Florida is a Comparative Negligence state. But what does that mean? When someone has been injured due to an accident or some other way, it may be difficult to determine who is at fault. There are several types of negligence. Comparative negligence allows every party to be responsible for the percentage of negligence that they caused. Sometimes, this is easy to determine, other times, not so easy.
You may be sitting at a traffic light when you are rear-ended by another vehicle. Easy. You did nothing to cause this collision, so the other driver will take all of the responsibility for your the accident. However, what if there were no traffic lights or stop signs, and you were each driving through an intersection when you collided? Or if you slipped on a banana peel in a grocery store when you were running down the aisle and not looking? There could be an allocation of fault in both of those scenarios.
In some states, if you had any fault at all, you could not make a claim. In other states, if you are at least 51% at fault, you are also barred from making the claim. However, in Florida, you can make a claim even when you are partially at fault. In fact, you could recover for damages if you were 25% at fault or even 80% at fault or more. Your damages will be reduced by that amount of the percentage you are at fault. For example, if the recovery is $10,000, and you are 25% at fault, your recovery would now be $7,500.
An experienced lawyer makes the best arguments on your behalf. The lower your percentage of fault, the higher your recovery. We believe Florida has the fairest system with Comparative Fault Negligence.
