So you’ve had an accident or you’ve had a loved one who’s been killed by the negligence of someone else, but either you or your loved one is somewhat partially to blame for that, or at least it could be argued that you should have seen them, or you shouldn’t have pulled out, even though they were speeding. There’s a lot of ways that that comes about where there may be some partial responsibility or partial liability on you.
A fall case for example, there’s something on the floor in the supermarket and maybe you could have seen it, you think that was partially my fault that I slipped and hurt myself real badly. Yeah, the store should have a policy for going around and making sure the floors are clean because they want me to look at their shelves where they have all their merchandise and I’m not typically looking where my feet are, but you still feel some level of partial responsibility.
And then the question becomes, can you still pursue a case? Can you still seek justice for the damages that you’ve suffered because of some level of negligence by someone else, and the answer is typically yes. Now, provided that you are ultimately not more than half at fault, fifty percent, you can recover your damages, at least the percentage of your damages that are attributable to the negligence of someone else.
So for example, if we could use the supermarket case and there was a banana peel on the floor, you know the comment slipped on a banana peel, it was all brown and mushy, it kind of blended in with the floor; but, it’s determined that, yeah, you probably could have, should have seen that and so maybe you have twenty percent responsibility. Now, the store, they know bananas fall on the floor, they know that those are slippery when they’re on the floor, they don’t have a policy for making sure their bananas are in a place where they don’t fall on the floor, they don’t have a policy for circulating the store to make sure that their floors are clear of anything that will cause their customers to trip and slip and so the store in this example say, is found 80% responsible. In that scenario, you could still recover 80% of the damages that you’ve suffered.