Can I Still Get Compensation For My Injuries If The Accident Was Partially My Fault?

Your first thought after an accident that you are partly responsible for would be that the accident is a wash and that you cannot get compensation for your injuries through a personal injury attorney. You would be wrong and even in accidents where you are partly to blame, you should seek the vital help of a at fault personal injury attorney afterwards.

Most lawyers tell you that “yes” you can still obtain compensation, even if the accident is partly your fault, depending on how much you are to blame. If the accident is less than 50 percent your fault, personal injury attorney will explain you that your salvation lies in a term called “Comparative Negligence.”

Comparative Negligence
Comparative Negligence is a doctrine where after hearing the case  a jury is given the task of deciding how much each party is to blame and dishes out a percentage of that blame to each party involved in the accident.

As long as the jury believes you are only 50 percent or less at fault for the accident, you can still recover damages if you decide to take your injury cast to trial. Your legal counsel will have to convice the jury that you are only partly at fault for the accident in order for the jury to rule in your favor.

Once your lawyer has pleaded your case and the jury has made its decision, your compensation will be reduced by the percentage or weight of your so-called blame.

For example, if Driver A was hit by Driver B, who ran a red light, you would think that any injuries suffered by Driver A would be 100 percent compensated. But what if Driver A hurt his neck and was not wearing a seatbelt? The jury in that personal injury lawsuit might award 10 percent blame to Driver A. This means, if an accident lawyer was able to get damages and injuries of $100,000, Driver A would recover $90,000 after taking off the 10 percent blame.

Types of Comparative Negligence
There are usually three types of Comparative Negligence they include:

• Pure comparative negligence
• 51 percent modified rule
• 50 percent modified rule

With pure comparative negligence, 13 states follow this doctrine. These states include Florida, New York, California and 10 others.

With the pure form, a judge or jury hears the case from both sides , dishes out a percentage of blame to each party in the accident and then the compensation is given out based on that percentage.  In fact, you can be up to 99 percent to blame under this form and still obtain a small compensation if you hire an attorney.

Now, the rest of the states follow the modified forms. The modified forms are the same as the pure forms of comparative negligence, but there is a cap for where you can recover damages under the two modified forms.

Under the 50 percent rule, you can obtain compensation for your injuries if your fault or blame is deemed by a jury of your peers to be 49 percent or less.

Under the 51 percent rule, you can obtain compensation for your injuries  if your fault or blame is deemed by a jury of your peers to be less that 51 percent.

Case Examples
A man driving an Audi in New York was making a right-hand turn and was hit by a speeding BMW that was in the right lane and going 18 mph over the speed limit. The driver of the BMW noticed that the Audi driver did not use his signal and claimed he thought the man was going to go straight and not turning right. The police officer at the scene deemed that both drivers were partly at fault. The officer deemed that the speeding driver was 80 percent at fault and said he “felt bad” for giving 20 percent negligence to the driver of the Audi.

The driver of the Audi hired an experienced attorney to argue his case in court he may have avoided the $50,000 he sued for. His lawyer was able to get the jury to dish out 90 percent negligence to the other driver. He recovered $45,000 for the accident!