What Is The 51 Percent Rule in Auto Accidents?

The 51 percent rule means that an accident victim can still claim damages unless his or her percentage of fault was greater than 51 percent. If the court finds the plaintiff to be comparatively negligent, monetary damages will be reduced by his or her share of fault.

If you are found to be more than 51 percent responsible for the auto accident, your claim can be denied. If you are 50 percent or less responsible, then you may file a claim and be awarded compensation for the injuries you sustained in the accident.

At the moment 29 states follow the no-fault, pure contributory negligence, modified 50-percent or the pure comparative fault rule. The rest of the states use the 51-percent modified comparative fault rule.

The number 51 has been deliberately chosen as this aim of the modified form of comparative negligence is to prevent a plaintiff from being awarded damages if he or she is more responsible for the auto accident and the injuries sustained than the defendant.

Under the pure contributory negligence standard, he or she would not be eligible to claim any compensation at all. The modified comparative negligence approach takes middle ground between pure comparative and pure contributory negligence.

Because not all states use the 51% modified comparative fault rule, if yours does you have a good chance of filing a successful personal injury claim provided you are less than 50% at fault for the accident.

What Is an Example of Modified Comparative Negligence?

If you file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages, the ruling issued by the judge hearing your case is based on assigning fault to one or more of the parties involved in the case.

Although some cases result in a clear-cut judicial decision that assigns blame to just one party, a majority of personal injury lawsuits end up assigning blame to more than one party.

Because of the prevalence of multiple-party liability cases, many states have established the comparative negligence principle for assigning fault for personal injury cases.

Comparative fault means each party assumes a percentage of the blame for causing a personal injury incident.

For example, let’s assume you file a car accident lawsuit that seeks monetary damages valued at $50,000. The judge rules in your favor, but the legal decision assigns you 20 percent of the blame for causing the car accident.

Perhaps the other party ran a red light that caused the car accident, but at the time, you were reading a text message sent by a professional colleague.

Because you assume 20 percent of the fault for causing the car accident, the $50,000 award for monetary damages decreases to $40,000 to account for the 20 percent of the blame you have to assume for causing the personal injury incident.

Modified comparative negligence also assigns blame to multiple parties. However, if a judge rules you should assume more than 50 percent of the fault for causing a personal injury incident, you no longer qualify to receive monetary damages because you assumed a majority of the blame for causing the accident.

The 51-Percent Modified Comparative Fault Rule

Under the 51-percent modified comparative fault rule, if you are injured in a car accident and you played some part in the cause of that accident, you can seek compensation for your injuries. However, this amount may be reduced by the percentage of liability you hold in the accident.

If you happen to be more than 51 percent responsible for the accident, your claim can be denied. If you are 50 percent or less responsible, then you are open to pursue a claim and receive compensation for your injuries sustained from the accident.

Twenty-nine states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, use the no-fault, pure contributory negligence, modified 50-percent or the pure comparative fault rule.  The others use the 51-percent modified comparative fault rule.

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Need help? Then you should contact the Law Offices of Mission Focus Legal Group at (860) 333-6455. Attorney Anthony can help you navigate thru this process, step by step and is open to assist you.