparative negligence means
A typical state's rule is one sentence of the state code. In an action brought to recover damages for negligence resulting in death or injury to person or property, the fact that the plaintiff may have been guilty of contributory negligence does not bar a recovery where that negligence was not greater than the causal negligence of the defendant or defendants against whom recovery is sought, and any damages the plaintiff sustained are diminished in proportion to the amount of negligence attributed to the plaintiff. Two things follow. Being partly to blame does not end the claim, and the share of blame put on you comes off the end of it.
Where the 51 percent line comes from
The statute never prints the number. It says your negligence must not be greater than the other side's, and greater than is the whole of the test. A share of 50 percent is not greater than the other 50, so the claim stands and what is recovered is cut in half. A share of 51 percent is greater, so the bar comes down and nothing is recovered at all. That is the line people mean by the 51 percent rule, and a single point either side of it decides whether there is a claim at all.
One detail changes the arithmetic when more than one person is being sued. The comparison is to the causal negligence of the defendants against whom recovery is sought, taken together, not to each of them one at a time. Somebody who is 40 percent at fault is not barred by the fact that no single defendant is more than 30 percent to blame.
Who decides your share
Not the other driver, not the adjuster on the phone, and not the officer who filled in the report. The statute gives apportionment to the trier of fact, which is the jury, or the judge where a case is heard without one. It goes further than that: where somebody has settled with you and left the case, the question of that person's liability can still be put to the trier of fact for the purpose of apportionment, on the requests and proofs the parties bring. A percentage in a letter is a position, not a finding.
Does anything you said at the scene settle it
No. Nothing in the section gives a roadside remark any weight of its own, because apportionment is made on the evidence in the case and at the end of it. What an apology does is hand the other side a sentence to quote back, which is the practical argument for describing what happened, saying plainly which parts you are not sure about, and stopping there.
How the reduction is worked out
- At 0 percent to you, there is nothing to take off
- At 30 percent, the damages are diminished by 30 percent and the rest stands
- At 50 percent, the claim survives, because 50 is not greater than the other side's 50
- At 51 percent, the bar applies and the claim recovers nothing
- Where liability is attributed to more than one defendant, each is liable for its own apportioned proportion
- A defendant held liable for not less than 60 percent of the total is liable for all of it, and recovers contribution from the rest afterwards
So the honest answer to the question at the top is that being partly at fault changes the size of a claim rather than its existence, until your share passes the other side's. Before anyone's percentage is accepted, put the report, the photographs and the witness details somewhere safe, and have somebody read them with you. That reading is free here and it can happen entirely by phone.
- Comparative negligenceWhere the injured person shares the blame, many states reduce the award by that share rather than barring it, up to a limit the state sets.
- Shared fault between defendantsWhere several parties caused an injury, many states split responsibility between them according to each one's share.
- Several liabilityIn many states each defendant pays only its own share of the damages, with exceptions the state writes into the rule.
- Exceptions to several liabilitySome states make a defendant answerable for the whole award in set cases, for example where its share of the fault passes a threshold.
- Contribution between defendantsA defendant that pays more than its share can often recover the difference from the others.
- Nonparties and faultSome states let a jury consider the fault of people who are not in the lawsuit; others do not.
- Comparative negligence, read wholeFault rules are written as a set: how blame is compared, how it reduces an award and how it is shared between several defendants.
Where The Bar Sits.
Your own share of the fault, read from left to right. Anywhere left of the mark the claim still recovers, reduced by that share. At the mark and beyond it, the claim recovers nothing.
At 50 percent, halved
Fifty is not greater than the other side's fifty, so the claim stands and the damages are diminished by half. The same arithmetic runs at 10, at 30 and at 49.
At 51 percent, barred
Fifty one is greater than the other side's forty nine, so the section bars recovery outright. This is the one place in the rule where a single percentage point changes everything.
Which Cases Turn On This?
Any claim where the other side says you had some part in it. These are the three pages people read next.
Harlow County car accident lawyer
Crashes on the roadIntersections, rear ends and the driver who pulled out. Fault is argued in almost every one of them.
Harlow County pedestrian accident lawyer
Hit while walkingA crosswalk, a turn on red, a parking lot. Blame put on the person walking is the usual argument, and this is the rule it runs into.
Questions people ask before they call
The plain answersDeadlines, tort elections, medical bills and what the first call actually involves.
Fault, In Four Questions.
The four that come up on the phone whenever somebody has been told the crash was partly theirs.
Both descriptions point at the same sentence. The statutory test is whether your negligence was greater than the causal negligence of the people you are seeking recovery from. At 50 percent it is not greater, so the claim stands and the damages are diminished by half. At 51 percent it is greater, and the section bars recovery.
No. A percentage in an adjuster's letter is a negotiating position. Under the statute the apportionment is made by the trier of fact, the jury or the judge sitting without one, on the proofs in the case.
The section applies to all actions brought to recover damages for negligence resulting in death or injury to person or property, so it reaches falls, unsafe products and the rest of it, not only road crashes.
The statute allows the question of that person's liability to be put to the trier of fact for the purpose of apportionment, on appropriate requests and proofs by any party, even though they are no longer a party themselves.
