What Is Comparative Negligence?

Pure comparative negligence still lets you recover if you are mostly at fault, with the award cut by your share. Modified comparative negligence cuts the award and then bars recovery once you hit a 50% or 51% line, depending on the state. Contributory negligence can bar the claim if you were at fault at all.

Arizona uses a pure statutory rule. California uses a pure rule from case law. Colorado and Kansas use modified comparative negligence with a less-than-50% requirement. Confirm the statute that applies to your facts before you treat a first offer as the last word.

A jury, or the people negotiating in the shadow of a jury, assigns 100% of the causal fault across the people involved. Your damages are then multiplied by one minus your share. If the harm is $100,000 and you are 20% at fault, the math starts at $80,000 before insurance limits, liens, and the rest of the file.

The fight is rarely the arithmetic. It is which conduct counts as fault, whether a statute treats some of that conduct as a complete bar, and whether the other side can move you across a modified-comparative line. That is why an early recorded statement matters more than the label on this page.

Arizona: A.R.S. § 12-2505 is a pure comparative-negligence statute. Contributory negligence and assumption of risk are jury questions. If the jury applies either defense, the claim is not barred; full damages are reduced by the claimant's relative degree of fault. There is no comparative-negligence right for a claimant who intentionally, willfully, or wantonly caused or contributed to the injury or death.

California: the California Supreme Court adopted pure comparative negligence in Li v. Yellow Cab Co., 13 Cal.3d 804 (1975). Fault reduces the recovery. It does not, by itself, zero it out. Later statutes and insurance rules still sit on top of that holding.

Colorado: C.R.S. § 13-21-111 is modified comparative negligence. You can recover only if your negligence was not as great as the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought. At 50% or more, the claim is barred. Damages that remain are diminished in proportion to your fault.

Kansas: K.S.A. 60-258a is also modified. Contributory negligence does not bar recovery if that party's negligence was less than the causal negligence of the party or parties against whom a claim is made, but the award is reduced by the attributed share. A 50% finding against you is a bar.

People hear “comparative” and think the insurer cannot argue they were at fault. The opposite is true. Comparative negligence is how fault gets priced. In a modified state, moving you from 49% to 50% is not a rounding error. It is the difference between a reduced check and no check.

The other mistake is treating a national blog's 51% bar as Colorado or Kansas law. Read the statute that governs the crash, not a map of the whole country.

Contributory negligence is the old all-or-nothing rule. Any negligence by the injured person can defeat the claim. Comparative negligence, in either pure or modified form, is the replacement in the four states above.

Pure means the percentage always cuts, even at 90%. Modified means the percentage cuts until you cross the state's bar, then it stops paying. If you are comparing this page to a “contributory negligence” search, you are usually looking at a different state's system, not a second Injury Claim King URL.

Comparative negligence is a reduction rule, and in Colorado and Kansas it is also a cutoff. Arizona and California keep the claim alive at higher fault shares, still reduced. None of those rules is a settlement number. A free case review is how you find out which statute, and which facts, actually apply.