Personal Injury Lawyer

It’s been about two weeks since you’ve been involved in an accident and now the insurance companies are saying that you are partially at fault for the accident. How is it determined when you are at partial fault? Are you able to even receive compensation for your medical bills? Contact a car wreck lawyer, like a car wreck lawyer in Arlington, TX, if you need representation. 

Liability

Determining by law who was the negligent party in the accident and responsible for the damage is important. The individual who caused the accident is often responsible. All insurance companies that represent parties in an accident should be made aware of the accident and from there will help to gather information for investigating liability.

How is liability determined if you were deemed partially at fault for the accident?

If one person was more careless than another, then the majority of fault would lie on them. This does not mean that the person who was maybe to a lesser degree liable but still injured, will get full compensation for all medical bills. This will just be broken up into a percentage of what each negligent person is responsible for. If a person is in an accident at work and the accident is caused by a negligent party, the employer would be the liable party. What if the injured party was in a location that they were not supposed to be at? The individual who is at fault may not be liable for the accident since the injured party was in a place that was not authorized for them to be there. Did the defendant owe the plaintiff duty to care and fail to do so? The injured party would not be held at fault. 

Comparative Negligence

This is a law that was put into place to help determine the responsibilities for damages that occurred by every negligent person in the accident. This means that more than one person was at fault and the parties who are at fault will need to come to an agreement amongst themselves to compensate the non-negligent parties.

Depending on where you live, you may be able to recover damages for any amount of liability in an accident. In a lot of states there are restrictions that will not allow you to recover if you are over fifty percent liable for the accident, and even more strict states only allow compensation if you are only deemed “slightly” at fault for the accident. If a partially at fault person has $10,000 in damages but was found 50% at fault, he or she would only get a 50% recovery in the damages equalling $5,000.

There is no linear way to come to an agreement on comparative negligence. This will be determined through conversations with an attorney or through an insurance company and any investigative measures that are taken to gather more information. 

Thanks to Brandy Austin Law Firm, PLLC for their insight into what comparative negligence is and how liability is determined in an accident.