The damages suffered in a New York car accident can be significant. You may experience overwhelming pain and suffering, limited mobility, mental anguish, psychological turmoil and financial instability as a result of your crash. Dealing with all of that can be incredibly stressful, leaving you feeling uncertain about the future. Although a personal injury lawsuit might give you hope of finding accountability and recovering the compensation that you need to advance your recovery, you might be worried about the role you played in your wreck, thinking that you may be denied a financial award because of your contribution to the crash.
New York’s comparative negligence law
New York recognizes pure comparative fault. This means that you can recover compensation form a personal injury lawsuit even if you were partially to blame for the crash. There is no limitation here. Even if you were mostly at fault for an accident, you can still recover compensation from others whose negligence contributed to the wreck.
That said, you’ll want to minimize your finding of fault as much as possible to protect the amount of compensation you can recover. But how do you go about doing that?
When you’ve contributed to a car crash, it can feel like your case is doomed. But don’t let your fear of comparative negligence paralyze you into inaction. Instead, consider the following tips to help you minimize a comparative negligence finding:
- Anticipate the defense’s arguments: If you can gain a sense of how the defense will argue comparative negligence, then you’ll have a better opportunity to present counterarguments. You certainly don’t want to be taken by surprise at trial, so be sure to devote a fair amount of time to this consideration.
- Contextualize your fault: Remember, the fault determination is comparative in nature. The defense will try to present your problematic actions in a vacuum, but you can’t let them do that. You have to be prepared to show how your contribution to the accident pales in comparison to the defendant’s, which is only possible if you paint a clear picture of each party’s actions for the jury. Expert testimony may be especially helpful here.
- Focus on showing damages: Even if you end up being found partially at fault in your case, you could still recover a fair amount of compensation if you can maximize your showing of damages. Therefore, be diligent in gathering evidence of your anticipated lost wages and expected medical expenses and lost wages, and tell a compelling story about how your accident injuries have changed your daily life.
- Attack witness credibility: You can expect the defense to present multiple witnesses against you who will indicate that you played a major role in your wreck. But you might be able to reduce the power of their testimony by attacking their credibility. One way to do this is to depose these witnesses ahead of time so that you can then highlight any inconsistent statements they make at trial.
Be ready to advocate for the compensation you deserve
You only get one chance to present your personal injury case. Therefore, you have to present the strongest evidence available if you want to maximize your chances of recovering the compensation you need and deserve. While you’ll need to be aggressive on offense, you’ll also need to play a bit of defense if comparative negligence is on the line. If you need help figuring out how to develop your personal injury case strategy, then now is the time to seek out any support that you may need.
