What Is Comparative Negligence?

If you have suffered a slip and fall injury on someone else’s property, a slip and fall attorney may be able to charge the owner/possessor with either in whole or in part.  If the owner/possessor of the property is at least partially responsible for the slip and fall injury, but the victim is also partially responsible, there may be shared or comparative negligence.  A slip and fall attorney can help you understand the difference and decide if you have a premise liability case against the property owner/possessor.  Premise liability refers to the legal charge your slip and fall attorney can charge against an owner/possessor of the premises who may have been negligently responsible for a person’s slip and fall injury.  Your attorney must discover whether the accident injury is due to the victim’s carelessness or irresponsibility; the owner/possessor’s negligence in not correcting a dangerous condition that caused the slip and fall injury; or comparative negligence shared by both the owner/possessor and the victim of the slip and fall injury.  The third option in a premise liability case can be very complex, requiring the slip and fall attorney to pursue the premise liability claim in civil court.

Forms of Comparative Negligence
Traditionally, comparative negligence was rarely pursued by slip and fall attorneys in premise liability cases. Lawyers and  the courts generally pursued only pure contributory negligence, which means that if a plaintiff in a premise liability suit was at fault in any way, the owner/possessor of the property was not guilty of premise liability and the victim of the slip and fall injury received no compensation.  Essentially, it was all or nothing for victims of slip and fall injuries.  Even an experienced slip and fall attorney may not have been able to win that premise liability case.  

Today, many states believe it is unfair to exclude a victim of a slip and fall injury from all compensation merely because they shared a part of the blame for the slip and fall injury.  Instead, lawyers in various states now have three comparative negligence options in premise liability suits:

Pure comparative negligence maintains that if a slip and fall attorney in a premise liability lawsuit can prove that both parties bear a portion of the blame for a slip and fall injury, the parties will bear the expenses that equal their liability.  Therefore, a victim of a slip and fall injury that is 10% responsible, is compensated for 90% of the expenses.

One form of modified comparative negligence states that only if a slip and fall attorney can prove that the owner/possessor of the property was more than 50% responsible for the slip and fall injury will the client collect compensation in a premise liability lawsuit.

A second form of modified comparative negligence states that only if the legal counsel can prove that the owner/ possessor was at least 50% responsible for the injury will the slip and fall injury victim receive compensation in a premise liability case.

Though the difference seems small, slip and fall attorneys and courts believe it is important in premise liability claims.  Slip and fall attorneys in a few states can still pursue pure comparative negligence in premise liability cases, while slip and fall attorneys in the other states adhere to some form of comparative negligence in premise liability cases.

Proving Premise Liability
For a slip and fall attorney to prove premise liability against the owner/possessor of the property where the slip and fall injury occurred, the slip and fall attorney must have evidence that the owner/possessor was at least partially negligent.  That means that the owner/possessor either caused a condition that produced the slip and fall injury, knew of a condition that produced the slip and fall injury, or should have known of a condition that produced the slip and fall injury and reasonable maintenance would have revealed it and corrected it.  Some dangerous conditions are wet floors, slippery or broken stairs, inadequate lighting, litter or hidden obstacles, cracked sidewalks, and much more.  

In addition, a slip and fall injury victim might be partially or wholly responsible for their own slip and fall injury.  Inattentiveness, carelessness, being distracted, or acting irresponsibly, may all cause a slip and fall attorney to refuse your premise liability case.  Entering an area that is clearly marked off-limits or ignoring warning signs or barriers may also be grounds for a slip and fall attorney refusing a premise liability lawsuit.