Road accidents happen most of the time. It may be prevented but as long as mistakes happen, which always do, accidents like a car collision or an auto crash cannot be totally wiped out.
Auto crashes usually result from one or more mistakes made by someone, either intentionally or unintentionally. Whether he/she is aware or unaware that he/she was at fault, still that persons negligence caused the crash and the one responsible for the damages.
There are some circumstances where an accident was caused by both parties and liability is not clear, there exists shared fault. To determine the responsibility of every party directly involved in the accident based on their negligence, Contributory Negligence or Comparative Negligence is applied depending on the state.
Pure Contributory Negligence
Contributory negligence is a rule that states that injured parties cannot recover any damages if the injuries was caused in part by his/her own negligence and that his/her negligence contributed to the accident. Even if the victim is just 1% at fault, he/she will not be entitled to receive any compensation from the one who apparently caused the crash.
For instance, John was driving recklessly at a dangerous speed and then hits Jane's car from behind that resulted in an injury. But because one of Jane's tail lights is broken, the court decided that she contributed to the accident, about 5% at fault so even though she suffers a broken leg, she cannot receive any money for the damages if she is residing in a state where contributory negligence is applied.
Comparative Negligence
There are three variations of comparative negligence, the pure comparative fault, the proportional comparative fault at 50%, and the proportional comparative fault at 51%.
Pure Comparative Fault
In pure comparative fault, damages are measured by the percentage of one's fault. If an injured victim is partly at fault for an auto crash that resulted in his/her injuries, the damages are reduced by the measurement of his/her fault. An example of this is if a victim is injured and he was 70% responsible, the cost of his injury will be less 70% and he will only receive 30% of the amount of injury.
States that apply pure comparative fault:
California
Louisiana
New York
Washington
Alaska
Kentucky
Arizona
Mississippi
South Dakota
New Mexico
Florida
Missouri
Rhode Island
Proportional Comparative Fault at 50%
Proportional comparative fault at 50% states that an individual who gets injured and he/she is partially responsible for the accident, if he/she is less than 50% at fault, then that someone is entitled to receive compensation for the damages, but if the injured individual is 50% or more at fault, he/she cannot recover any damages.
If an incident where both parties are equally responsible (both are 50% at fault) for the crash, neither one of them will be entitled to recover damages.
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