My State Has A Comparative Negligence Law. How Does That Work? Who Decides How Much I Was At Fault?

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

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UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021Fact Checked

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Jeffrey Johnson

Insurance Lawyer

Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

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UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

Advertiser Disclosure

It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021

Advertiser Disclosure

It’s all about you. We want to help you make the right legal decisions.

We strive to help you make confident insurance and legal decisions. Finding trusted and reliable insurance quotes and legal advice should be easy. This doesn’t influence our content. Our opinions are our own.

UPDATED: Jul 16, 2021Fact Checked

The fault for an accident is not always placed squarely on one participant; one party is not necessarily held totally at fault and the other totally blameless. After determining the percentage of fault by each party, the compensation by the insurance company is adjusted accordingly.

Allocation of fault is made by negotiation between the insurance company and the claimant. There are state-by-state variations in how comparative negligence works, but the two main versions are:

1. Pure Comparative Negligence (or the 100% Type), where the claimant can collect for damages up to the amount of their damages minus the percentage of the damage that was their fault (for example, if the damage was $10,000 and the claimant was 20% at fault they would get $10,000-$2,000 or $8,000)

2. The more widely used Modified Comparative Negligence (or the 50% Type or 49% Type), which allows the claimant to collect from the other party’s insurance carrier only if he or she is determined to be at fault less than a certain percentage (usually 50% or 49%).

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Jeffrey Johnson

Insurance Lawyer

Jeffrey Johnson is a legal writer with a focus on personal injury. He has worked on personal injury and sovereign immunity litigation in addition to experience in family, estate, and criminal law. He earned a J.D. from the University of Baltimore and has worked in legal offices and non-profits in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina. He has also earned an MFA in screenwriting from Chapman Univer...

Insurance Lawyer

Editorial Guidelines: We are a free online resource for anyone interested in learning more about legal topics and insurance. Our goal is to be an objective, third-party resource for everything legal and insurance related. We update our site regularly, and all content is reviewed by experts.

Free Insurance Quote Comparison

Enter your ZIP code below to compare cheap insurance rates.

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