How Will Comparative Negligence Impact Car Accident Cases? A Car Accident Lawyer Manhattan Elaborates

When a car accident occurs in the streets of New York, any auto accident lawyer in New York would attest that determining fault isn’t always clear-cut, especially when the fault for the accident is shared among the parties involved. Such are the occasions where New York’s comparative negligence rules come into play. In this post, the team at the Law Office of Eli Schmulik will be elaborating on New York’s comparative negligence rule, explaining how it works and how it affects your settlement.

Compensation for car accidents in New York

When you’ve been injured in a car accident in New York, the first step that needs to be taken to receive compensation is filing a claim with your insurance company. Since New York is a no-fault insurance state, your insurance provider must cover any medical expenses, lost wages, and other related expenses that were the result of the car accident as part of your personal injury protection insurance (also known as ‘no-fault’ insurance). Under no-fault insurance, you will receive compensation, regardless of the extent of your fault in the accident.

What is comparative negligence? 

When you go into negotiations for your car accident settlement, you are most likely going to hear the opposing side’s lawyer bring up comparative negligence as a way to justify the reduction in your compensation, but what exactly is comparative negligence? 

Comparative negligence is a legal doctrine that allows the fault of the accident to be dispersed among the parties involved. Instead of holding one party accountable for everything that transpired, the doctrine allows courts and juries to take any incident in its entirety and assign a percentage of the blame. 

There are two types of comparative negligence law that have been adopted in the US—pure comparative negligence and modified comparative negligence. Under pure comparative negligence, you are able to claim compensation for an accident so long as you are not deemed fully responsible. In essence, even if an investigation finds you are 99% responsible for the accident, you can claim compensation for the final 1%. 

On the other hand, under modified comparative negligence, you are only entitled to claim compensation in an accident if you have less than 50% of the blame. Therefore, if an investigation finds that you are 51% responsible for the accident, you will not be able to claim compensation.

How Does Comparative Negligence Affect Your Car Accident Compensation? 

How comparative negligence may apply to a car accident is best described with the use of an example. Suppose A is at a four-way intersection and B is approaching the intersection at high speed. B sees that the traffic light is about to turn red, yet continues to speed. At the same time, A has also started to drive forward before the traffic light at his side has turned green; both collide in the middle.

In this scenario, we assume that both A and B are insured drivers. Therefore, both of them will be able to claim compensation under no-fault insurance. But the question is, how much? The investigation will find that both parties are at fault for the incident, and their compensation may be reduced based on the fault percentage assigned to them in the investigation. 

Therefore, if A and B are each claiming $100,000 in damages and the investigation attributes 40% and 60% of the fault to A & B, respectively, the compensation that they are entitled to will be reduced by the fault percentage. In the end, A will only be entitled to claim $60,000 and B only $40,000.

A sure fire way to avoid the opposing party for overly reducing your compensation while hiding behind comparative negligence is to get representation from an experienced auto accident attorney in New York.

Conclusion    

The concept of comparative negligence will no doubt rear its head as you discuss compensation for your car accident injuries, and knowing what it is and how it may impact your case is crucial to ensure justice and secure fair compensation. When dealing with cases where comparative negligence may have a significant impact on the outcome, it is always important to get legal insights that only an experienced auto accident lawyer can provide. 

If you’re on the lookout for such a lawyer to take up your case, schedule a free consultation with the Law Office of Eli Schmulik. We’ve been helping injured New Yorkers with their recoveries for many years, and we would love to do the same for you as well.