Bernard Tully Personal Injury Lawyer. Phone: 412-281-8700
Yes, you can, but there are a couple of things to understand about it. In short, welcome to the world of comparative negligence. What that means is that as long as you are not greater than 50% at fault you can still get money for your injury case.
Normally, this happens in the area of slip-and-fall cases. Let’s say you fall on the sidewalk where the pavement was higher than the rest of the sidewalk. The jury has to decide whether or not the defendant is at fault. More importantly, they have to decide what percentage of fault the defendant is assigned in order for you to get money in the case.
To break this example down more, suppose the jury determines that yes, the area of the sidewalk where you fell was in bad shape and the defendant should have fixed it. In that example, they assign a percentage of fault to the defendant. However, that same jury could also say the injured plaintiff is also at fault because you were not paying attention like you should have. So they could say the injured plaintiff is 50% at fault.
This idea of comparative negligence also applies in car accident cases. For example, two cars go through the intersection and one claims the light was green and the other claims the light was red for the injured party. What happens in that situation? In my experience, what often happens is that the jury assigns some percentage of responsibility to both sides or both drivers. Maybe 50-50 responsibility.
We do all types of cases including auto accident and injury cases, but we use the same philosophy for whatever type of case it is. We care about you and it only takes 30 seconds to find that out. How? By calling us.
Our main focus is honesty. We always preach it. We are passionate about trying to help any injured person or family member with their case. Questions about the blog? CALL US!
Bernard Tully Allegheny County Personal Car Accident Injury Attorney. Phone: 412-281-8700 and 1-800-518-0050