Accidents happen every day. Some of those accidents are caused by our own fault. We might not be paying attention when we step out of the bathroom shower and slip on a wet floor or cut our fingers when slicing a bagel in the kitchen.
Those injuries can be chalked up to be momentarily careless.
However, another category of accidents is caused by someone else’s negligence. That moves you into personal injury territory, where things get complicated.
Suppose you get into a car accident caused by another driver or slip on a grocery store floor because of a broken tile. When those types of accidents cause you to pay for medical care and lose work, you should not have to make up for those losses. Those should be paid by the at-fault party.
But what if the at-fault party doesn’t accept responsibility or thinks you’re partially to blame?
That’s when the concept of comparative negligence comes into play.
When comparative negligence is a consideration in a personal injury claim, you will need the support of an experienced law firm like Forbes Law Offices to ensure that your needs are being met and you’re being properly compensated for any losses.
What Is Comparative Negligence?
Comparative negligence is not just a theory but enshrined in West Virginia law. Here, it is referred to as comparative fault. The law describes the comparative fault as “the degree to which the fault of a person was a proximate cause of an alleged personal injury or death or damage to property, expressed as a percentage.”
Another way to look at this is “shared blame.” Comparative negligence or comparative fault allows for fairer compensation based on the totality of circumstances around an accident.
This is different from the concept of contributory negligence, where any amount of fault is all that is needed to be awarded compensation.
How Comparative Negligence Works
When comparative negligence is applied to an accident case, a percentage of fault is assigned to each party. That percentage amount will directly impact the amount of compensation you can receive.
For example, if a court finds that you were responsible for 20% of the accident, you can only recover 80% of the total damages.
The only way to establish fault is through evidence. That evidence can include police reports, witness statements, surveillance videos, accident photos, and expert testimony. If there is a question about who is at fault, it will inform your personal injury attorney’s strategy.
Mandatory Insurance Requirements
Like most other states, West Virginia requires every driver to carry a minimum liability auto insurance. The Division of Motor Vehicles has set the following requirements:
- $25,000 for one crash, one injury
- $50,000 for one crash, two or more injuries
- $25,000 for property damage
How do the insurance requirements play into comparative negligence?
If you get into an accident caused by another driver’s actions, the amount of your claim can only be within the limits of their insurance coverage. For instance, if your medical bills total $50,000 but the at-fault driver only carries the minimum coverage, you could be stuck with a $25,000 bill.
The only option would be to take the driver to court and file a civil lawsuit for the remaining balance.
Filing a Personal Injury Lawsuit
If you file a civil complaint, the same attorney who helped you with your initial insurance claim filing will pivot to litigation. In court, your attorney will present the same evidence that was presented to the insurance company.
If the evidence clearly proves who is at fault, you should prevail in your court case.
On the other hand, if there is a dispute, you and your lawyer must prove to the jury by a preponderance of the evidence that your version of the accident is correct.
If you do move into a civil complaint, you will have two years from the date of the accident to file. That is the statute of limitations in West Virginia for how long you get to file, but that only applies to the actual civil lawsuit. You’ll need to go through the insurance claim process first.
In other words, you need to be denied or face resistance to a fair offer before you can sue for what you deserve.
The attorneys working at Forbes Law Offices have decades of combined experience helping clients claim filing and litigation. When we agree to take on a case, we bring our office’s full resources to support our client. That support begins at the first free initial consultation.
You don’t have to accept blame for a car accident that wasn’t your fault.
We can help with that.
