comparitive negligence – Kelly, West, & Murphy

Tag: comparitive negligence

How Do You Know if Negligence is to Blame for Your Accident?

Written by kwmlaw on June 15, 2023. Posted in Kelly & West News.

Accidents happen and are sometimes unavoidable. Although, maybe you have been involved in an accident and are confident that another person caused it to happen. You did everything right, yet you are burdened with the consequences of financial and/ or physical damages. It is essential to know what signs to look for when you suspect negligence was the cause of your accident.

What is Negligence?
Negligence is conduct that falls below standards established by the law that results in risk or harm to others. To put it simply, it mostly consists of carelessness. Negligence can be committed by carelessness or non-performance of duties. There are many different kinds of negligence.
Negligence can be seen in automobile accidents, during lack of concern for hazards on a property, in medical settings, and in the workplace. Some causes include texting and driving, reckless driving, medical personnel administering the wrong medication or treatment, and ignored hazards in a public space or the workplace.

Contributory Vs. Comparative Negligence
Two terms you might hear are contributory and comparative negligence. Contributory negligence only remains recognized for personal injury law in four states, with North Carolina being one of them. It prevents a person from recovering any money in a personal injury lawsuit if they had any fault in the accident, even 1%. Comparative negligence allows the fault to be distributed to both parties. For example, if the person injured was 25% at fault, they could receive 75% of the damages. Read more in our post explaining the two.

5 Examples of an Accident Due to Someone Else’s Negligence

There is a broken staircase on a property you are visiting. The property owner has known about this hazard, and there have been reports filed about it. Nothing has been done to address it, you have not been warned about the danger, and you injure yourself while walking up the staircase.
A person is not paying attention to the road while texting and driving. The distraction causes the person to hit your car, injuring you and/or your passenger(s).
You are driving through a green light, and another driver runs a red light at a busy intersection, causing a collision. You and/or your passengers are injured from the collision.
You are shopping at the local grocery store. A jar has shattered and spilled, and the mess has been there for 30 minutes with no “wet floor” sign in sight. You slip and fall and injure yourself on the glass.
A person takes their dog to a public park, even though they are aware the dog is aggressive and has bitten before. While at the park, the owner lets the dog get close to you and the dog attacks, causing injury.

Signs Your Accident was Caused by Negligence
You might notice a trend in these examples; someone did not do something that a regular person would consider typical behavior. For example, someone didn’t put out a sign to warn people about the wet floor at the grocery store. Look for the following:

Signs/cautions about the danger.
Previous complaints filed about the danger.
Previous citations given regarding similar or identical acts.
Ignored claims of broken or damaged property.

Negligence can sometimes be difficult to determine, so it is always important to consult a lawyer. If you are unsure if your accident was caused by negligence, contact us for a free consultation from one of our caring attorneys.

Car Accident: What is Contributory vs. Comparative Negligence?

Written by kwmlaw on July 30, 2019. Posted in Areas of Experience, Kelly & West News.

If you get into a car accident, you, of course, want to make sure the at-fault driver’s insurance pays for damage and medical bills. At the outset of your case, you may hear about contributory negligence versus comparative negligence. What do those terms mean, and why does it matter in your case?

First, negligence itself refers to who is at fault. Sometimes, figuring out who is at fault is not easy. For example, let’s say a person while visiting a store, slips and falls on something dark spilled on a white tile floor in the store. The person did not see the spill, but if she had looked, she could have seen it as it was clearly visible. Who is at fault? Most of us would assume that the store is more at fault in causing the accident as they should have cleaned up the spill so that any guests visiting the store would not slip. But an argument could also be made that the person could have seen it had she looked since it was clearly visible.

If you are involved in a negligence claim, you will want to get a better understanding of the differences between contributory and comparative negligence.

Contributory Negligence

North Carolina is one of four states (and the District of Columbia) that still recognize contributory negligence in personal injury law. This law prevents a person from recovering money in a personal injury lawsuit if he or she had even the slightest bit of responsibility for his or her injuries.

So, in our slip and fall example above, while the store might clearly be negligent for not properly cleaning up the spill, it is likely that the person who fell is also at least 1% at fault — she could have seen the spill had she looked, and she had a duty to look at where she was going. Thus, in N.C., the person who fell in the store is likely to recover nothing in N.C.

This is not so in other states.

Comparative Negligence

Comparative negligence allows the fault to be distributed between both parties — depending on who is more or less responsible for the injury. However, there are different versions of comparative negligence. Some states have “pure comparative negligence.” This means that if the plaintiff (the person who was injured) was found to be at fault by some percentage, say 25% for example, then the plaintiff would only recover 75% of his or her damages (100% less the 25% for the plaintiff’s fault).

So, in our slip and fall example in a state that practices pure comparative negligence, if the person who fell is awarded $10,000 in damages but is determined to be 25% at fault, then that person would recover $7,500 or 75% of her damages.

More commonly, states use “modified comparative negligence,” which means that the plaintiff will only recover if he or she is not more than 50% at fault.

So, in our slip and fall example, if it is determined that the person who fell is 25% at fault, that person would recover 75% of her damages, same as above. However, if the person is determined to be 51% at fault for some reason, say maybe she was running in flip flops after an employee had alerted her of the spill, then in a state that practices modified comparative negligence, that person would recover nothing because she is more than 50% at fault.

What This Means in North Carolina

Your North Carolina case may be affected by contributory negligence, as North Carolina law does not allow for comparative negligence. This means you may not recover anything if you are even just 1% at fault in North Carolina. In most personal injury cases, it’s best to contact an attorney who can help you sort out your approach before you talk with anyone about how the accident occurred.