There is more than one cause of car accidents, and not all of them take place in busy streets. When drivers are backing out of their driveways or pulling out of parking spaces, they are particularly vulnerable to accidents. Always double-check that there is no approaching traffic, pedestrians, or anything else in your path before reversing your vehicle’s direction. When a chain reaction collision occurs, everyone on the road may be left wondering who was at fault. Discuss your legal course of action with the Orange County truck accident lawyer.
When a collision involves a vehicle backing up, the driver who is currently in the lane of traffic has the legal right of way in the state of California. This means that the driver who was backing up is usually at fault in a collision. The other driver may be at fault for an accident in some cases, however. Understanding California’s negligence laws and your choices for seeking compensation for damages are crucial if you or a loved one were recently involved in a backup accident in California.
What are the specifics of California’s negligence law?
There are three types of negligence laws that are enforced in all fifty states today.
- In states where contributory negligence is the law, victims cannot seek compensation if they are even partially responsible for the incident that led to their injuries. This means the plaintiff has no right to reimbursement from the defendant if they are determined to be even partially responsible for the alleged losses.
- The most popular kind of negligence legislation in the United States is known as “modified comparative negligence,” which permits a plaintiff to collect some compensation even if they were partially responsible for the alleged losses. But the minimum rate of improvement is 50%. Forget about being paid if the plaintiff is even half at fault.
- There is no threshold of responsibility below which a plaintiff cannot collect reimbursement for damages in a pure comparative negligence state like California. Even if the plaintiff is 99 percent responsible for the losses they are claiming, they can still seek compensation for the remaining 1 percent.
- In the event of an automobile accident claim in California, the pure comparative negligence legislation mandates that the plaintiff receives a reduction in their compensation proportional to their degree of culpability.
