What is Comparative Negligence?

Comparative Negligence is a legal doctrine used in the state of California to determine how much of an accident’s damages are each person’s responsibility. This is a method used to determine what percentage of the damages each party is responsible for when more than one person is involved in an accident. For example, if two people are involved in an accident and one of the drivers is found to be mainly responsible for the accident, Comparative Negligence allows them to assign a percentage of fault to each party. This means that even if one driver is found to be mainly at fault, they are not required to pay the full amount of damages. Instead, the damages are split between the drivers according to the percentage of fault assigned to each. California abides by a “pure” comparative negligence system, which means that anyone found to be partially at fault can still collect damages. However, the amount they are allowed to collect is reduced by the percentage of fault assigned to them. This means that even if a driver is found to be 99% at fault, they can still collect some amount of damages, although it will be much lower than if they were found to be 0% at fault.

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What is Comparative Negligence?

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