Understanding Comparative Negligence and Personal Injury Cases
Personal Injury Cases with Shared Fault
Today we’re going to talk about a common thread through most attorney advertising that you see on TV. How many times have you heard words to this effect? If you’re in an accident or you get hurt and it’s not your fault. Well, I want to talk about that because that raises a notion we call comparative negligence.
With comparative negligence, we’re going to talk about a scale and we’ll learn what it is together. I’m Oklahoma personal injury lawyer Mike Ashworth. I’ve done a lot of things in my career, but that’s what I’m doing currently. That’s my focus. That’s where competitive negligence comes up.
Understanding Comparative Negligence
Comparative negligence is that, okay, there’s a car, unit one we’ll call it. That’s what it is in the accident report, unit one. Unit one turns abruptly in front of unit two, which is moving forward. Now unit two panics and tries to hit the brake, but instead of hitting the brake, hits the accelerator, striking the car that cut in front of it and failed to yield.
So unit one failed to yield or leave a path of passage to unit two, but unit two makes a mistake, hits the accelerator instead, and accelerates and hits. Now, both cars have some fault. Unit one’s at fault for failing to yield because they suddenly cut improperly in front of a moving vehicle. Unit two may have had time to stop, we don’t know, but hits the accelerator. Now what happens in that case?
Assessing Fault and Recovering Damages
In that case, a judge or jury gets to do comparative negligence. And it can be that they may say, you know what, we think unit one was 60% at fault. We think unit two, who panicked, is 40% at fault. Do you recover damages in Oklahoma for that? Yeah, the answer’s yes. Even though you’re partially at fault, you can sue and recover damages if, if the degree of your fault, if the degree of your contributory negligence, the negligence you contribute that you’re comparing to the other person’s negligence, if it is 50% or more on your part, you lose.
But if their negligence is more than 50%, you get money. It won’t be much because it’s going to reduce the amount of the verdict. But just because you may have been at fault, I wasn’t paying attention, I looked down at my drink or my phone rang and I picked it up to see who it was. Just because you did that does not mean you do not recover.
Get the Right Legal Representation
But the degree of your negligence must be less than the other person’s degree of negligence. And that works with other numbers. It could be unit one, unit two, unit three. And we get a domino hit, boom, boom, boom. All three of those vehicles could be assessed to determine their degree of negligence in contributing it. And the rule is the same.
If you have a question and you think maybe I was a little bit at fault or she said that I wasn’t paying attention or something like that, when you talk to your lawyer, make sure you tell them that. Reach out to me. I’m Mike Ashworth, a Tulsa car accident attorney. TulsaPersonalInjuryLawyer.pro is where to find me. Call me at 918-924-5528. We’ll get you squared away.
