If you have been involved in a car accident, there are likely a number of factors that played a part in the collision. Whether it was a small fender bender, or a devastating accident, it is important to have the assistance of a skilled and aggressive car accident attorney on your side to walk you through the process. One aspect of a car accident that drivers need to be aware of is the term of "comparative negligence" which essentially means that both drivers involved in the accident are responsible in some way for the accident.

After a traffic accident, a huge aspect of your claim will be proving that although you may have held some responsibility for the crash, the other driver still holds more fault. It depends on what state you live in when dealing with the laws of comparative negligence, though in most cases, the court will require that both parties be required to pay for the damages done in the accident. This is why having an attorney is so important because you may be able to prove that while you weren't paying close enough attention to the road, the other car who ran the stop sign was texting and therefore didn't notice the road signal which gave you the right of way through the intersection.

For an example scenario, Joe and Sally are each driving down the road in their respective vehicles. Sally is getting ready to make a left turn onto the busy street so she carefully creeps out into the intersection in order to check for oncoming traffic. She notices a truck in the far distance and she looks both ways again and decides to makes the turn. Little did she know, Joe was driving at least 30 miles per hour over the speed limit and was playing extremely loud music so he couldn't hear her horn. Joe and Sally's cars collided and Sally broke her arm and her car was completely totaled. Because Joe was driving a large truck he just had some minor damages and a sore neck, though nothing more.

Sally decides that because of her injury, she wants to sue Joe for negligent driving, though Joe's attorney seeks to prove that Sally had a stop sign and therefore did not have the right of way to make the left turn. Who then is at fault? Suppose that these two drivers then go to court, and after great consideration, the jury then decides that Joe holds 70 percent of the responsibility for the collision, and Sally 30 percent. As a result, the court who originally decided that the total worth of the settlement would be a certain amount of money (perhaps $30,000 for total damages and medical expenses), then Sally would likely receive 70% of that amount because of her comparative negligence contributing to the money she can't receive.

There are a few categories of comparative negligence. First off pure contributory negligence (which is used only in a few states) means that if a party is in any way labile for the accident (even one percent) then they cannot collect a payment for damages from the accident. Another category is called pure comparative fault, which means that even in the event a person is still 99 percent responsible for the accident, they may still be able to receive some form of a settlement for the part they were not deemed liable for. About one third of the states in our country fall under this category.

Most states in the U.S. are under the modified comparative fault category which means that if one party is less than 50 percent responsible for the accident, they have the opportunity to receive compensation for the damages. Anything over 51 percent means that the court will not allow them to receive damage payments.

Please contact a trusted car accident attorney today to discuss your current legal situation!