Lawyers that help clients with a personal injury know a great deal about the distribution of compensation to victims, following an automobile accident. Still, if you think you might be partially responsible for a collision, no lawyer can tell you how much compensation you could receive, without first learning where you live. Each state and province in the North Western Hemisphere has its own rules about compensating a driver or passenger that has been harmed in a collision.
When an examination of the evidence has made it clear that only one driver can be named the “at-fault” driver, then the other driver does not have to assume any responsibility for the resulting damages. Of course, the calculation of the amount that should get sent to each party becomes more complex, if both drivers can be held partially responsible for what happened. In that case, a couple different scenarios might get played out.
Possible distribution methods if 2 or more parties have been deemed “at-fault” for accident
In Alberta, someone that has been found to be partially responsible for an accident cannot recover any compensation for damages. In such locations, that rule holds, regardless of the degree to which each party contributed to the accident’s causative factors. Those are the factors that created a situation in which two or more vehicles could be expected to collide.
In other states and provinces the law acknowledges the existence of something called comparative negligence. In such locations, the court takes on the job of determining the portion of responsibility that should fall on each of the drivers. If any one of them can be charged with causing more than 50% of the contributing factors, then that same person would not get any added, compensating benefits.
How does the amount of the compensation get calculated?
The court uses a well-established formula. First it takes the total value of the claim, which has been spelled out in court documents, and multiplies it by the percentage of the responsibility that has been placed on each party. Then the court takes the resulting product and subtracts that figure from the value of the claim. The calculated difference represents the amount of money that needs to be used to compensate each victim that was deemed partially “at-fault.”
The possible message in the calculated figures
It costs money to take a case to court. If you have been partially responsible for an accident, you should think twice before filing a lawsuit against any other drivers. You may not win enough money to make up for what you have spent by choosing to file that particular lawsuit. If you hire a personal injury lawyer in Red Deer, that member of the legal profession can help you to estimate your costs. Based on that estimation, you should be better able to decide whether or not you want those questions that relate to compensation decided in a court of law.