What Does Negligence Mean for Your Case?

Being involved in a car crash or some other type of accident can cause all sorts of problems. You may have medical bills due to injuries, or you may need to replace damaged property. In Arizona, if another person’s actions or lack of vigilance caused the accident, you are likely entitled to compensation for those losses. What does negligence mean in your case?

What Does Negligence Mean in Regards to Personal Injury?

Any time you take legal action against another person to recover the damages from an accident, your attorney must show that the other party’s actions caused the injury. There are four conditions that must exist to prove someone involved in an accident was negligent:

The defendant owed a duty to safeguard the other person.
The defendant failed to achieve that duty.
The plaintiff was injured in the accident.
The defendant’s breach of duty was at least partly to blame for the plaintiff’s injury.

What Are the Different Types of Negligence?

The requirements for negligence differ according to state. In some areas of the country, you must demonstrate that there was nothing you could have done to avoid the accident in which you were injured to recover some or all of the damages you suffered. In other places, as long as your failure to escape the situation was not intentional, you may be entitled to compensation. It’s important to know how Arizona law addresses the concept. What does negligence mean when it comes to who is at fault for a car accident in Maricopa County?

Contributory Negligence

The few states that follow the contributory negligence doctrine do not allow people injured in an accident to collect any damages if they had any part in causing it. If the lawyers for the defendants in these cases can prove that the plaintiffs failed to reasonably protect themselves, those who bring the cases to court are unlikely to recover any of the costs associated with the injury.

For example, if the plaintiffs were not wearing their seatbelts in a car crash, the law considers them contributors to their own injuries, even if the other person ran a red light and hit them.

Comparative Negligence

In most states, some type of comparative negligence is the rule of law. In states that used modified comparative negligence, the plaintiff only recovers damages if the other person holds the majority of the blame for the accident.

Arizona, however, follows the pure comparative negligence doctrine, which allows injured parties to receive payment for a portion of the damages they suffer, even if they are mostly at fault. You can still be compensated for the percentage of the damage the court finds the other person responsible for.