Yes, you can usually still pursue a personal injury claim if you were partly at fault, as long as you were less than 50% responsible for what happened. If you were entirely at fault, you generally can’t recover from another party. But when fault is shared, Georgia’s modified comparative negligence rule lets you recover damages reduced by your own percentage of fault.
A personal injury attorney in Marietta, GA, can review how shared fault might affect your personal injury claim.
Can you file a personal injury claim if you contributed to the accident?
Yes. Contributing to an accident doesn’t automatically bar your claim in Georgia. The state uses a comparative fault system, so being partially at fault doesn’t end your right to seek compensation.
What matters is how much of the blame falls on you. If another party was mostly responsible for the accident, you can still pursue injury claims against them, even though you played some role. Many car accident cases involve more than one careless party, and the law accounts for that.
How does Georgia’s modified comparative negligence rule work?
Georgia follows a modified comparative negligence rule. You can recover compensation only if you were less than 50% at fault. If you’re found 50% or more responsible for the accident, you can’t recover anything from the other party.
This is different from states that bar recovery for any fault at all. Here, being held responsible for part of a crash doesn’t disqualify you, as long as your share stays below half.
How does your percentage of fault affect the amount of compensation?
Your compensation drops by your percentage of fault. If you’re 30% at fault in a claim worth $100,000, you recover $70,000 instead of the full amount.
So the lower your share of the blame, the more you can recover. Your damages may include economic losses like medical bills and lost wages, along with non-economic losses like pain and suffering. Since the percentage of fault directly affects the amount of compensation available, it is often one of the most heavily disputed issues in a personal injury case.
What happens if the insurance company says the accident was your fault?
The insurance company may try to assign you more blame than you deserve, since a higher fault percentage means a smaller payout. That doesn’t make their assessment correct.
Insurance companies may assign fault percentages during the claims process, but those assessments can be challenged with evidence and are not necessarily the final determination of responsibility. Police reports, photos, videos from the scene, and witness statements can all support a lower fault percentage for you. You have the right to dispute how the insurer divides responsibility before it reduces what you recover.
Even when the insurance company argues that you were responsible for the accident, that does not necessarily prevent you from pursuing a claim or filing a lawsuit.
Can a personal injury lawyer help if you were partially at fault?
Yes. A personal injury lawyer can gather evidence and negotiate with the insurance company to keep your fault percentage accurate, which protects the amount of compensation you can recover. This matters most when fault is genuinely in dispute, and the other side is trying to shift blame onto you.
Ready to talk to a Marietta personal injury lawyer?
If you think you were partly to blame, talk to a lawyer before you accept fault from the insurance company. A personal injury lawyer in Georgia can review how comparative fault applies to your case and negotiate with the insurer to keep your fault percentage accurate, which protects what you can recover.
At Nick Schnyder Law Firm, we handle the insurance company so you can focus on getting better. For a free consultation, call (470) 729-9799 or contact us online.
