Fault identifies the person that is to blame for a given accident. Sometimes more than one person appears to be at fault.
Why does the legal system require determination of the person at fault?
Someone that has filed a personal injury claim hopes to get compensated for his or her losses. The person that has been found at fault is the one that must pay the compensation, as per Injury Lawyer in Cambridge.
How could fault be shared?
Some action by the plaintiff contributes to creation of the accident or the injury caused by the same accident. The most typical example is the occupant of a car that has failed to put on a seat belt, before that same car becomes involved in a collision.
What does it mean if shared fault gets based on the principle of contributory negligence?
That principle states that if you have contributed in any way to creation of an injury, then you cannot hold someone else responsible for that same injury. Not many states practice the policy of contributory negligence.
What does it mean if shared fault has been based on the principle of comparative negligence?
According to that principle, a faultfinder, normally a judge or jury determines what percentage of fault should be assigned to each of the responsible parties. That could be the defendant and the plaintiff. In that case, the percent of the compensation that the court would award to the plaintiff would depend on the percent of fault that was attributed to the same plaintiff.
There are 2 types of comparative negligence: pure and modified. In instances of the pure type, the plaintiff always gets some level of compensation, regardless of how greatly the same plaintiff contributed to creation of the accident-caused injury. Hence, even plaintiffs that contributed 80% of the reasons for the injury’s creation could receive some compensation.
The legal system created the modified comparative negligence, when it did not feel right about awarding a plaintiff such a small amount of money. In the modified system, any plaintiff must be less than 50% responsible for a given injury, in order for the court to award the same plaintiff/victim a fair compensation.
Sometimes, when someone with a pre-existing condition gets injured in an accident, the insurance company claims that the victim should have been wearing some type of protective device. The insurance company makes that claim in hopes of having a reason for offering a lower amount, during pre-settlement negotiations.
Ideally, the plaintiff’s attorney has obtained access to a medical expert. Such an expert should be able to substantiate or refute the insurance company’s claim. Sometimes, that claim suggests that the plaintiff should have been using some type of device that is not even marketed.
