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Every state in the country makes its own laws regarding the apportionment of liability and how it can affect recovery in a lawsuit. No, Oklahoma is not a contributory negligence state. Instead, Oklahoma operates on a modified comparative negligence basis. The law holds that a person who has suffered injuries in an accident may recover compensation prorated to their degree of fault, as long as they are not more to blame than the other parties.
What Is Comparative Negligence?
States that apply contributory negligence bar compensation for accident victims if their negligence at all contributed to the accident. That is different from states like Oklahoma that apply comparative negligence instead.
Comparative negligence is the principle that an injured party who is partially responsible for an accident is nevertheless eligible to recover compensation proportionate to the other party’s degree of liability. For example, if you are in a car accident and a jury deems you to be 10 percent responsible for the collision, you can still recover compensation for 90 percent of your accident-related losses.
In states that follow a pure comparative negligence system, even drivers who bear 99 percent of the responsibility for a collision can theoretically seek compensation for 1 percent of their medical bills, lost wages, property damage, and other accident-related costs.
In contrast, in a modified comparative negligence state like Oklahoma, drivers whose liability exceeds a certain threshold are ineligible to recover compensation. In our state, someone who bears 51 percent or more of the responsibility for a collision cannot recover any financial compensation from others involved in the accident. Only drivers who are 50 percent liable or less may seek money through an insurance claim or a lawsuit.
How Is Comparative Negligence Determined?
Calculating fault is a complex matter. Insurance adjusters, attorneys, judges, and juries consider the available evidence and apportion liability accordingly. Yet insurance adjusters will often attempt to argue that a claimant bears a greater degree of liability than most reasonable people would allocate them. In many cases, insurers do this to push a motorist’s liability to 51 percent or more, thus asserting that their claim is invalid.
In such cases, having an experienced Oklahoma car accident attorney on your side is crucial to pushing back and protecting your rights to recovery. A skilled lawyer will thoroughly investigate the crash to demonstrate why other parties were principally to blame for your losses. Working with the right legal team can make the difference between receiving fair compensation and nothing at all.
How Can Fault Be Proven in an Accident?
Filing an insurance claim or seeking damages in court in a comparative negligence state will require you to prove how and to what degree the other party was at fault for your accident-related injuries. This task can be challenging for anyone without a thorough knowledge of Oklahoma’s personal injury laws. A skilled attorney can seek evidence of fault from the following sources:
- Eyewitnesses – Statements and testimony from those who witnessed an accident are often crucial in determining who was at fault. For example, if multiple parties confirm that the other driver was speeding or ran a red light, insurers and the court will be more inclined to assign them a higher proportion of the blame.
- Experts – Insurance adjusters might argue that the injuries you suffered in an accident could have happened differently from the story you have told. Statements from medical experts and accident reconstructionists can confirm that the available evidence supports your story and that no other version of events could have led to the same consequences.
- Photographs – Taking pictures and videos at the accident scene is often a helpful way of demonstrating what happened in a crash. Drivers often need to move their vehicles after an accident for safety reasons, thus changing the immediate post-collision configuration. Photographic evidence can support your claim by showing the original positions of the cars involved.
- Police reports – You should always summon a police officer to the scene of a crash so they can create an official report of the event. While the information in a police report is not binding, you can use the responding officer’s determination of who was most at fault to bolster your claim.
What If More than Two Parties Are Responsible for the Accident?
Some accidents involve multiple at-fault parties. Under such circumstances, an insurance company or the court will allocate a certain proportion of fault to each person involved. Any injured parties who are not more at fault than all other parties combined can seek compensation for their injuries from those other parties. How much they can recover depends on the extent of their losses and their degree of fault, among other factors.
Does Comparative Negligence Affect Insurance Settlements?
While Oklahoma’s comparative negligence laws only directly affect lawsuits, they indirectly affect insurance claims as well. Insurance adjusters will factor in how much liability you have for a crash when determining how much money they might offer you in a settlement. For example, if you submit a claim for $100,000 in losses for medical bills, lost wages, property damage, and pain and suffering, the insurer will reduce that amount by the percentage of fault they think you bear for the accident. If they determine you are 15 percent liable for the crash – or, more importantly, they think they could convince a jury of that – they will make you a settlement offer that reflects that determination.
An experienced car accident attorney can fight to maximize your award by:
- Demonstrating that you had a lesser degree of liability for the crash
- Calculating the value of future losses you will incur due to your injuries
- Negotiating aggressively for a fair settlement
- Taking the case to court if necessary
Contact an Oklahoma Car Accident Lawyer
If you have suffered injuries in a car accident in Oklahoma, you need an attorney who will fight to get you every cent possible in your case. The experienced car accident lawyers at Edwards & Patterson Law will give you and your case the individualized attention and care you deserve. We understand how challenging life can be after an accident. Even if you think you were partly at fault, we are here to help you get fair compensation for your losses.
Call us today or contact us online to learn more about what we can do for you.
