Car Accident Liability: What if I’m Partially At Fault?

This video features Claude Wyle, a Personal Injury attorney based in California.

Attorney Claude Wyle | 888-981-0826 | Free Consult

If you’re involved in a traffic collision in California, how does car accident liability work? Can you still file a lawsuit if you were partially responsible for the wreck? What does the term “comparative negligence” refer to?

Claude Wyle is an injury attorney and partner at Choulos Choulos & Wyle based in San Francisco, CA. He has nearly 40 years of experience. In this Quick Question, he explains that under California law, a negligent party is responsible for all the harm they cause. If the victim is partially at fault, the eventual compensation amount could be reduced, but they can still seek justice.

To learn more, contact the attorney directly by calling 888-981-0826 or by submitting a contact form on this page. The consultation is free and confidential, and you owe no out-of-pocket attorney fees.

California works on a fault-based system.

This means the person decided to be at fault for a car accident is responsible for any damages which occurred as a result of that accident. These damages could include medical bills, lost wages, rehabilitative therapy, as well as non-economic damages such as pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and more. Regardless of whether the person at fault acted through negligence or intention, they will be held accountable.

However, in some cases, it is possible for multiple parties to be partially at fault. In these situations, it is possible for the person less at fault to receive compensation as long as their percentage of fault is decided to be less than 50%. The party responsible for deciding this percentage is the jury. After being presented with evidence regarding the accident and how it occurred, a jury of 12 randomly selected people will decide which party is more or less at fault.

California is a comparative negligence state.

Like many states, California is a comparative negligence state, which means that even if you are partially at fault you could still receive compensation, albeit reduced by the same degree that you are considered to be at fault. While attorneys have access to experts that can help you assess the potential percentage you could be decided to be at fault for, it is ultimately up to a jury to decide on this figure.

This is why it’s especially important to contact an attorney after a car accident if you think you might have been partially at fault. An experienced car accident attorney can address the jury on your behalf and present evidence to give you the best chance at a fair decision by a jury of your peers. If seeking help from an attorney seems out of reach, it may help to note that the majority of attorneys who handle these cases work on contingency, which means you won’t be required to pay for their services unless and until they win your case.

To learn more, contact Claude Wyle directly by calling 888-981-0826 or by submitting a contact form on this page. The consultation is free and confidential, and you owe no out-of-pocket attorney fees.

Video Transcript:

Rob Rosenthal:

Here's another Quick Question from AskTheLawyers.com. Do you know how accident fault works in California? We ask San Francisco attorney Claude Wyle.

Claude Wyle:

Well, California has a purely fault-based system, meaning the person who does something wrong, who does something negligently or sometimes intentionally, is made accountable for all the damage that they cause, all the losses that they cause, all the pain and suffering, and it is a pure fault-based system. Even if an accident or a collision is your own fault partially, a jury assesses how much is the injured party's fault and reduces the amount of the case value by that percentage. So it's a pure fault-based system. We have comparative negligence, but we call it pure comparative because it's actually the fairest system we have. In many states, they have a system where if the person who's injured is at fault at all, they can get zero. That's terribly unfair. California has the best system in the country, and we know exactly how to make these calculations, but I gotta tell you, it's up to a jury at the end of the day, just like the amount of damages.

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